Scorsese calls for preservation of Italian film and desire to do independent pics

By M&C News Oct 17, 2006, 13:18 GMT

Director Martin Scorsese smiles as he attends the presentation of his new film \'The Departed\', during the first International Film Festival in Rome, Italy on Sunday 15 October 2006. EPA/CLAUDIO ONORATI

In Rome for the Rome Film Festival preem of 'The Departed,' Martin Scorsese stressed the need to restore and preserve classic Italian films.

In recent years, Scorsese and the National Film Preservation Foundation have persuaded Sony, Warner Bros. and other major Hollywood studios to invest in the preservation and archiving of their films – but it has not been easy.

Scorsese said he has been trying to raise awareness among industry execs about the precarious state of Sergio Leone's ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ since 1979, as few intact original prints exist.

"You can find that color (deterioration) can happen as quickly as within six years," he said. "Millions of dollars goes into this industry and nobody thought about preserving the film. It's incredible."

Rome Film Festival organizers plan to finance the restoration of a number of Italian films each year, beginning with Leone's 1968 Western classic starring Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, Claudia Cardinale and Charles Bronson.

"This is the first time a film festival will fund the hands-on restoration of a film," Scorsese said.

Talking to a packed audience of press Scorsese said his next film project would be ‘The Silence,’ a low-budget adaptation of Japanese novelist Shusaku Endo's book “The Silence”. The book tells the story of two 17th century Portuguese missionaries in Japan.

Scorsese said that the type movies he wanted to make lately are not what the major studios wanted to make.

"When there are very big budgets there is less risk that can be taken," he said.