tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26946664959831426692024-02-06T19:21:25.835-08:00Silent San FranciscoNews, notes, & more.Anitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571584064653801818noreply@blogger.comBlogger458125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-50687594622488281602018-05-30T07:50:00.000-07:002018-06-28T11:35:04.360-07:00Unseen Again: Contested Histories of Early American Avant-Garde Cinema<br />
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By Kyle Westphal</div>
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When the “Unseen Cinema” preservation project and touring
package was conceived by Bruce Posner nearly two decades ago, it was situated
as a curatorial corrective to histories of avant-garde film that began with
Maya Deren’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Meshes of the Afternoon</i>
(1943) and ignored almost everything that came before. The fact that such long-standing
periodization now seems perfectly arbitrary and somewhat hidebound is the
greatest measure of the success of “Unseen Cinema.” The revisionist act of historiography
has itself become historicized. </div>
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Culled from the collections of the world’s major archives,
the twenty programs of “Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1893 –
1941” initially toured from June 2001 to December 2005; a slightly rejiggered version of the
package was released on DVD in a 7-disc set through Film Preservation
Associates and Image Entertainment at the conclusion of the tour. (Many of the films are still available and tour in 35mm and DCP versions.) The small
selection of films from the “Unseen Cinema” collection screening at this year’s
San Francisco Silent Film Festival offers an enticing window into the often
confusing, occasionally exasperating, and mostly entertaining scholarly debate
around the origins of experimental cinema in America. Consider this a
commentary for noviates.</div>
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One school—best represented by P. Adams Sitney’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Visionary Film </i>and the one that “Unseen
Cinema” implicitly rebukes—considers the history of avant-garde film through
the work of its most storied practitioners: Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, Stan
Brakhage, Sidney Peterson, James Broughton, Gregory Markopoulos, et al. Their
films are foremost <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">poetic works</i>,
subject to critical interpretation, their montages scrutinized much in the same
manner that a grizzled English professor might unpack rhyme schemes, line
breaks, allusions, and such in Keats or Pound. Let’s call it the Great
Filmmaker theory of avant-garde history. We get hints here and there that these
Great Filmmakers existed in a social context, that their works were shown by a
network of exhibitors, that their work was simultaneously constricted and
advanced by technical strides in film manufacturing and processing. Their
self-reported lineage and their self-professed sources of artistic inspiration
are the primary avenues for understanding their work. </div>
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There are great virtues to this brand of history, not least
that it gives viewers a canon and a vocabulary for unpacking works that can be obscure
and challenging. But it also damns marginal figures to the cold obscurity of
Not-Good-Enough and shrouds the major ones in the mystification of Immaculate
Conception. Who came before Maya Deren, and what context did her work emerge
from? Europeans, probably, the art world avant-garde of the 1920s that dabbled
in film work now and then but left behind reams of theory and works in other
mediums. In this telling, one major work of the pre-Deren period is Marcel
Duchamp’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">An</i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>mic
Cin</i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>ma</i>
</b>(1926), the only film completed by a titan of modernist art practice. A
simultaneously beguiling and slight film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">An</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>mic Cin</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>ma
</i>offers nonsensical verse and optical illusions that mimic animation; rather
than making drawings that move, Duchamp moves the drawings and, in doing so,
casually pisses away the promise of a nascent art form. To call <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">An</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>mic
Cin</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>ma </i>a dead end is no
insult; whatever Duchamp is offering here, it’s not a way forward, a new form
to be elaborated upon by his artistic successors. It’s a wheel that spins in
place and deliberately, vehemently goes nowhere. </div>
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Along the same lines, Stella Simon and Miklos Bandy’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">H</i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ä</span>nde</i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>(1927) locates the American avant-garde
film tradition in an older continent and an older form. A ballet of dissociated
limbs, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">H</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ä</span>nde
</i>would never be confused for anything but art, probably of the Capital-A
variety. </div>
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Of course, the European influence upon American filmmakers
was real, and sometimes even salutary. At times, it even filtered down to
so-called amateurs. Jay Leyda made his first film, the small-scale city symphony
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A
Bronx Morning</i></b> (1931), after reading about other endeavors in that short-lived
genre—e.g., Walter Ruttmann’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Berlin</i>
(1927), Calvalcanti’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rien que les heures
</i>(1926)—in international film journals but without having actually seen
them. That odd circumstance is a major reason that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Bronx Morning </i>still look so fresh today: it’s not slavishly
imitative of any other film, but it’s fired up by the promise of them, anxious
to engineer a place alongside them through intuition alone. Because its scope
is much smaller than the European and Soviet city symphonies, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Bronx Morning</i> also feels more
sociologically specific and less grandiose—it’s more attuned to life on a given
street corner among the Jewish shopkeepers than a broader theme about the
nature of modernity in urban life, and it’s better for that. </div>
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Does the American avant-garde spring from these European examples,
or do its true roots lie elsewhere? Another possible history of the avant-garde
has little patience for European tastemakers and art school progenitors. Let’s
call it the New York School, or better yet, the Rochester School, for its
developments are tied more directly to the innovations of Eastman-Kodak (and,
for that matter, Bausch and Lomb and, later, Xerox) than the artistic tumult of
midtown Manhattan. This strand acknowledges that even avant-garde filmmakers
participated in a mass medium, their choices often circumscribed by the
emulsions, lenses, gauges, filters, and accoutrements of a broader industry. </div>
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Such a history would include not only J.S. Watson Jr.’s
acknowledged avant-garde films <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Fall
of the House of Usher </i>(1928) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lot
in Sodom</i> (1933), but also his medical x-ray films for University of
Rochester Hospital and his industrial films for Eastman-Kodak and Bausch &
Lomb. It would include amateur works that arose from the mass dissemination of
16mm and 8mm but often resembled more rarefied experimental work in rhythm and
editing strategy. And it would certainly include the Looney Lenses series, a
series of camera tests shot by a Fox newsreel cameraman with the perfectly
protean name of Al Brick. The best Brick reels, such as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pas de deux</i></b> (1924),
combine rigorous construction with off-handed wit in a manner that anticipates
the ‘structural’ works of the 1970s. As Posner argues in the “Unseen Cinema”
catalog, “The disparate genres, experiments, and even original camera roll
outtakes do share many of the same characteristics no matter how unintended or
uninformed by their makers as avant-garde cinema.” That sentiment holds true in
very different production contexts: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Sergei
Eisenstein’s unfinished Mexican film </b>(1931) has been released in various
editions (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Thunder Over Mexico</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Time in the Sun</i>) with the imprimatur of
editors and assistants, but seeing the unedited camera rolls is a much stranger
experience. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNX0K9_daracrUUjX85WocXoW_LxjtRdW4PPilzy5DGptNcZvmvHeG9hFfh2rJkICcuEdB3EBKYGucm5vVFdxKP8NJgw7alJPAOn7e0M0EV-OfOHeUESBpdTXKLnn6sLG21-UdM2FLxxE/s1600/UnseenCinemaBoxSet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1036" data-original-width="802" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNX0K9_daracrUUjX85WocXoW_LxjtRdW4PPilzy5DGptNcZvmvHeG9hFfh2rJkICcuEdB3EBKYGucm5vVFdxKP8NJgw7alJPAOn7e0M0EV-OfOHeUESBpdTXKLnn6sLG21-UdM2FLxxE/s400/UnseenCinemaBoxSet.jpg" width="307" /></a></div>
Still another chronicle of avant-garde cinema in America
might spotlight a given film for purely formal reasons, irrespective of the resources
expended to make it or the size of the audience that saw it. Anything original,
arresting, or strange is at least avant-garde-adjacent, right? In this telling,
the narrative innovations of D.W. Griffith, the uncanny trick photography
films, and the musical extravaganzas of Busby Berkeley would all qualify as
avant-garde milestones, despite the fact that they were made in an undoubtedly
commercial, narrative context. Sure, a scene may play as avant-garde when viewed
in isolation from the full feature—but then, some passages from the IRS might
read beautifully as poetry if we forget they’re instructions for tax forms. </div>
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Of course, Hollywood and the avant-garde have been more
practically intertwined than most people realize. Accomplished experimental
animators like Larry Cuba and Pat O’Neill contributed optical know-how to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Star Wars</i>, while Curtis Harrington
graduated from avant-garde psychodramas to drive-in Grand Guignol. In an
earlier era, a successful experimental film could serve as a calling card for
studio work. The most famous of these is probably <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Life and Death of 9413, a
Hollywood Extra</i></b> (1928), directed by Robert Florey and Slavko Vorkapich
and photographed by Gregg Toland, all of whom went on to significant careers in
Hollywood after <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">9413 </i>attracted notice
as an unconventional short subject. A satire of Hollywood dreams made with
scarcely more than a matchstick box and several pairs of scissors, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">9413 </i>was reportedly finished for $97—and
after seeing it, you might still wonder where all the money went. </div>
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Toland’s career was the most distinguished and Florey’s was
the longest (he was still directing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twlight
Zone </i>episodes in 1964), but Vorkapich’s is easily the most fascinating.
