Pictures of Beautiful Old Film Rolls Show Classic Movies in a Whole New Light

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The Unseen Seen‘ is a project by Austrian photographer Reiner Riedler that captures the beauty of classic cinema in an unconventional way.

By way of his friend Volkmar Ernst, Riedler was able to get access to the old film roll archive of the The Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin. He then photographed a few hundred rolls — ranging from those of classic movies to ones with interesting titles — to produce a series of beautiful film roll images that speak volumes about the films themselves.

Reidler’s stated goal is to show you a picture of an object (in this case a film roll) and let your imagination do the rest. Some rolls bear a sometimes fascinating resemblance to the movies they contain, and simply looking at the pictures can conjure up memories of those films from days gone by.

Here is a selection of images from The Unseen Seen series:

THE UNSEEN SEEN, Three Colors: Blue (orig. Trois Couleurs: Bleu), 1993

THE UNSEEN SEEN, The Godfather, 1972

THE UNSEEN SEEN, Marlene Dietrich, a conversation with dr. J. Robert oppenheimer

THE UNSEEN SEEN, Alien, 1979

THE UNSEEN SEEN, Scarface, 1932

THE UNSEEN SEEN, Citizen Kane, 1941

THE UNSEEN SEEN, Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie des Grauens, 1922

THE UNSEEN SEEN, Casablanca, 1942

THE UNSEEN SEEN, Bambi, 1942

THE UNSEEN SEEN, King Kong, 1933

THE UNSEEN SEEN, Alice in Wonderland, 1951

THE UNSEEN SEEN, The Great Dictator, 1940

Each roll was photographed in a makeshift studio in the archive’s cinema and backlit using film lights to get the desired effect. To learn more about this project or see more of Reidler’s photography, you can head over to his website by clicking here.

(via Feature Shoot)


Image credits: Photographs by Reiner Riedler and used with permission.

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