Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF

Der Var Engang, Carl T. Dreyer, 1922
Courtesy of the Danish Film Institute
Stills & Posters Archive
exactly; there are a couple of cases where there is a title marker, but no
corresponding title in the list; and there are half-a-dozen cases where
no markers can be found to correspond to a Swedish title. In most of
these instances, it was very evident where the title was supposed to go
in, and it was inserted at that point. The speech of the second suitor
was more problematic.
Finally, in section 2, when the Princess gets tired of playing with her
maids of honour, the Swedish list contains a title reading “This is no fun
any more. Let’s do something else.”
It was not possible to find a point
where this title could be
satisfactorily inserted and in the
end it was decided to leave it out
altogether.
Where sequences are missing, it
has been necessary to explain
what is happening to the extent
that other sources allow us to
establish it. Most of the intertitles
in the list contain only dialogue. All
lines of dialogue have been
retained (except the one just
mentioned). Where explanation
and dialogue appear together in
one title, the dialogue is original,
but the explanation has been
added by us.
The German flash titles are printed
in an elegant, flowing italic
typeface. It proved difficult to find a typeface that was reasonably
similar; furthermore, it was decided that the new print should have
dual-language titles (in both Danish and English). Therefore, a clear and
uncluttered roman typeface, Garamond, was preferred to choosing an
italic typeface that would be less legible without being able to give a
faithful impression of what the German titles looked like.
The Restoration: Editing
The duplicate positive was scanned in standard definition (720x576).
This scan was imported in an AVID editing suite, where the intertitles,
stills and framegrabs were inserted. Also, a number of individual
frames that did not contain any images were removed. All title markers
and flash titles were removed when the titles were inserted. In several
places, the film was interrupted by short stretches of black leader with
writing on it. This writing seemed to be shot numbers or leader
information for reel identification.
These scribbles were removed in all the places they occurred.
Furthermore, in three or four places, the film must have been looped
back during printing, resulting in the double duplication of brief bits of
film. These were also taken out. Also, in a few places there were
completely white frames. These we mostly took out as well.
35 Journal of Film Preservation / 67 / 2004