Contracted by the studios to compile elaborate montage sequences for other directors’
features that rarely made it to the screen intact, Vorkapich produced fleeting
moments of pure cinema that are instantly recognizable as his own, whether
credited or not. A <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">selection of
Vorkapich montages</b>, including the extended opening for Hecht and MacArthur’s
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Crime Without Passion </i>(1934), is a
rare treat that demonstrates once more that pockets of avant-garde practice can
turn up in the most unexpected places. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-52249200635909722862018-05-25T13:39:00.003-07:002018-05-25T13:39:57.249-07:00After the Earthquake <div class="MsoNormal">
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By David Kiehn</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOOoro0ETJSzVXUGUdltW37MlLvo2y1cbLK5loaDqPdWGrJxqhmqDW86o0Zmd-dnEiOwCed5owoz3QNQomjPPQ8168T7dhomoI24SXaQV01vsEt5vVSz7Zo4q2aMOCAt6tqoIaXW_CrBw/s1600/12+city+hall+miles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1286" data-original-width="1600" height="513" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOOoro0ETJSzVXUGUdltW37MlLvo2y1cbLK5loaDqPdWGrJxqhmqDW86o0Zmd-dnEiOwCed5owoz3QNQomjPPQ8168T7dhomoI24SXaQV01vsEt5vVSz7Zo4q2aMOCAt6tqoIaXW_CrBw/s640/12+city+hall+miles.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Miles Brothers still photograph of blasting at City Hall</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">One of the most anticipated films of this
year’s Festival is </i>San Francisco, 1906<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">,
a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/us/san-francisco-earthquake-film.html">newly-recovered film</a> shot in the immediate aftermath of the great quake. The
footage will be screening prior to </i>Trappola<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> on Saturday, June 2 at 2:45pm. In this guest post, historian David Kiehn of the <a href="http://nilesfilmmuseum.org/">NilesEssanay Silent Film Museum</a> offers a deep dive into the production,
distribution, and rediscovery of this invaluable record. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- Ed.</i></div>
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When David Silver first saw the can of film in the
trunk of a car a few blocks from the Alemany Flea Market. Silver, a
photographic historian and president of the International Photographic
Historical Organization, was there to meet two old-time scavengers who thought
he might be interested in their find. The metal film can was stamped with the
name PATHE on the lid and base, and hand-written around the name on one side of
the can was “S. F. Earthquake Pictures.” What were the odds of this being
anything special?</div>
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One of the old-timers opened up the can and pulled out an
olive-drab-painted metal reel with film wound around it. The film was flammable
35mm nitrate, and the guy held it close to his face to look at the visible images,
all the while puffing on a lit cigarette. Silver snatched the film away so
quickly a foot of it tore away. When Silver explained that the film could
explode into flames, the guy stepped back and threw away the cigarette. </div>
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Looking at the film, Silver could see images of ruined
buildings; whether unique or not, a 35mm nitrate film of footage after the 1906
San Francisco earthquake wasn’t something one sees every day. Silver negotiated
a deal to buy it, then took it home and set it aside. </div>
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On January 18, 2017, Silver posted a photo of the film reel
on Nick Wright’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">San Francisco History</i>
Facebook page. There was a lot of comment about it, much of it stating that it
needed to be preserved, and asking what Silver was going to do. It didn’t
appear Silver was in a position to preserve the film any time soon so Jason
Wright, Nick’s brother and the owner of Silver Shadows Gallery, a dealer in daguerreotypes
and other vintage photographs, offered to buy the film from Silver, and a deal
was made.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgStyIaK8H3TzB6FW54PekmPTokJ0nUeRCFUc215N7Pzcp3ORW3zr1N9rgoZMOM3-vnwC030mfX-bjiKTGjYcuAvRbWjkTj2e01-dUJHSHL8a8k7Z-6kDG3yvNUl-bdATg22fFWpROCWNM/s1600/pathe+can+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgStyIaK8H3TzB6FW54PekmPTokJ0nUeRCFUc215N7Pzcp3ORW3zr1N9rgoZMOM3-vnwC030mfX-bjiKTGjYcuAvRbWjkTj2e01-dUJHSHL8a8k7Z-6kDG3yvNUl-bdATg22fFWpROCWNM/s640/pathe+can+1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Path<span data-original-name="Pathé">é</span> film can that held the newly-discovered 1906 footage</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Nick took on the next step of finding someone that could
identify the film and hopefully get it preserved. My work in identifying the
Miles Brothers as the producer of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Trip
Down Market Street</i>, shot four days before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake,
led him to me. He called and I agreed to look at the film.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I looked at the newly-found footage on a pair of
rewinds, I saw the old Edison square perforations, which made the print very
old, probably before 1910. The film had shrunken so badly that someone long ago
had tried to run it through a projector and had torn all of the perforations
along one side. Fortunately, the images were still intact, with no nitrate
deterioration, and the perforations on the other side were also good. This
meant I could run it through my home-built optical printer; all I needed to do
was modify the sprocket wheels for the shrunken film so no more damage would be
done. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Instead of making a film to film transfer, I set up my
digital camera to shoot high resolution copies of each frame so I could study
the film and compare it to what was already out there to see. The optical
printer was very slow, and I had to stand next to it making sure the film would
run through smoothly without damage, so I only worked on it for an hour or two
a day. Over the next few weeks and a total of 16 hours I copied the 561 feet of
film, all 8656 frames of it. When I put the sequence of frames into Adobe
Bridge to renumber it I was able to see the film in motion for the first time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As I suspected, this was a film I hadn’t seen anywhere
before, although I’d seen similar footage on the Internet Archive posted by the
Prelinger Archives. There were brief glimpses of the same footage scattered
about those posts, but there was nothing as I was seeing now, so complete
without a break. I realized the camera was on a trolley car using the old cable
car tracks, and could see the overhead wires that electrified the line to run
the vehicle’s motor. There were ruins seen ahead, and as the car turned onto
Market Street the full extent of the earthquake and fire damage was revealed.
Other footage available online was taken on this route from a bouncing
automobile, but because this rediscovered footage was on the cable car tracks
the image was smooth and steady. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The first five minutes of the film recreate much of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Trip Down Market Street</i>, but instead
of the joyous attitude of the people seen in that film, the ruined City has a
very different, somber impression of life after the devastation. The latter
film was shot at the end of April, based upon the scaffolding seen in the film,
just starting to rise around the Ferry Building, By May, the scaffold would be
much higher up the damaged building. It’s amazing how much rubble was already
cleared from the street, but there was still smoking ruins here and there.
There’s no doubt from the images that San Franciscans were determined to
immediately rebuild.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
More of that determination can be seen in other footage from
the film, with ruins being dynamited and torn down. In activity near the Ferry
Building, wagons are lined up to travel across the bay, and at least one
soldier can be seen with a bayonetted rifle standing by to keep order.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicZoJncs-I1BDL-jmPZigR337GAGPY5AOVNEVJqXMbT6_OIkKcsgurXrzE5_mQEinhGroqVuVdO6uywM-3dwPVjIzmXo_JLpQs9wzTjdLxok64mhwNPXmJBE9HkZM2yIwD2fhvkd5ZAdQ/s1600/miles+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="753" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicZoJncs-I1BDL-jmPZigR337GAGPY5AOVNEVJqXMbT6_OIkKcsgurXrzE5_mQEinhGroqVuVdO6uywM-3dwPVjIzmXo_JLpQs9wzTjdLxok64mhwNPXmJBE9HkZM2yIwD2fhvkd5ZAdQ/s640/miles+2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ruins of the Miles Brothers studio at 1139 Market Street after the earthquake and fire. A makeshift sign directs people to their new office at 790 Turk Street.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It became obvious to me that this was film shot by the Miles
Brothers, San Francisco’s first movie company. Although the studio itself at
1139 Market Street had been destroyed by the fire following the quake, they
were up and running again quickly in a house at 790 Turk Street. Scott Miles,
great-grandson of Earle Miles, who ran the San Francisco office, still has a
family photo album that shows the ruins at 1139 Market, and their new home. It
also has over 100 photos of San Francisco in ruins, some shots taken at the
very locations seen in the film. But the clincher to identifying the footage as
a Miles Brothers product is a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York
Clipper</i> trade magazine advertisement on June 30, 1906. By then, two-hour Miles
Brothers film programs of San Francisco before and after the earthquake had
been playing in theaters around the country for almost two months and the
company was selling off used films at 10 cents per foot. The company had shot
at least 6,000 feet of film, and had broken it down into various scenes, each
one described with its contents and footage. Film No. 351 has two parts, the
second being “Fifth St. to Market, down to Ferry” just as seen in the first five
minutes of this newly-discovered film. Film No. 346, at 180 ft., “Refugees
Leaving City with their goods at Ferry Bldg.; (B) Blasting at City Hall”
exactly describes another sequence, with footage to match. A third sequence may
be Dynamiting Prager’s Department Store, part of a longer film. It can be seen
on the nitrate print that all three major sequences have a different frameline.
