The General

For my film class today, I had to attend a screening of Buster Keaton's The General. It was a great time, the film remains a stone-cold classic, and it was so much fun to see it with an audience that was beside themselves with laughter throughout the movie. However, there was a problem.

This was my second time seeing The General, the last time being when I streamed Kino Lorber's excellent restoration of the film on Kanopy. However, the version we were watching (on the big screen, no less) was a very poorly-made DVD, sourced from a severely degraded print, with the film's distinctive score stripped away and replaced with royalty-free alternatives. It left the tone of certain scenes feeling confused and disjointed, and worse, the music often got repetitive and wore on the ears.

I had an enormous amount of fun revisiting the movie, but it showed a larger problem with most releases of public domain films.

When a film falls into the public domain, it's given a new shot at life. However, they are also given to anyone who wants to sell them, people who don't care about giving the optimal viewing experience. Many DVDs of older silent films are simply low-quality scans with no attempt to enhance them whatsoever. Even worse, often the music in these films is still copyrighted as well, meaning that an integral part of the experience is lost and replaced with whatever the publisher didn't have to pay for. It's a way to watch the movie, sure, but you're not getting the right experience.

What I recommend to anyone wanting to watch a public domain film is this: seek out versions from reputable publishers like Kino Lorber and the Criterion Collection. They put so much care into restoring the picture quality, and often work to either re-record the original theatrical scores or create new ones that accurately capture the tone and style of the originals. They really are the best way to experience any public domain film. Even if it seems ridiculous to pay for something you could be getting for free, trust me. It's worth it.