Nitrate Silver vs Polyester B&W

[Ryan Gallagher]

Just had the pleasure of showing a very decent quality "Casablanca" print on 1997 polyester.

For those who have witnessed the OG versions with different chemical processes on Nitrate, how much better do they look?

Just curious cause we were getting "perfect print" reviews. I know it wasn't "perfect", and to my eye, I can't help but wonder how much better the contrasts and blacks were in the good old days.

They did a great job on our June/July season bumper this year again, I'll try to find a sharable version in a couple days.

[Ed Gordon]

I remember at the National Film Theatre showing a dim 16mm dupe of a Colleen Moore comedy called Orchids and Ermine (1927). It was the usual thing that laboratories subjected us to in the 1960s. Then the projectionist switched over to the same scene in original nitrate. The audience gasped. The difference was indeed breathtaking. The 16mm barely registered. The 35mm looked stereoscopic – you felt you could walk into it.

Source: Kevin Brownlow, Sight and Sound online, 21 January 2011

[Leo Enticknap]

I projected a nitrate print of Casablanca in November 2016:

image.png
This print was struck at least two years after the film's initial release, and maybe significantly later than that (stock made in 1944 could have stayed on the shelf for a year or two before being used). For that reason, it may have been struck from a due neg that was worn enough to make this print unrepresentative of the best b/w nitrate is capable of, which is what I suspect.

According to this article, the camera negative doesn't survive, and for the restoration she scanned "a nitrate print." We aren't told whether this was an intermediate element (e.g. a fine grain duplicating positive struck from the cut camera negative) or a release print. It can't have been the print I projected in 2016 (at least, not all of it), because a couple of years later I was told that one of the few other theaters in the country that is equipped to run nitrate requested it for a screening: MoMA inspected it and found that two of the reels had reached stage 3 decomposition (i.e. they were sticky), and that therefore the print was no longer usable. So that show I officiated at might, I guess, have been the very last time that a nitrate print of Casablanca was ever projected to the public, unless others exist in preservation that are designated as non-master material, and therefore usable for shows.

Warners did make 2302 (b/w polyester) prints of a lot of their noir classics in the mid to late '90s, and quite a few of them passed through my booth. Agreed that they looked very good: Dark Passage and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre stick in my mind as some of the crispest and most detailed b/w safety prints I've seen.

[Jim Cassedy]

The only nitrate feature I've run was a "BIRTH OF A NATION" about 25 years ago.
It wasn't an original 1915 print, but one that was struck in the late 1930's, and was
made up from two other prints. It came from a private silent film collector, and even
though he assured me it was 'in excellent shape', I inspected every inch of that
print by hand in the several day period before I ran it. During inspection, and
during the show, I only brought the reels I actually needed into the booth. The
rest of the reels were kept outside, perched on the fire escape. (of course! lol)
I've always amused myself with the thought of trying to get the makers of
Unguentine to sponsor a nitrate film festival.

< For those who may be unfamiliar with the product, "Unguentine" is a very
popular over-the-counter burn ointment that's been around since the late
1800's. Growing up, I know we always had some around the house, and we
always brought a tube of it along on camping trips, to take care of campfire burns.
I even kept some at the theater where I worked, for the occasional carbon-arc burn.>

UnguentineCan.jpg

I for several years, back in the 1970's, I think, Unguentine was
sold in a round red plastic container that looked like a miniature
fire extinguisher. I wish I'd kept one or more of those!
They're collectors items now. - Jim C-

[Marcel Birgelen]

The only nitrate films I've ever seen were already badly battered, but they say that, when pristine, the contrast of nitrate b&w films is better than that of equivalent polyester backed film.

Keep in mind modern projectors are using different light sources than 70+ years ago. Most cinemas have bigger screens nowadays... It's a bit like going CRT... it isn't as bad as you remembered, but there is a reason why modern screen technology won and it's certainly not just price.

[Stefan Scholz]

I remember my prints from the German Eichberg (director) films "The Tiger of Eschnapur" and "The Indian tomb". Two action films belonging together. Of course, both struck from negative an nitrate stock.
For the first time in a movie, I had the feeling of "3D" without glasses. Among the most stunning black and white images I had ever seen, specially with modern high quality projection lenses.
And an image that eventually was way bigger, than the average image vs viewing distance in the end of the 30s.
I have never seen these again, as I stored them in the film vault of a friend, but recently learnt, I would have to take them back, together wit the Errol Flynn Robin Hood on IB Nitrate..
He passed a year ago, and his wife feels uncomfortable with Nitrate prints.
It's so so with me. The images due to silver content are absolutely stunning. Nitrate stock, if done with pure and clean chemistry can withstand the test of time over Acetate prints, But I do not need a second reel to burn. One in a lifetime is enough. Plus I do not need the experience of a house fire, which a few friend actually had, collecting Nitrate.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I guess the logical follow up question for those that have witnessed such b&w stunners, has modern digital black levels and contrast caught up to that quality of presentation?