In those days, the frame in relation to the perforations was not standardized,
and might be positioned at a perforation, halfway between perforations, or
anywhere in between. It’s known that the Miles Brothers had at least three
cameras, and it’s doubtful that any of the studios from the east that came to
film the ruins would have brought as many as three cameras with them. All of
these clues add up to a Miles Brothers production.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Although other companies had filmed in San Francisco since
the 1890s, the Miles Brothers were the first to establish the City as their
home base, beginning in 1902. In December of that year they shot a panorama of
Ocean Beach to the Cliff House, when a telegraph cable was scheduled to be
brought to land, connecting Hawaii to San Francisco. The sea was too rough that
day, but it was still good weather to film, so Harry Miles, the senior partner,
cranked their camera to record the occasion of San Franciscans gathered idly
around and youngsters playing in the surf. The film was released by the
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, where the Miles Brothers had a second
office in New York. This made the Miles Brothers the first bi-coastal movie
company.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF8tNzVyMp3Ciae3nzTL5Ktr-Gv1WkDK17S46ae0bAk5mnZE5PHaCOyueiURqZVIOUpJhVnrikGLIQTsQginpfHKTmmaoQaVAyyuKINBEt-esRGHuTnYrzjPBgLCZMFPIhKHJva96nZG8/s1600/miles+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1278" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF8tNzVyMp3Ciae3nzTL5Ktr-Gv1WkDK17S46ae0bAk5mnZE5PHaCOyueiURqZVIOUpJhVnrikGLIQTsQginpfHKTmmaoQaVAyyuKINBEt-esRGHuTnYrzjPBgLCZMFPIhKHJva96nZG8/s640/miles+1.jpg" width="507" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Harry Miles, employee James Sciaroni, and Herbert Miles in front of their 790 Turk Street office, 1906. They are preparing to ship a paper print version of the 42-round Gans-Nelson fight to the Library of Congress for copyright.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Miles brothers, first Harry and Herbert, and later Earle
and Joe, began renting films in the spring of 1903 to theaters, and in 1905
they took another ambitious step by securing a contract to film the Jimmy Britt
and “Battling” Nelson prize fight in San Francisco on September 9, 1905. This
was an age when major bouts were scheduled to go up to 45 rounds. To cover
every moment of the fight, Harry Miles adapted three cameras to each hold 1000
ft. of raw film stock, instead of the original capacity of 200 ft. This meant
each camera could film continuously for 16.6 minutes instead of the usual 3.3
minutes. A platform was set up above the boxing ring for the three cameras, and
while one camera filmed, another stood by in readiness in case there was a
camera malfunction. The third camera would start filming when the first was
near the end of its run. The fight only lasted 18 rounds, when Nelson scored a knockout,
which meant the Miles Brothers had quite a bit of film left over, since they
had been prepared to record the whole bout. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because of their uniquely-modified cameras, the Miles
Brothers hit upon the idea of shooting longer films than their competitors.
They were able to film the 12-minute ride in a gravity car down Mount Tamalpias
in Mill Valley in one continuous take. Their second film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Trip Down Market Street</i>, was shot from a San Francisco cable car
from Eighth Street to the Ferry Building on April 14<sup>th</sup>, 1906. Harry
and Joe boarded an eastbound train for New York with their films and camera
equipment on April 17<sup>th</sup>, the night before the earthquake. In route,
they heard about the destruction and came back to San Francisco with their film
stock and cameras, letting their Market Street film continue on to New York
where Herbert Miles received it. In the following weeks, the Miles Brothers
shot more than two hours of San Francisco street scenes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Much of what was filmed by them after the earthquake has yet
to be identified. Of the bits and pieces on the Internet Archive, it should be
possible to match up clips to the June 1906 descriptions and finally give
credit to this pioneering studio. I don’t think the world has heard the last of
these Miles brothers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">About the Author</b><br />
David Kiehn is the author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Broncho
Billy and the Essanay Film Company</i>, published in 2003. He is the historian and film programmer
for the <a href="http://nilesfilmmuseum.org/">Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum</a>, located at the historic Edison Theater in the
Niles district of Fremont, California.</div>
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</style>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-23397361664902969852018-05-12T11:03:00.001-07:002018-05-12T11:03:31.923-07:00"I'm a Sucker for Films Shot in San Francisco": A Conversation with SFSFF Board President Rob Byrne<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">by Kyle Westphal
</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Long-time attendees of the San Francisco Silent Film
Festival may feel that they’re on a first-name basis with our staff and board
members, who are often front-and-center during the festival, introducing films
and discussing the latest restorations. Among them is Rob Byrne, the SFSFF
Board President, who also oversees several restorations for the Festival in a
given year. </span></i></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I recently talked to Rob about his career in preservation
and several restorations that will premiering at this year’s Festival. This
interview been slightly edited for length and clarity. </span></i></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGIl0_8e0cjUnjiW0FccTj9zvZOWm2-T71Sfu3Sg3Jw8UYVNF7vQWHyPIjiKdQOl5qwsiybf0j5VBIp8K0rOTSX-MGT9tCX0XtIBhI_qsvsnRs0Zws4Kxbjtrluqhq_s0TzpMnDbUhTKM/s1600/Soft+Shoes.19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1253" data-original-width="1600" height="499" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGIl0_8e0cjUnjiW0FccTj9zvZOWm2-T71Sfu3Sg3Jw8UYVNF7vQWHyPIjiKdQOl5qwsiybf0j5VBIp8K0rOTSX-MGT9tCX0XtIBhI_qsvsnRs0Zws4Kxbjtrluqhq_s0TzpMnDbUhTKM/s640/Soft+Shoes.19.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Soft Shoes</i> (1925)</span></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> Many
festivals showcase restored films, but San Francisco Silent Film Festival is
the only one I know that actually takes an active role in restoring them. How
did that project come about?</span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">RB:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> The idea for the first SFSFF-sponsored restoration project
came about in 2012. That spring I had been selected for a Haghefilm Fellowship
and was working at EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam (known at the time as EYE Film
Instituut) on a project to restore <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Spanish
Dancer </i>(1923). </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">During my time at EYE I also
undertook a side project on behalf of the National Film Preservation Foundation
to inspect selections from EYE’s nitrate collection, focusing specifically on
American films. Every week I would request a number of titles from the nitrate
vault and then spend a day or two inspecting and cataloging what I found. One
day I threaded a reel onto a Steenbeck viewing table and immediately found
myself staring at downtown San Francisco. The more I watched the more interested
I became. Not only was I seeing location after location around San Francisco,
the film was a newspaper story with a great deal of the action taking place
within the pressroom and around the actual presses of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">San Francisco Chronicle</i>. I had never heard of the film before—which
turned out to be Emory Johnson’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/the-last-edition">The Last Edition</a> </i>(1924)—but I decided on the spot that this would be a film that
would delight our audience. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">My enthusiasm for the film led us
down the path of finding donors that would help underwrite the expense of the
restoration and preservation. Fortunately, we were able to find a number of
supporters that we able to make the first (tax deductible!) contributions to
what developed into our non-profit SFSFF Film Preservation Fund. All of this
led to partnering with EYE Filmmuseum on the restoration, which we premiered to
a packed house at our 2013 festival. The restored 35mm print became the first
deposit to the SFSFF Collection, which is conserved at the Library of Congress
Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Since that successful beginning, our
ambitions have steadily expanded to the point that we are restoring,
preserving, and making available a growing number of titles each year. This
year marks a high point for us, four features plus one short, but we already
have ambitious plans for the coming year.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> The
festival began as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, long before you were involved with
the board. Did Melissa Chittick and Stephen Salmons envision a mandate broader
than festival screenings when they began the organization? </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">RB:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> The formal mission of the SFSFF states that we are
"dedicated to educating the public about silent film as an art form and as
a culturally valuable historical record.” In the beginning (and, of course,
even today) we accomplish this primarily through our screenings, special
events, and publications (primarily the festival program guide), but restoring
and preserving films in support of our mission can also be considered to be a
facet of that mandate. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> You serve
as the Festival's Board President and in-house restoration supervisor. How do
you balance those duties? </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">RB:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> I don’t know if it is that much of a balancing act. We have
an incredible staff and a very engaged board of directors. Executive Director
Stacey Wisnia and Artistic Director Anita Monga are the powerhouses behind
everything we do, and each of our board directors bring their own special
talents and contributions that keep us moving forward. With both board and
staff, we have an amazing level of continuity. I have served on the board for
14 years and just recently stopped feeling like the new kid on the block. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> How do you select which titles would be good restoration
candidates? Are they films that the Festival had hoped to program but can't
find in a presentable copy? Do archives come to you with projects where they
think SFSFF would be a good partner? </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">RB:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> Our projects come from a number of different directions.
