The Archival Impermanence Project: Film Restoration Poetics, Case Studies, and Histories

How do classic films remain alive and authentic amidst the shifting sands of time, societal upheaval, and technological advance?

The Archival Impermanence Project is a unique work integrating detailed film restoration case studies from the dawn of cinema to present day, in the framework of an organic theory of practice. Growing from the multi-decade career of award-winning restorationist / filmmaker Ross Lipman, it compiles a diverse assembly of essays, lectures, and rare archival documents. Accompanied by copious illustrations and in-depth appendices, it is destined to be an invaluable resource to a wide range of scholars and archivists. An additional section of historical essays on classic films restored by the author illuminates the ways in which archival work enables new understandings of canonical titles, inviting a wide range of cinephiles and movie lovers to the fruits of this specialized field. Together, the book's diverse components propose a new way of looking at the act of film restoration within a context of the only known condition of life: impermanence itself.