The Restoration of a Masterpiece, as Narrated by Martin Scorsese

This week, some of the world’s great­est thinkers (and biggest spenders) are gath­ered in Palm Springs and Long Beach, Cal­i­for­nia for TED’s annu­al con­fer­ence. In case your invi­ta­tion to TED2011 got lost in the mail along with ours, you can still keep up with the con­fer­ence through TED’s home­page. Some high­lights so far include an open­ing address beamed in from out­er space, physi­cist Jan­na Lev­in’s dis­cus­sion of what she calls the sound­track of the uni­verse, and final­ly, a stun­ning video doc­u­ment­ing the restora­tion of Luchi­no Vis­con­ti’s 1963 clas­sic film, The Leop­ard. Even bet­ter, the video is nar­rat­ed by Mar­tin Scors­ese, uber-direc­tor, cin­e­ma his­to­ri­an, and founder of The Film Foun­da­tion, one of the many orga­ni­za­tions involved with the restora­tion.

By the way, Scorcese gave a fas­ci­nat­ing talk about film restora­tion last year at LACMA. You can watch it here. For a com­plete list of films his foun­da­tion has been involved in restor­ing or pre­serv­ing, click here.