Filmanalyse - Gabriele Jutz

of acolytes of the past. It is an experience that cannot be reproduced - because no
nitrate film stock is being produced today - and yet the projection of nitrate prints
is the conveyor of a distinctive aesthetic visual experience. So much, then, for all
our attempts at preserving the heritage of the first decades of cinema through
acetate, polyester, and non-photographic media. The real experience is all there, in
those odorous prints, and we are the last generation that may be able to enjoy it!
Nobody else will be allowed to do that. We have the moral responsibility to absorb
as much as possible of these images and these smells, and explain what they meant
to a posterity who otherwise may have no idea of why we cared so much about
their survival and transmission to the future.
In other words, we ought to turn what we have learned from this problem (the
gradual disappearance of nitrate and the acknowledged impossibility of
reproducing its "epiphany") into an opportunity. We can still show acetate and
polyester prints. In other words, we can still show cinema. As Peter Kubelka has
spent years describing in his enlightening and provocative lectures, we can bring to
new generations of viewers what we have frequently failed to explain so far - the
uniqueness of the cinematic experience. The cause of nitrate may be lost, although
it is still a beautiful one to struggle for. The cause of cinema as a projected
intermittent image can still be fought, and there is still a reason to fight it. Not in
opposition to the electronic image, not as a reactionary answer to the digital age,
but because photo-mechanical cinema has its own, specific aura. Most important of
all, I repeat, it is not too late.
And it is still not yet too late to smell nitrate. If I ever have a hand in the raising of
kids, I will bring them to a conservation centre as soon as they turn 14, in the hope
they will understand that the art of seeing involves the willingness to take some
risks. There is something depressingly safe, condom-like, in the digital image, and
as much as I respect it and realise its creative potential, I cannot really feel anything
when I experience it. Cinema is never safe. Cinema is dangerous. That is why I like
it so much, and why I am glad I was born early enough to smell it.