VINEGAR SYNDROME: NO CURE

In the photograph that accompanies these lines I appear visibly saddened, holding several of my favourite Tex Avery cartoons, prints that I´m now forced to discard after confirming that they are irreversibly affected by vinegar syndrome, the most feared disease of triacetate film, a slow chemical decay for which, despite everything that has been written, there is still no real cure.

My sadness

At the end of the 1980s I had the opportunity, in the United States, to acquire the complete filmography of Tex Avery for MGM and Warner in brand-new 16 mm laboratory prints on Eastman LPP stock, struck at the time for telecine transfer to video and distribution to television stations. These were not worn rental prints, but fresh positives, with perfect colour, excellent density and, at the time, the reassuring promise of the low-fade LPP emulsion, which indeed has preserved the colours beautifully until today.

Because some of those cartoons were among my favourites, I decided, with the best of intentions, to protect them using Vitafilm, a product widely recommended in certain circles as a cleaner, lubricant and supposed preservative for film. It seemed logical: if the film was kept flexible and lubricated, it would age better, but it was a mistake!!!

Spaniard professor Sara Valiño check VS on a reel in my film vault: yellow level is critical

Every single print that I treated with Vitafilm has developed vinegar syndrome, all of them, without exception. The others, stored in the same room, in same reels and cans, bought at the same time, from the same laboratory batch, and kept under identical conditions for nearly forty years, remain perfectly stable today.

Some of them have hardly been projected since the day I received them, while the treated ones —ironically, the ones I cared for the most— were occasionally aired, inspected and projected, something that in theory should have helped their preservation. The only difference between them is the use of that product.

To understand what has happened, one must recall what vinegar syndrome actually is. Triacetate film base, widely used from the late 1940s until the arrival of polyester, contains plasticisers that give the film its flexibility.

With time, humidity and temperature fluctuations, the acetate polymer begins to break down, releasing acetic acid, the unmistakable smell of vinegar that gives the syndrome its name.
Once the process starts, it becomes autocatalytic: the acid accelerates the decomposition, which produces more acid, which in turn accelerates the decay. The result is shrinkage, warping, embrittlement, channeling of the emulsion and, eventually, complete loss of the film.

Certain chemical products, especially those containing solvents or oils intended to soften the film, can interact with the plasticiser and destabilise the base, accelerating the process instead of preventing it.
This is why the use of cleaners, lubricants or conditioners on acetate film must always be approached with extreme caution.

In my case, the conclusion is painfully clear. The prints that received Vitafilm treatment are the ones that have succumbed to vinegar syndrome, while others, stored untouched for decades, remain in perfect condition. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that the very attempt to protect them may have contributed to their destruction.

For the past year I have tried to stabilise the affected reels:
ventilation, separation from healthy prints, storage with molecular sieves, periodic inspection, buy nothing has worked, and the shrinkage progresses: projection is no longer safe.

There comes a moment when the archivist must accept defeat. Discarding a film is never easy, but keeping a print with active vinegar syndrome can endanger the rest of the collection, as the acetic vapours may accelerate the decay of nearby reels if storage conditions are not perfectly controlled.

So these cartoons —films that made me laugh, that I projected countless times, that I once considered almost eternal because of their LPP stock— must now be removed from the archive. This is the harsh lesson of photochemical preservation: colour may last, image may survive, but the base itself can betray us, as once vinegar syndrome begins, there is, in truth, no solution.