Director Tarsem Singh has completed a 4K restoration of his visually striking 2006 film “The Fall,” adding back scenes that were originally cut and tweaking it to enhance the viewing experience.
The restored film, which tells the story of an injured stuntman (Lee Pace) who weaves an elaborate tale for a young girl (Catinca Untaru) in 1920s Los Angeles, is set to screen at the Locarno Film Festival.
Speaking to Variety, Singh revealed that the restoration process began after years of fans asking why the film wasn’t more widely available. “People were buying it for $200-$300 on Amazon or eBay and complaining about it,” Singh said. “I realized I had to take care of it.”
The restored version is approximately two minutes longer than the original theatrical release. Singh explained he reinserted two scenes he regretted cutting, including one featuring a priest character. “The poor guy traveled with me around India for two months, and I gave him the ugliest haircut in the world to match a mountain for a particular dissolve. And then the scene I’d made his haircut for, I took it out,” Singh said.
Singh also added a title card at the beginning of the film, reading “Once Upon a Time in Los Angeles” to better frame the narrative. “It’s a grown-up’s fairy tale – that’s a hard thing to sell because people don’t know what category to put it in,” he noted. “I think it was a line that I wish I had not taken out.”
The 4K restoration process was a complex endeavor for Singh and his team. Co-producer Lionel Kopp and technical supervisor Alexis Cadorette Vigneau spearheaded the search for the original 4K files, which had been scattered following the closure of several production companies. The team discovered that some visual effects were unfinished at 4K resolution, necessitating a return to original elements. “We had to go back to the originals on certain things and find those. And then we restored it all,” Singh said.
Singh also discussed the timeless quality of “The Fall,” describing it as a “pre-dated” film. He cited Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini as an inspiration for this approach. “My ideal was looking at Pasolini films. But when I looked at those, they never dated, they were exactly like how they came out.” He elaborated on the concept of pre-dating: “I said, when you look at it, you’ll be like, ‘Oh, this looks kind of dated.’ And then people watch it, 20, 25, 30, 40 years later, and everything around it will date, and that [the film] will be exactly the same.”
The genesis of “The Fall” traces back to Singh’s childhood in Shimla, India, and the pic also takes a cue from the screenplay of “Yo Ho Ho,” a 1981 Bulgarian film penned by Valeri Petrov. Singh melded this foundation with his own experiences, including memories of a teacher, Mrs. Anand, whose storytelling prowess left an indelible mark on the young filmmaker. This blend, combined with his unique interpretations of Western media seen during childhood visits to Iran, where his father worked, shaped the distinctive structure of “The Fall.”
“I had seen more films than anybody, which means television, of course, but I had seen them in a language that I did not understand. I saw them dubbed into Persian without a laugh track,” Singh recalled. This led to some creative storytelling when he returned to school in India.
“My friends would come up to me and say, ‘Hey, you should tell us about this really cool guy who was, like, James Bond, and he had a phone in his shoe, and he would get out of trouble,’” Singh said, referring to the 1960s comedy series “Get Smart.” “And to an Indian, a guy having a phone in his shoe whenever he’s in trouble is never over the top.”
Singh further elaborated on Mrs. Anand’s storytelling prowess, recounting how she would blend current events with fictional elements in her tales. “She would tell us stories about James Bond getting together with daku [bandit] Maan Singh, and they were solving the Watergate scandal,” Singh said. “We had heard of Watergate. We knew America, there was this guy called Nixon in trouble or whatever, and it was so intensely wonderful.”
The filmmaker, who also produced and financed with his brother, shot “The Fall” across 24 countries, working without a completed script and filming in sequence with his young Romanian lead actress, Catinca Untaru. He praised actor Lee Pace for his ability to adapt to the improvisational approach while maintaining the story’s structure.
“Lee Pace is lighting her, he’s talking to her, and he’s trying to make sure the story goes in the structure,” Singh said. “Every day, the advantage that I had was that we shot the movie in sequence. So I would tell him every day what we were doing… he had to make sure that the story roughly went in the direction we were going.”
Singh also revealed that most of the crew, including Untaru, were unaware that Pace was not actually paralyzed during filming. “Nobody knew. The cameraman Colin [Watkinson] didn’t know,” Singh said. “Then, in the end, when everything was done, I had to tell them – it was quite a scene in there.”
The filmmaker is also in talks to restore his 2000 feature debut, “The Cell,” starring Jennifer Lopez, to 4K. “Two weeks ago, we got a call from these guys saying, ‘Hey, we’re doing a 4K restoration,’” Singh said. “Right now, with the new people who’ve gotten the rights to ‘The Cell’ and are taking it on because all the festivals are asking for it… there is going to be a completely restored version of it coming out.”
The restored version is set for a splashy world premiere at Locarno, where it will unspool on the fest’s iconic Piazza Grande on Aug. 8. Arthouse streamer and distributor Mubi has nabbed global rights to “The Fall” and will roll out the film on the service on Sept. 27.
Tarsem Singh