Sometimes new material is discovered, sometimes archives come to us with a
project, and other times there are simply films that are on our “wish list”
that we would like to see returned to the screen.</span></span></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLe1g8OBXYwMNcSTENFDPIJbmyJ90u6TSVC5kYRaGXUYAdCQECQBC-AsGrA1xa4MqUSnrlVM_h-Cn-GVTztyx6wi4lu44M0fr7U0r79sC5ToQpV7cOmwe5HUwd7G8Zncjbu-DDLNvuRnQ/s1600/Hound+of+the+Baskervilles.2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="946" data-original-width="1416" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLe1g8OBXYwMNcSTENFDPIJbmyJ90u6TSVC5kYRaGXUYAdCQECQBC-AsGrA1xa4MqUSnrlVM_h-Cn-GVTztyx6wi4lu44M0fr7U0r79sC5ToQpV7cOmwe5HUwd7G8Zncjbu-DDLNvuRnQ/s640/Hound+of+the+Baskervilles.2.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Der Hund von Baskerville</i> (1929)</span></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> Since the Festival doesn't have
its own collection of endangered nitrate (yet), you are necessarily partnering
with other archival institutions on these projects. How do you manage those
relationships? What does SFSFF bring to the table over and above the curatorial
and preservation expertise these institutions already possess? </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">RB:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> Oh, you might be surprised to know that we actually have
picked up our first reel of nitrate, and who knows what will turn up next? </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Still, your point remains that our
collection primarily grows by way of our collaborative restoration projects. In
many ways, these projects come about because there are times when we can be
uniquely situated to pursue projects that may be difficult for another
institution to pursue. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">For example, most national archives
are (understandably) constrained such that they can only expend resources to
preserve or restore films produced in that particular country. Two of this
year’s restorations fall into this category. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Der Hund von Baskerville</i> (1929) is a German film, but the only
surviving material was in the collection of the Polish archive. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Soft Shoes</i> (1925) is an American film
held by the Czech archive. In both of these cases we were able to partner with
the archives to provide the resources and funding required to carry out the
work.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">In other cases, sometimes SFSFF is
uniquely positioned to organize collaborative efforts that combine film
materials from multiple sources. Two projects of this type from prior years
include <a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/behind-the-door-festival-2016"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Behind the Door</i></a> (1919), which
combined film elements from Library of Congress, Gosfilmofond of Russia, and
also documentary material from a private collection, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">When the Earth Trembled</i> (1913), which combined elements from MoMA,
BFI, and EYE Filmmuseum.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAHQ5P8FjMJDb726Nq1tANS958sP38ju8i9jWeCP_ZFdQfjYUcXX300fO2v-B2AfnzOuPxzbDn6N5mkRL9D3ga-VINc21QYhdx6cwnwvxj8rML0BCRkyzDcn2sy7cxkJ1eYKfg4D3rnK0/s1600/Fragment+of+an+Empire.9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAHQ5P8FjMJDb726Nq1tANS958sP38ju8i9jWeCP_ZFdQfjYUcXX300fO2v-B2AfnzOuPxzbDn6N5mkRL9D3ga-VINc21QYhdx6cwnwvxj8rML0BCRkyzDcn2sy7cxkJ1eYKfg4D3rnK0/s640/Fragment+of+an+Empire.9.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Fragment of an Empire</i> (1929)</span></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> You worked
on two international titles this year: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Der
Hund von Baskerville</i> and <i>Fragment of an Empire </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">(1929)</span>. Now, correct me if I'm wrong,
but I'm assuming that you don't read German or Russian. How do you navigate the
cultural and linguistic subtleties in a situation like that? </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">RB:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> Both of these films presented unique challenges, with the
language issue being chief among them. Not only are the films themselves not in
English, but as you might expect, so are all of the documentary resources that
we rely on (scripts, censor records, production records, etc.). This was
especially difficult with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Der Hund von Baskerville</i>
because the nitrate print we were working with (the only surviving material)
has Czech intertitles. Fortunately, we were able to locate the original censor
records that provided the text for the original titles, but the film was also
incomplete (portions of reels 2 and 3 are missing) and so we had to rely on a
draft script (also in German) to understand what we were missing in the
narrative. Riding to the rescue were a number of native German-speaking
volunteers that jumped in to help translate the documents and to proof-read the
new German-language titles that we created. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">For <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fragment of an Empire</i>, it was our collaboration with Peter Bagrov,
former curator at Gosfilmofond of Russia, that was essential to getting the
intertitles and our new English language subtitles absolutely correct. Peter
reviewed drafts of the restoration through countless revisions to ensure that
the result is absolutely perfect. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> You've
restored films with a strong local connection, such as <a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/mothers-of-men-festival-2016"><i>Mothers of Men</i></a> (1917)
and this year's <i>Soft Shoes</i>, which probably would have been a lower
priority for other institutions. Are there any Bay Area films on your
restoration wish list?</span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">RB:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> …and don’t forget <a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/when-the-earth-trembled-or-the-strength-of-love"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">When the Earth Trembled</i></a> (1913), and our collaboration this spring with Niles
Essanay Silent Film Museum and Silver Shadows Gallery Ltd to restore the newly
discovered Miles Brothers <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">San Francisco
Earthquake Films</i> (1906). </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">What can I say? I’m a sucker for
films shot in San Francisco or featuring Bay Area locations. Aside from the
lost reels of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Greed </i>(1924), Emory
Johnson’s<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Life’s Greatest Game </i>(1924)
is interesting to me. It is one of a series of dramas that Johnson filmed in
San Francisco, this one featuring a professional baseball player as the
protagonist. Like his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Last Edition</i>,
it is probably not the best film in the world, but I have high expectations of
what we might see in the way of SF locations.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> Is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Life’s Greatest Game</i> extant? There are
no holdings in American Silent Feature Film Survival Database </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">RB:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> I don’t believe it is. To be honest, I have not made an
extensive search (inquiring at FIAF, etc.) but it is a title I always look for
when I am poking around. Who knows, one may turn up eventually. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDKPuW1zDxMnNcKlB_YMTWC2CHX4VI5g9a_Ql1zsqqAGr5o50m9YWWP0vg-mrDT0qMETHpg-OVvHdzZhQPyzDH-3hwJsTVIZF57zE8xd2Bdj5x4306MiheJ2tJfiT8FxYqQuGoyRUsLvc/s1600/Other+Womans+Story.2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1251" data-original-width="1600" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDKPuW1zDxMnNcKlB_YMTWC2CHX4VI5g9a_Ql1zsqqAGr5o50m9YWWP0vg-mrDT0qMETHpg-OVvHdzZhQPyzDH-3hwJsTVIZF57zE8xd2Bdj5x4306MiheJ2tJfiT8FxYqQuGoyRUsLvc/s640/Other+Womans+Story.2.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The Other Woman's Story</i> (1925)</span></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">KW:</span></b><i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> The Other Woman's Story </span></i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">(1925)<i>, </i></span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">one
of the films that the Festival restored this year, is a pretty obscure title—even
for specialists. How did it come to your attention?</span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">RB:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> Writer and author David Stenn brought the film to our
attention. He has done extensive research on the actress Helen Lee Worthing and
her incredible life story and was passionate about returning one of her few
surviving films to the screen. He approached us with the project and we
immediately agreed. Generally speaking, I think one important aspect of our
restoration/preservation program is that focus on films that have not been seen
or ever properly restored. There is a unique pleasure in presenting a film that
no living person has seen before.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> The downside of restoring films that no living person has
ever seen is that you can't necessarily preview the films first or evaluate
them in light of latter-day scholarly opinion. (There are contemporary
newspaper reviews, of course, but I've found those to not always be the best
guide as far as what we value now, aesthetically or narratively.) You might
learn of a nitrate print that has to be scanned or copied before it can be
viewed—but, of course, you need funding to do that! </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">How do you evaluate potential
projects under those circumstances? Have you been surprised by the films once
you can see them whole? </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">RB:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> It’s not that much of a mystery. Of course, we don’t have
the luxury of watching the nitrate on a big screen, but with very few
exceptions, we are able to see the film in motion on a film viewing table. Of
course, that doesn’t necessarily give you a perfect impression of how a film
will look when it is restored, especially when you are restoring a film from
multiple sources, but we know enough to decide whether a project is worth
undertaking or not. For the most part, if I am surprised in a positive
direction. For example, I knew about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Behind
the Door</i> and was well aware of the film’s reputation, but during the
restoration I found myself continually marveling at director Irvin Wilat’s
superb craftsmanship.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> You
usually, understandably, premiere your restorations at SFSFF. I'm surprised
they don't travel more often. We ran <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Behind
the Door</i> at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago, and I know a few festivals
have shown <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/sherlock-holmes">Sherlock Holmes</a> </i>(1916),
but I don't see the other ones popping up much. How can programmers access all