For example is it doing the film more original justice to show it on a standard 2K or 4k digital rig? Or do you really need something more like a Dolby Vision system/room or other competing HDR setup with amazing blacks to get close?

Obviously a great quality modern B&W print is a joy to share, but would the digital now be closer to the original capabilities of that chemical process from the bygone era?

[Ed Gordon]

It appears that Digital comes close, but still has limitations.

image.png

[Juergen Kellermann]

One thing to keep in mind, is that in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, B/W motion picture film contained much more silver than in later years, i.e. because of this, nitrate film will also have darker blacks.

It would be interesting to compare a nitrate and a safety print (acetate/diacetate), both made in the 1940s, both with the same high-silver emulsion, and how they look on the screen.

[Stefan Scholz]

AS known, film prints in color can hold up to 4 to 5 f stops of dynamic range, maybe 6 if printed from a negative. But with a large non linear range at both ends of the scale.
Modern digital projectors with high contrast technologies do a likewise stunning task, images look great on these, and they do extend any film projection in dynamic range and color model reproduced.
Black and White printed from negative easily excels the dynamic range of color film towards 10 f stops. Still below capabilities of today's super HC digital projection.
T
I can't be compared, the impression is different, a "flickery" image, projected above the flicker rendition border at 120 nits and a B&W nitrate print is immediately generating a "Wow" effect.
A white continuum modulated in intensity is something different, than a PWM linewise modulated RGB image on a current solid state light source RGB projector with narrow color lines.
I never liked the hydrotyped color prints I owned, the mentioned Robin Hood and my John Ford's Drums along the Mohawk. Even for prints made around 1940, there?s been better at the time, may not be tat "early saturated" colors people like. It was a fuzzy and super grainy experience. Cartoons from the same time, they are a different story.
Not everything in film is perfect.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Looking at that 1997 polyester-based print of Casablanca that Ryan mentioned... It's interesting to know whether or not this was a real Black and White print or just a color print in black and white.

I remember seeing "The Artist" (2011) on such a "fake" B&W print and I wasn't impressed. Lots of grain and often some color artifacts due to misprinted layers and emulsion scratches were pretty common and distracted from the fact that this wasn't an authentic black and white film. The same is true when watching black and white content on a a digital RGB machine especially a "PWM modulated" machine like DLP: You get color fringing artifacts that distract from the magic.

As for pure high-contrast magic: I still love the image from a high-end CRT projector, although those things are a dying breed... And while they won't get you anywhere towards 1000 nits, the picture reminds me of that of Technicolor IB prints, with deep deep blacks and extremely realistic colors. It's still the closest to "a picture you can just walk into", on a realistic budget...

Also, if done right, I do like the picture of Dolby Cinema. Dolby Cinema, when done right, it's running circles around any digital IMAX format out there. The double-stepped light-engine in those projectors might be one of the most inefficient things cobbled up in the last century, but seeing modern digital images in such high-contrast is very pleasing for my eyes, I will almost forgive them the lack of proper masking in most of their Dolby Cinema ventures. The problem is that those places are usually maintained by the average multiplex operator, so they tend to suffer from that... What good is a multi-million dollar extreme contrast dual-projector setup if you leave the house lights on for example?!

[Leo Enticknap]

It's interesting to know whether or not this was a real Black and White print or just a color print in black and white.

I once projected a print of Les Vacances de M. Hulot of which all but the last reel was printed on 2302 (b/w polyester), but the last reel was on 2383 (color polyester), so that the Tricolor flag could be seen in color in the final shot (apparently in the original 1950s release prints, that one color shot was actually spliced in). It looked so bad that we even had a couple of customer complaints asking why the image turned purple for the last few minutes! The change in hue after the final changeover was very noticeable, even to the untrained eye.

[Jesse Crooks]

I've watched Casablanca on 35mm so many times for work that I'm sick of it. I saw MOMA's nitrate print at the Nitrate Picture Show and it was nothing to write home about.

That being said, the film base isn't the important facture, it's the emulsion, and the number of generations it is away from the OCN. The silver content in older black and white was often higher, giving you better contrast, and because if its age, if you're watching a nitrate print it will usually be in the original color process (Technicolor, Gasparcolor, etc.) that can no longer be manufactured or accurately reproduced with modern color stock. It also means that it was printed prior to 1951 (with exceedingly rare exceptions) so it is probably fewer generations of duping away from the original. That's why nitrate can often blow you away, not because there's something special about the clear plastic base. I've also been blown away by the inky blacks and IB Tech on old acetate. And some of the new black and white prints that the LOC has issued in recent years have looked phenomenal on polyester.

In terms of whether digital has caught up to the contrast ratio available with 35mm, for the typical equipment you'll actually see in use the answer is a hard no. My new laser Barco with a high contrast lens is a substantial improvement over xenon, but film still wins. And that has its own issues, due to the color weirdness you can get with laser. I can't really speak to the HDR stuff. I've heard there are some high end models coming out that use light steering for a dramatic improvement, but that they will also be ungodly expensive. And nobody is producing content designed to make use of it.