La lutte pour la vie has been presented in Pordenone in 1992, from the collections of the Japan Film Archive. It was possible, on this occasion, to admire a print with the original stencil-coloring, but mostly incomplete. The edition presented at Il Cinema Ritrovato, on the contrary, is in black and white, but absolutly complete, as it corresponds to the original lenght.
La Cinémathèque Française conserved in fact the original negative, without titles, but the discovery of the text of the intertitles at La Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal has made possible the restoration of this important film from the French cinema.
La lutte pour la vie represents a major productive effort for Pathé. Shot on the stages, where the action takes place, the film is a sort of summary of styles and situations that have built the international success of this company: the rural drama, the city drama, the documentary scenes shooted live in Paris, the Spanish dance, images of a fire, the final triumph of justice.
The film was presented in colour: 1180 of the 1455 original meters were stencil-coloured. The black and white photography of this version underlines the naturalist aspect of a film that is today an extraordinary document about France before the first world war.