these films you've restored? </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">RB:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> The primary goals for each of our restoration projects are
to restore the film for preservation purposes, but equally important is to
restore the film to the screen. Once we have premiered the film in San
Francisco, we want each film to reach the widest audience possible. This is one
of main reasons that we choose the Library of Congress as the conservator or
our collection. Because of this, all of our films are available for loan to
qualified exhibitors without charge. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">After the SFSFF screening, a typical
restoration of ours may play a couple of times at festivals, revivals, or
archive screenings, but only a few have really achieved a significant number of
screenings. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Behind the Door</i> has
proven to be very popular, <a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/the-half-breed"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Half-Breed</i></a>
(1916) and <a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/the-good-bad-man"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Good-Bad Man</i></a> (1916) have
played numerous times, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sherlock
Holmes</i> has been exceptionally popular, screening in well over 50 venues. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Of course, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sherlock</i> film has its own special appeal to Sherlockians around the
world and the film often plays for organizations and events devoted to the
great detective. On the other hand, other titles may not play so broadly. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Last Edition</i> was a huge hit with
audience, but since then has screened only in Pordenone, Italy, and at EYE
Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. From this year’s festival, I fully expect <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Der Hund von Baskerville</i> to go big,
again thanks to the legions of Sherlock Holmes fans, and also <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fragment of an Empire</i> which is quite
simply a masterpiece.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">And speaking of access, we are
finding ways to release more and more of our restored titles to DVD and
Blu-ray. Already <a href="https://www.flickeralley.com/classic-movies/#!/Sherlock-Holmes/p/50465556/category=20414531"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sherlock Holmes</i></a> and <a href="https://www.flickeralley.com/classic-movies/#!/Behind-the-Door/p/76078792/category=20414531"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Behind the Door</i></a> are available in
wonderful publications from Flicker Alley, and <a href="https://www.kinolorber.com/film/thehalfbreed"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Half-Breed</i></a> and <a href="https://www.kinolorber.com/film/thehalfbreed"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Good Bad Man</i></a> were recently published in both formats by Kino Lorber. And watch this
space, we are hoping to announce additional disc publications in the not too
distant future...</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk2KvpvReuRow79YZFFutH2ep0eCWR8_eGVqRygawo-emqpKUMwo5eWT50GH3Z4WLYhdXVSXLuMPiwgkXsuDXM0ierZ1rtRpuIWoEFfBXccagaA6QuQtJylmjEoCtpaK1bbBIk-1rUCDo/s1600/large_behind_the_door_blu-ray_2017-09-14-23h53m54s281_blu-ray_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1426" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk2KvpvReuRow79YZFFutH2ep0eCWR8_eGVqRygawo-emqpKUMwo5eWT50GH3Z4WLYhdXVSXLuMPiwgkXsuDXM0ierZ1rtRpuIWoEFfBXccagaA6QuQtJylmjEoCtpaK1bbBIk-1rUCDo/s640/large_behind_the_door_blu-ray_2017-09-14-23h53m54s281_blu-ray_.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Behind the Door</i> (1919)</span></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> One thing that strikes me about the SFSFF restorations is
the commitment to making a film negative and presenting them in 35mm at a time
when some major studios and non-profit archives are arguing that digital
preservation is sufficient. Indeed, the festival programming line-up
increasingly includes restorations that are only available digitally. Why do
you think it's important to continue finishing and projecting the SFSFF
restorations on 35mm? </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">RB:</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> We preserve our restorations to 35mm film because it is the
most stable, most secure, most resilient, and least expensive (over the entire
lifetime of the element) method for preserving motion pictures. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Research indicates that modern
polyester film stock, stored under proper temperature and humidity conditions,
will survive for up to 500 years. Consider that, and compare it to the constant
evolution of digital formats whose life spans are measured in years, not
decades, and certainly not centuries. For a film to be “preserved” in a digital
format, with the expectation that it will be available for viewing 100 years
from now (or even 20 years from now), means that it must be continually
migrated and transcoded into each new format that comes along. This expensive
chain of continual migration must remain unbroken and uninterrupted if the film
is not to be lost forever. On the other hand, all we need to preserve a new
35mm negative—for centuries—is shelf space in a cold, dry environment.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Many of our restorations are based
on sole surviving nitrate materials (prints and negatives) that, at some point,
will decay and disappear. I am very aware that when that day comes for those
original materials, the negatives created by way of our restorations will
become the only truly preserved version of the film. This is why we restore
back to film and why we strictly adhere to the principles of restoration ethics
with each project. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Of course, I do not want to come
across as too much of a Luddite. Digital tools and technology have a very
important place in motion restoration and presentation. Without these tools
much of the work we perform would simply not be possible. I am also not a 35mm
fetishist. Every week I watch digitally projected silent films that look amazing
and, of course, digital formats have opened up the availability of silent
cinema to an amazing degree. Digital projection does still present a problem
with frame rates (digital cinema does not currently support the variable frame
rates required for accurate projection) but that is a technical problem that
will someday be overcome. But when you talk about preservation, and not access,
then 35mm is absolutely the gold standard—and one that we will continue to use
into the future. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Our preservations are finished both
on 35mm and into digital media, but if anybody is reading this article 50 years
from now, you can bet that the film will be readily available from our
collection stored in the vaults of Library of Congress, while the digital
versions will have been relegated to the scrapheap of obsolescence.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-67718247004941668702018-05-05T18:23:00.000-07:002018-05-07T13:00:20.469-07:00"Plot Is Never the First Thing That Comes to Mind": A Conversation with MoMA's Dave Kehr<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
by Kyle Westphal</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3h53CSXh7buW5HEHURY5dK3QBYoXjg4N03FlFTC4tCe7Q1RNjqw3X_v-Br83ZWGBlWTC84LWVtPk5xSdB8Sk8Pzs_ajq6NCBml1QfFYsLcARMntY0w_Y-WHfdBNniY2vKVXMCxNE6gRE/s1600/Lubitsch+and+Pickford+examining+script.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1275" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3h53CSXh7buW5HEHURY5dK3QBYoXjg4N03FlFTC4tCe7Q1RNjqw3X_v-Br83ZWGBlWTC84LWVtPk5xSdB8Sk8Pzs_ajq6NCBml1QfFYsLcARMntY0w_Y-WHfdBNniY2vKVXMCxNE6gRE/s400/Lubitsch+and+Pickford+examining+script.jpg" width="316" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Museum of Modern Art / Films Stills Archive</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ernst Lubitsch’s first
American feature, </i>Rosita<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, premiered ninety-five years ago, but hasn’t been much
seen since. The San Francisco Silent Film Festival will be presenting the West
Coast premiere of a new 4K DCP restoration from the Museum of Modern Art on Friday,
June 1. I recently spoke to Dave Kehr, Curator of Film at MoMA, about the new
restoration, his lifelong love of all things Lubitsch, and upcoming preservation
projects. This interview has been lightly edited for space and clarity.</i></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> You studied
and wrote about Lubitsch long before you came to MoMA. Can you talk about your
experience over the course of your life seeing these films, especially the
silents?<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> The first time I saw a
substantial number of the Lubitsch silents was at the Berlin Film Festival in
the ‘80s and they had a number of copies from the European archives, including a
copy of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rosita</i>, which came, as I
discovered later, from the one that Eileen Bowser had repatriated from Russia
to MoMA. And following FIAF protocols in those days, MoMA made several prints
and distributed them to the Cin<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>math<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">è</span>que fran<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ç</span>aise
and a few other archives around Europe. </div>
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That version was extremely unrestored and I remember
thinking at the time, “Hey, this is a pretty good movie. I wonder why it has
fallen to such disuse.” </div>
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Eventually I discovered that Pickford had turned against it—for
reasons that are still somewhat mysterious, even after the research I’ve done—and,
of course, allowed it to more or less deteriorate, except for the one reel that
she liked. She didn’t renew the copyright and just pretended that it didn’t
exist. For a long time, it was in bad odor and people did not work on it. The
nitrate that had come from Russia was in terrible condition. It looks like it
had been a dupe from the German release print. It had Russian intertitles,
severe damages, lots of scratches, lots of sprocket issues.</div>
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When it arrived at MoMA, it was in miserable condition. It just
seemed like the best thing anyone could do was make a photochemical copy. It
was never going to get any better. But it turns out that we now have amazing
tools available through the digital realm. We’ve been working on it for about
four years. We’ve gone through several generations of software and eventually
got to the point where it is quite respectable. It’s obviously never going to
be perfect, but it’s night and day from that very sad piece of nitrate that
arrived all those years ago.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> How did it go
over in Venice?</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> In Venice, it
was a tremendous success. It was called the <a href="http://news.cinecitta.com/EN/en/news/95/70499/rosita-by-ernst-lubitsch-pre-inaugural-evening-of-the-74th-venice-film-festival.aspx">pre-opening event</a> at the Venice
Film Festival last September, and Gillian Anderson conducted an Italian
orchestra with a reconstruction of the score, which is just magnificent, just
one of the most beautiful scores for a silent film that I’ve ever encountered.
