There are thousands of films that the world will never see again. While most everything about filmmaking today is digital, when film was first being explored as an art form, it was taken much less seriously. Films were rarely kept after their initial debut, and since most people believed that there was no use for a film once it was out of theaters, many old reels were outright destroyed. Most early movies were also shot on film that contained silver nitrate; instead of letting the precious metal go to waste, people would melt films down and recycle the silver. If a film even managed to survive all that, natural wear-and-tear could just as easily destroyed it.
For a film to survive all of that intact is an absolute miracle, and for one to survive all of that for nearly a century is something most people would scoff at, but that's exactly what happened. On Wednesday, French film archive Cinémathèque Française unearthed a nearly 100-year-old film version of Sherlock Holmes, which had thought to be lost for decades.
The film, based off the stage plays of Sherlock Holmes, was first shot back in 1916. William Gillette, who played the titular detective, is credited with creating Holmes' signature look: the hat, the coat and the pipe have been a part of nearly every portrayal since the character first appeared. For a character to remain relatively similar to his original design for nearly a century is amazing in and of itself, but Gillette's silent portrayal of Holmes managing to stay in one piece is absolutely astounding. Considering it was the only appearance of Gillette's version of Holmes, it's also incredibly lucky that the film survived.
Currently, the film is undergoing digital restoration through the Cinémathèque Française and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Once the preservation is complete, the film will be shown at the Toute la Mémoire du Monde, a film festival held by Cinémathèque Française in Jan. 2015. The San Francisco Silent Film Festival will also show the film later that year in May 2015. Whether or not the video will be distributed for home release is still unclear.
Given just how fragile old film reels were, it's astounding that nearly a century's worth of aging didn't leave Sherlock Holmes in tatters. Now that the reel is being digitally remastered and protected, the film will live on forever.
