I’ve just ordered this German Arthaus 4K of last year's centenary restoration from Bologna of Chaplin’s The Gold Rush. They very wisely dodged the 72 minute 1942 reissue with a new score and Chaplin’s own horrible, maudlin narration track. Like the wiser heads at Criterion ten years ago the decision was made to basically tell the Chaplin estate‘s insistence on solely supporting the 1942 abortion to fuck off. Happily in 2025 all parties re-proposed that choice.
This new restoration does several quite radical things. Apart from meticulous correction of jiitter, tears, emulsion damage and frame skipping, all of which were still there in the previous restoration, they made the fascinating and radical decision to print the frame right back to the full exposure aperture corners. This was originally cropped slightly to avoid consistent frame edge damage. Now as you can see in the video comparison clip, the exposed image is wider by maybe 5% and the full exposure is clean and visible. I think it’s fascinating.
Anyway given German Arthaus/Canal has jumped the gun on Canal and Criterion who will release next year. I am happy to jump the gun with them. My order is due before December 31.
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