Very sophisticated. Enhanced the film magnificently. We recorded the score and
hope to marry it to the DCP one day if we can clear the rights, but that’s
something we’re working on. We hope to make it available with the music
eventually. </div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> I haven’t seen
the film myself. I tried to book it a number of years ago, and at that time the
only print that was generally circulating was Rusty Casselton’s 16mm dupe from
MoMA’s dupe --</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> That was
something he managed to steal. I don’t think it was stolen from MoMA, as it
turns out. I’ve heard he managed to get it from the Cin<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>math<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">è</span>que fran<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ç</span>aise
somehow. He made up his own English intertitles and stuck them on there. That’s
the version you can still find on Internet Archive, for example, which is
beyond horrible. Don’t bother. There’s no reason to watch that anymore. It’s so
much better now.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> I’m anxious
to see it in San Francisco. When I saw a lot of those Lubitsch silents in
college, in a series put together by Kathy Geier, it was in 16mm prints from
Murray Glass. No one was importing the restored European versions. So I saw old
dupes of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deception</i>—the American
release version of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Anna Boleyn</i>—which
is, in some sense, more historically important, as it’s the version that made
his American reputation and allowed him to come to Hollywood. </div>
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In the case of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rosita</i>,
I literally booked the Rusty Casselton print from him a month before he died.
At that time, I wasn’t as plugged in with film collectors. I was asking, ‘How
come this print hasn’t shown up yet?’ and then found out it was not coming. </div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> Glad we could
finally provide it. It’s worth waiting for. It’s much better.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI7GafgW5r6evxHS_Nch6IG742BEDMjjr02SaYDs06uNpowMFKnBHPTBfJ9HM4APEcCrt6Es9UinRhexDWCZKKb7mf0pMjJutnSDkeUa8cuCEfhIuSeTv0QIB-efv3DA_0fMgJwNgn9P4/s1600/Rosita.2.JV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1175" data-original-width="1600" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI7GafgW5r6evxHS_Nch6IG742BEDMjjr02SaYDs06uNpowMFKnBHPTBfJ9HM4APEcCrt6Es9UinRhexDWCZKKb7mf0pMjJutnSDkeUa8cuCEfhIuSeTv0QIB-efv3DA_0fMgJwNgn9P4/s640/Rosita.2.JV.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo courtesy Jeffrey Vance</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> Was the
impetus behind the restoration purely that there was new technology that could
hide the decomposition and some of the other flaws? I know you’ve restored the
intertitles as well …</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> It was a
couple of things. It turned out that the Academy had found a copy of an early
draft of the screenplay. At first, when we found that we were very excited. We thought,
now we have all the English intertitles. Not that easy! Big differences between
that draft and the final film. Lots of stuff missing from there. Lots of TBDs. </div>
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We found some other sources, including the German censorship
records, which had all the German intertitles in it. The Swedish censorship
records, which seem to have been translated from the German. The original music
cue sheet, which Gillian Anderson used later to reconstructed the score. Rather
tantalizingly, the cue sheets gave the first two or three words of intertitles
that were otherwise missing. </div>
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Peter Williamson, our chief preservation officer here, came
up with a huge find with an Australian newspaper that actually quoted a few
lines, including the climatic line of the film, which is just a beautiful piece
of Hanns Kr<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ä</span>ly
prose that no one could have recreated or reimagined. </div>
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It fell to me to collate all of these sources, massage them
together, fill in a few gaps, and come up with something as authentic as we
possibly could, with the things we had to fill in clearly identified. It’s as
close to the American release as we seem likely to get at this point, unless
another print turns up somewhere.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> Did the
Pickford reel still have the American titles?</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> It definitely
did, and that gave us the graphic style that we copied to recreate the rest of
the intertitles. We had a terrific artist who copied the typography very
closely. We fudged a little in creating the art titles by lifting backgrounds
in some shots, removing the people, and putting the expository titles over
those images. We lifted the credits from a number of posters, using the graphic
design of the posters. </div>
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There was an unusual amount of interpretation required on
this one, but I think we did it as responsibly as could be done while providing
a reasonable facsimile of the film and providing an entertaining experience for
the audience.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> You’re
balancing an idea of what the American version <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was</i> with a version that audiences actually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">saw</i>, at least the Russian audience. It’s ragged and not the
domestic version, but it doesn’t have any modern interpolations.</div>
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A few weeks ago at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago, we ran
a copy of Curtiz’s <a href="http://www.chicagofilmsociety.org/2018/04/20/taking-the-taboo-off-the-cinema/"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Million Bid</i></a>,
which the Library of Congress has in a 35mm print derived from the Italian
release version. Even that presented something of a dilemma. We still had to go
back and tweak the English translation prepared from a transcript of the
Italian titles, which were themselves translated from the original English
titles. We couldn’t trust every detail: how much of this is a flourish added
for the Italian release versus an authentic translation of the original? But
when presenting it, we also wanted to remind people that this Italian version
is all that survives—and all that survives authentically. Even if it’s not the
domestic release, it’s still legitimate. </div>
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So, with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rosita</i>,
you have the dupe neg of the Russian version --<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuSnqlmiJUggyGFTKZfwTm-mteqguDncHPkbvt7s6bv-lVf-dvOVDmCoOVYYNSelK8qp2tjWhkRN4Z6WGqtvYoL9uSS_rzbq0HEhuv1YFPRtMSM7QGlnbPisw7nm0rCT3CF3YR7oNv3ns/s1600/Rosita.1.JV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1283" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuSnqlmiJUggyGFTKZfwTm-mteqguDncHPkbvt7s6bv-lVf-dvOVDmCoOVYYNSelK8qp2tjWhkRN4Z6WGqtvYoL9uSS_rzbq0HEhuv1YFPRtMSM7QGlnbPisw7nm0rCT3CF3YR7oNv3ns/s400/Rosita.1.JV.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo courtesy Jeffrey Vance</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> Oh, we scanned that. It’s
totally preserved. It’s not going anywhere. That’s available for scholars who
want to see it. That’s not being suppressed.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> But ethically,
you feel comfortable with the version you collated from all these different
sources?<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> Well, yeah, sure. We’ve
identified the stuff we’ve interpolated. I don’t know what else we could do
there. I think it’s important to present a movie that an audience will be able
to enjoy without footnotes. I hope we’ve achieved that. <br />
<br />
As you know, a lot of silent films that we know have been cobbled together from
many disparate sources. We’re being totally upfront about this. Not to point
fingers, but there are lots of [other silent films] where the current editions
are extremely dubious.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> There are
also Lubitsch films where the American version as we have it is pretty
misshapen. I know MoMA has also been working on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Forbidden Paradise</i>, which I’ve only seen in a version at the
Eastman Museum derived from the same material, which is missing the first reel,
if I’m not mistaken.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> Well, that
version was copied from our material. We have two Czech prints that have
different content. We just finished that a couple weeks ago and it turned out
very well. By comparing the two Czech prints, we were able to get about 90% of
the film back. There are still a couple of scenes missing, which we had to
