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This chapter is an investigation of what film restorationists do and how they think and talk about their work. Current restoration discourse and practices literally assemble and help to shape cinema history and reveal how the moving image archive influences the ways that a film history is understood. Focusing on several film restoration case studies and in-depth interviews with some of the country's foremost film restorationists, and the analysis of restoration commentary on the DVD version of Lost Horizon, my aim is not to critique the current methods of film restoration, but to interpret the way restorationists and the archival community both conceptualize film restoration and practice the piecing together of history. This knowledge helps us to better understand how restorationists regard the cinematic object as historical artifact and how the contemporary culture of the archive engages its relationship with the past. The work of restorationists and their particular kind of film-remaking show us the trench work of (re) constructing cinematic history. The restored film should be understood as new type of film born from the cinematic and archival sensibilities at the turn of the twenty-first century.

When restoring a film, the aim is naturally always to provide the definitive version. However, many factors make this an impossible mission. This chapter draws on actual film archival practice and theory, exposing a minefield of obstacles facing any academic study trying to examine film history based on restored works. The focus is on silent cinema restoration, intertitles, and translation issues. Using Mark-Paul Meyer and Paul Read’s categories—from a one-to-one duplication to the creation of an altogether new work—the aim is to give an insight into the complexity of silent film restoration and the practical, and sometimes very unacademic, nature of the actual restoration work. The fact that most film restorations typically concentrate on image quality rather than titles, which are often merely supposed to support the visual action, adds to the complexity of transparency about the provenance of the filmic titles as an object of study.

Between the last years of the 1890s and roughly 1929 when full talkies arrived, films were generally a combination of picture and title cards, or intertitles, which began to be used in the early 1900s. As the film trade was international in nature from its earliest days, intertitles needed to be translated. This chapter offers a brief chronology of the intertitle in film, highlighting the difficulties of translating and adapting title cards with decorative backgrounds and sophisticated animated sequences, either at the time the films were made or today for restoration. It also provides three case studies based on restoration projects conducted at the British Film Institute, showing how language and translation issues play their part in the complex reconstruction process.

This chapter discusses the definition of film heritage, and investigates the fundamental tasks of film archives. Film heritage could be defined simply as ‘all films made more than five to seven years ago’. A significant percentage of film heritage that still exists today is seriously affected by damages of decay, and is threatened by deterioration. A complete and sustainable preservation of film heritage is therefore a matter of high urgency. There are three fundamental tasks of film archives. Firstly, the safeguarding of the collection: to acquire, thus minimising the loss of value, and restore if necessary the films to their original form. Secondly, the presentation of the collection: offering as much as possible in the way of screenings, exhibitions, and publications. Thirdly, the development of the collection: adding value, giving it a connection to current times and contexts.