Journal of Film Preservation N° 56 - FIAF

the prevailing image of Pabst as the “Neue Sachlichkeit director”. It is as
if these films had never been made, and nothing will change until they
are rediscovered one day. Perhaps we will then have to reject them as
failures, but for the moment we can still look forward to them.
The camera negatives of all Pabst’s films of the German period considered
to be “classics”, Der Schatz, Die freudlose Gasse, Geheimnisse einer
Seele, Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney, Die Büchse der Pandora, Die weiße Hölle
vom Piz Palü (co-directed with Arnold Fanck), Tagebuch einer Verlorenen,
Westfront 1918, Kameradschaft, and Herrin von Atlantis have been lost.
That is to say we still do not know where they are and have good reason
to fear that under some circumstances or other they have been
destroyed. The camera negative of Die 3-Groschen-Oper has survived, but
only the German version; also large parts of the camera negative of
Abwege, a film which led a shadowy existence until rediscovered and
completed by Enno Patalas and which is not even mentioned in most of
the literature on Pabst. It has simply not been seen by anyone, although
at least the cinematheques in Berlin (East), Brussels, Prague, and
Moscow possessed acceptable copy material of the existing negative fragments.
There are contemporary nitrate copies: Der Schatz (tinted, with Czech
titles, but so far only duplicated in black and white); of Die freudlose
Gasse (however, none corresponding in the slightest to the original version);
of Kameradschaft (various incomplete versions, or versions
designed for the foreign market, of which some provided the basis for a
reconstruction by the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv in 1989); of Herrin von
Atlantis (two copies held by the Reichsfilmarchiv in differing states of
completeness were recently combined and reprinted by the
Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv); of Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü (the cutting
order, insert title texts, and origin of the Reichsfilmarchiv copy are dubious.
An attempt at reconstruction by the Bundesarchiv has been undertaken
in collaboration with the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek). Very
strange fragments (to some extent probably out-takes) of Tagebuch einer
Verlorenen were found in the Pereda Collection at the Montevideo
Cinematheque and have now been integrated into the nitrate material
found in Paris and Brussels in preparation of the already mentioned
reconstruction. But that is all - in other words, there are really no “originals”
at all any more.
As we know, copies of all the titles mentioned are nevertheless available
on safety film and are in circulation. Where do they come from? They
are the fruit of exchanges, sales, and inheritances among archives, collectors
and changing holders of rights, and repeated printings, often involving
changes in the films that can no longer be reconstructed and which
cannot therefore be rectified. In many cases, however, the origins of the
material can be established by uniting data from various archives; comparing
perforation markings or other traces inscribed in the material
itself permit the copying history to be reconstructed. This allows the best
exhibition material to be selected and other footage of the same content
to be rejected. However, what cannot for the moment be remedied is
25 Journal of Film Preservation / 56 / 1998
Conclusions au sujet de la
Rétrospective G.W. Pabst, Berlin 1997.
Une rétrospective, telle que nous la
concevons, devrait offrir ce que une autre
salle de cinéma ou la télévision n’offrent pas.
Une telle rétrospective, lorsqu’elle est
organisée par les cinémathèques, offre, de
surcroît, de nombreuses surprises pour les
historiens et les restaurateurs de films.
La rétrospective Pabst dont il est question ici
a été rendue possible grâce à la participation
de nombreux partenaires d’autres archives,
à l’effort commun de recherche, de
préservation et de restauration des
originaux. L’une des surprises - et non des
moindres - fut cependant de découvrir que
l’œuvre d’un cinéaste classique comme
Pabst, que tout le monde croit connaître, ne
peut être considéré comme ayant survécu
dans sa forme originelle et complète. Plus de
la moitié des titres projetés ont été annoncé
comme des « restaurations » ou des
« reconstructions ». Deux films, Grafin
Donelli et Man spielt nicht mit der Liebe
doivent être considérés définitivement ( ?)
comme perdus. Les négatifs de caméra
originaux de la période allemande semblent
être perdus. En revanche, les œuvres de la
période américaine 1933-36 sont
extrêmement bien préservées. Les périodes
françaises 1932-33 et 1936-39 semblent
également avoir mieux survécu. Il reste
beaucoup de travail pour les chercheurs et
les historiens