bridge with some intertitles, but it is now a complete and coherent film, in a
way that it wasn’t before. We did have a list of the complete intertitles for
that, so there was no problem reconstructing those.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> I’d always
been intrigued by that film, because it’s the only Lubitsch film that [documentarian
and film historian] Paul Rotha liked. You wouldn’t necessarily think of him as
a critic very sympathetic to Lubitsch’s work.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> [Laughs]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW: </b>Then I saw
one of those Czech prints, which, on its own, was pretty incoherent. But given
its reception and contemporary reputation, it was pretty difficult to see what
I was missing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> I don’t know
what Rotha would’ve been responding to. You’ve seen the remake, right? It was
remade as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Royal Scandal</i> by Otto Preminger.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> I haven’t.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> It was a
Lubitsch project that he was too ill to actually shoot. The plot is very
similar. I don’t think you would have any surprises, plot-wise, from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Forbidden Paradise</i>, but plot is never
the first thing that comes to mind when you’re thinking of Lubitsch. It is full
of wonderfully Lubitschian moments, with a very good performance from Pola
Negri. Some long takes with her, which I don’t remember seeing in other films,
where she’s moving through a series of emotions very fluidly and very
expressively. He really got her in a way that I think her other American
directors probably did not. She seems much less of a caricature, far more an
emotionally nuanced and complex portrayal. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> I think she
gives a good performance in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Barbed Wire</i>,
but as far as her other American films, I would tend to agree with you. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, as far other Lubitsch restorations, I know MoMA has done
several over the decades. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lady
Windermere’s Fan</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rosita</i>, now <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Forbidden Paradise</i>. Are there any others
that --</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Marriage Circle</i> is also ours. We have
excellent versions of both <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Marriage
Circle</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lady Windermere</i>, which
is just magnificent. Perfect print of a perfect movie. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> Are there any
other non-Lubitsch projects MoMA is working on that you can discuss?<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> We’ve got quite a bit these
days. We’re just embarking on the 1925 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Stella
Dallas</i> by Henry King. We have a nitrate print that Iris Barry acquired from
Goldwyn in the ‘30s, which is by far the best material on that. We’re expecting
very good results on that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> I think I’ve
seen the previous preservation from MoMA that’s just a black-and-white 35
safety.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK: </b>That was made
for the Circulating Film Library, but it’s ’70s technology. So, we’re able to
go back to the nitrate and scan it, so, clearly, it’s much improved image
quality. As far as new footage, no. But much better image than anything that’s
been around before. It’s just incomparable. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We will have a new batch of John Collins films, which we’ll
be premiering at Pordenone, I hope. He’s the Edison director who died young,
but the stuff we do have by him is strikingly modern, also Langian in its use
of geometry. Very interesting director. We had a bunch of those from our
extensive Edison collection. Motivated by the <a href="https://silentlondon.co.uk/tag/john-h-collins/">great Collins show that Pordenone put on a few years ago</a>, we decided to go back and finish the other ones that we
had. So that’s a half dozen right there. Always working on something.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXOumuczFjbjm-63gHVMp4v5h-bahH1nRFCflYS6E-1vZy5cCpBdxMVhVlFgD1_g_fJLzDZiO_hzOmSnsi6GROpCNIK-FsrVBucVnW54nBPnSwDgSgXKmc7HJ9hXlxdM5p5N3pmt2LHi0/s1600/ROSITA_007_forweb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1260" data-original-width="1600" height="502" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXOumuczFjbjm-63gHVMp4v5h-bahH1nRFCflYS6E-1vZy5cCpBdxMVhVlFgD1_g_fJLzDZiO_hzOmSnsi6GROpCNIK-FsrVBucVnW54nBPnSwDgSgXKmc7HJ9hXlxdM5p5N3pmt2LHi0/s640/ROSITA_007_forweb.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Museum of Modern Art / Film Stills Archive</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> It’s striking
in speaking with you, as someone who was a critic before he was a curator.
Because when speaking with other archivists, the critical film-historical
connection—“Oh, there are these Langian compositions in John Collins films of
the nineteen-teens”—is not something I often hear. I’m just curious how you
navigate between those two worlds, one in which you were already very
established and one which was much newer for you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> Well, I
wouldn’t claim to be an archivist. That’s a whole science, of which I know
virtually nothing. But I have a pretty good grasp of film history and some
analytical ability. I’m drawn to things that I like, that I think benefit from
an upgrade. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
MoMA has a pretty amazing collection—it’s by no stretch the
largest in the world, but it’s remarkably high quality in that it was the first
[American archive], and MoMA has the best copies of a great number of important
movies. It’s a nice opportunity now that digital now has come along. We can go
back to the nitrate in many cases, and the results are much, much better than
the photochemical stuff that was done in the ’70s. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We’ve been working with Fox lately to scan a lot of our Fox
titles, including a nice new version of <a href="https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/4382?locale=en"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">7th Heaven</i></a>. It’s much, much better than the one that’s commercially available,
which still comes from the same print, the only known nitrate print, which is
ours. Basically, it’s a wet gate scan, which they were never able to do before.
A lot of the scratches and dirt has vanished from that. It looks tremendously,
tremendously better. That will also start making the rounds. It will be opening
our <a href="https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/4967?locale=en">Fox series</a> in a few weeks, and then available as DCP for anyone who wants
to show it thereafter. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> Are there any
discoveries from that Fox series that you didn’t know about before you came to
MoMA? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> Well, it’s
certainly been gratifying to get in there and poke around. We have a few things
in the upcoming series that haven’t been shown much. I don’t know if they’re
masterpieces, but it’s a really fun bunch of crazy comedies from the early ‘30s.
One called <a href="https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/4406?locale=en"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rackety Rax</i></a> by Alfred
Werker, with Victor McLaglen as a gangster who takes over a college football
team. <a href="https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/4407?locale=en"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Trick for Trick</i></a>, which is a
very strange movie by Hamilton McFadden and William Cameron Menzies about a
pair of magicians who are having a feud, with lots of crazy Menzies effects,
nutsy optical stuff. Stuff that just is never shown. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A <a href="https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/4384?locale=en">couple of</a> <a href="https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/4383?locale=en">Mary Astor films</a> popped up, both by Irving
Cummings, who was a more interesting director in the silent era than he was
making those garish musicals at Fox later on. And, of course, the William K.
Howard films, which I think are the real rediscovery of the Fox holdings here.
We have a couple more of those in the works. We’ll be doing a couple more of
those—one called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scotland Yard </i>and
another called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Surrender</i>. Those should
be ready later this year as well.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> Has your
sense of Howard’s career improved since you arrived at MoMA?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> Sure, yeah.
Some of the Howard films have been around in bad bootlegs that do not allow you
to appreciate how radical he was stylistically. Extreme deep focus stuff,
extreme long take stuff. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Everyone, especially Pauline Kael, claims that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Power and the Glory</i> was a huge influence
on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen Kane</i> because of the
Preston Sturges script; I would say it was a huge influence on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen Kane</i> for William K. Howard’s
direction, which was brilliant. It makes extensive use of the kind of effects
that Welles would be using later on. No proof that he saw it, but the family
resemblance is very powerful.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEginGm0nJNITm1_SsKZKXaiWlS1V2JcnNXaJLvIAeGiMCiiJBmLpE36xUMtJMYQvC7qyJcpD4rnXlzDfLMPzUIufy62qUdINUrZk90JLIJ8Q_-himKuWOpV53vqO1fUI-Ca5FfSyLJR_9w/s1600/Rosita.MoMA.3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1240" data-original-width="1600" height="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEginGm0nJNITm1_SsKZKXaiWlS1V2JcnNXaJLvIAeGiMCiiJBmLpE36xUMtJMYQvC7qyJcpD4rnXlzDfLMPzUIufy62qUdINUrZk90JLIJ8Q_-himKuWOpV53vqO1fUI-Ca5FfSyLJR_9w/s640/Rosita.MoMA.3.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Museum of Modern Art / Film Stills Archive</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> Of course,
some people were onto William K. Howard before either of us. William K. Everson
named himself after William K. Howard!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> Well, yes, he
was a great favorite of William K.’s, and you can go back and read all of
Bill’s <a href="https://www.nyu.edu/projects/wke/bydirector/bydirector.php">program notes on the NYU site</a>. I mean, I like different things about
Howard than he did, but yeah, certainly I first knew about William K. Howard
because of William K. Everson.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> Do you have <a href="https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/4398?locale=en"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Red Dance</i></a> in that series, too?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> We do. That’s
an older restoration, one that I showed in Bologna a few years ago as part of a
Raoul Walsh series but again, a terrific film. We’re working on another silent
Walsh called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Loves of Carmen</i> with
McLaglen and Dolores del Rio. That’s just getting started, so it’ll probably be
a year or so before that’s ready to go. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We always have a huge backload of Tom Mix movies, which
people love. We have two more of those ready to come out. That Fox collection
is just amazing. Again, it’s all thanks to Eileen Bowser, who saved it when the
studio was ready to dump it in the 1970s.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> With the Fox
collection, you’re very fortunate to have a studio that is now committed to
seeing it restored and preserved in the highest quality.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>But with a film like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rosita</i>, which is public domain, you
don’t have that kind of commercial, institutional support. How does MoMA go
about funding projects like that?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK: </b>Well, I think
every project is different. We do have a small endowment here, the Celeste
Bartos Preservation Fund, but for most things, we have to raise outside
funding. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rosita</i> was done
thanks to the Louis B. Mayer Foundation, with a substantial contribution from
the Film Foundation and Celeste Bartos. Fox has generously funded a lot of the
re-scans of the Fox material. Film Foundation was very helpful for William K.
Howard’s <a href="https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/4393?locale=en"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Transatlantic</i></a>, which was a
very difficult project. Took a lot of reassembling of several different prints.
Made that possible in a way that we would not have been able to do internally.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s an eternal search for funding—sometimes you find it,
sometimes you have to wait a little longer. But if someone is passionate about
something, there are ways of finding the financing to do it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> How do you
deal, on a day-to-day level, with the legacy of working at America’s oldest
film archive? As you say, you often have projects that might have been done
already in the ’60s and ’70s, dry gate. You can go back and balance projects
that need more attention with ones that haven’t seen the light of the projector
in a while. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> I don’t think
there’s anything systematic about that. We certainly have a lot of nitrate that
hasn’t been printed that we need to take care of. We have preservation negative
on most of it, but there are things like the Herbert Kline documentaries that
we did last year. These were films that we got from Herbert Kline himself and
the Museum did not choose to work on those for a long time. But people’s
interests change. We were able to get <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lights
Out in Europe</i> done and we’re hoping to get <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Crisis</i> done soon. Those are both really remarkable films about the
history of America’s entry into World War II, which is an ongoing subject of
interest. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have the Biograph Collection. Still a lot of work that
needs to be done there. We’re hoping to get a major effort going on that fairly
soon. Some new funders have appeared, and with any luck, we’ll be able to start
approaching that systematically. Again, we have the original printing negatives
on virtually everything that Iris Barry acquired in 1939 from Biograph. So, we
will produce editions of the Griffith films far beyond what anyone has ever
seen before.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> I know in
some cases you’re going back to film, or at least scanning and going back to a
film-out negatives. In others, it’s just DCP. How do you balance those kinds of
decisions as a curator?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> I would say
funding is a major part of that. It’s always good to have a film-out if you can
afford it, but it adds a huge amount to the budget—between $20,000 to $30,000
for a project. If our funders are interested in handling that, of course, we’d
want to do a film-out on everything. Not always possible. We hope to do that
eventually, but it may not be the first round of work that we do on something. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wish we had more DCPS. I wish we were able to scan more,
because there are fewer and fewer outlets that can show reel-to-reel archival
film. We always want our stuff to be seen as widely as possible. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> I hope you’re
able to and that there’s more interest in the more obscure corners of film
history that you and I are both excited about. I hope there’s an audience.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DK:</b> People will
show it. That’s a whole ’nother question. If you don’t circulate the stuff, no
one’s going to know they’re not seeing it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-86774662369203594672018-04-24T21:38:00.000-07:002018-04-24T21:38:17.909-07:00Clap If You Believe: Fairy Tales in the Silent Era<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">by Alicia Fletcher</span></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd6hjfRyhzEp2cHT2utHbx1X5BArC6hyphenhyphenf6F5N7tESUM_8hfOhJmFjL9b3zNdgBWRkd_WCES91D1ByqzmflHvdMC9cUn5H8LY_ROS7gIpNHan0C_A86YCs7QD1fhOb8US00jzE2qi8W7qQ/s1600/Peter+Pan+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="598" data-original-width="520" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd6hjfRyhzEp2cHT2utHbx1X5BArC6hyphenhyphenf6F5N7tESUM_8hfOhJmFjL9b3zNdgBWRkd_WCES91D1ByqzmflHvdMC9cUn5H8LY_ROS7gIpNHan0C_A86YCs7QD1fhOb8US00jzE2qi8W7qQ/s400/Peter+Pan+2.jpg" width="347" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">There are many great silent film programs beyond San Francisco. This week, we turn over the blog to a guest post from Toronto-based curator Alicia Fletcher, who offers a behind-the-scenes look at a recent series of silent fairy tale she programed, with special insight into the selection process and the practical work of tracking down prints. For more enchanted cinema, remember to check out <a href="https://prod3.agileticketing.net/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=364776~d9133282-4896-49aa-be18-b053ee8cefc3&epguid=7ecd8d33-d7d0-46b0-a62a-af16bcbe6fc6&">Serge Bromberg Presents ...</a> at the 2018 San Francisco Silent Film Festival - Ed.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">As a
technical wonder, the moving image animates the inanimate, instills magic into
the mundane, and transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary—as such,
fantasy was inherent in the medium from its birth. The earliest cinema pioneers
were magicians, both in calling, as was the case with Georges Méliès, or
metaphorically, as pertained to his associates and all those who followed in
their footsteps. Transporting viewers to the exotic lands of <i>Arabian Nights,</i>
Charles Perrault’s Medieval France, and the enchanted Bavarian forests of the
Brothers Grimm, filmic fairy tales of the silent era offered an escape from the
everyday realities of modernity. Decades before Walt Disney established his
studio’s stronghold over the filmed fairy tale, the pioneers of early cinema
mined fairy tales and folklore for universally beloved, royalty-free material
that would translate regardless of the international market. As a result,
filmic fairy tales were instrumental in popularizing the medium. As one of the
first film critics of note Vachel Lindsay claimed in <i>The Art of the Moving
Picture </i>(1915), “fairytales are inherent in the genius of the motion
picture.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">In the
summer of 2017, the Toronto International Film Festival’s longstanding
<a href="https://www.tiff.net/films-and-talks/?tab=cinematheque">Cinematheque</a> program launched “<a href="https://www.tiff.net/the-review/silent-fantasies/">The Enchanted Screen: Fantasy in Silent Film</a>.”
As curator of the series, I programmed titles that I had long coveted in
archival prints that would be difficult, if not impossible to procure. I
assembled my team of princesses, fairies, and warlocks and awaited word from
the archives that guarded such treasures. Time passed, slowly it seemed, and
still the key works had yet to be secured. Concerned that the prints would fall
through, I drafted an eleventh-hour contingency program with some silents that
were still exciting but easier to book. Just days before our program lock, it
was still unclear which titles we would have. I fretted that my fairy tale film
program would turn back into a pumpkin while I would be banished to an attic,
sweeping the cobwebs of film history again. Several were key titles in past
iterations of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, yet few of these prints
had screened in Canada. While it began to seem unlikely that the program would
come together, <a href="https://www.eastman.org/">The Eastman Museum</a> proved to be our white knight, loaning the
bulk of the series’s titles—those unique prints without which “The Enchanted
Screen” would have turned to dust.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">“The
Enchanted Screen” drew from recognizable properties, as well as more obscure,
European works: J.M. Barrie’s <i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/peter-pan">Peter Pan</a>, </i>with Herbert Brenon’s fairy
dust-infused 1924 adaptation; French-émigré Maurice Tourneur’s dazzling <i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/the-blue-bird">The Blue Bird</a> </i>(1918), a masterwork in anthropomorphism adapted from a Maurice
Maeterlinck stage play; one of the earlier filmic adaptations of <i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/snow-white">Snow White</a> </i>(1916)—the
J. Searle Dawley version featuring Marguerite Clark in her only surviving role;
Lotte Reiniger’s pioneering animated feature, <i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/the-adventures-of-prince-achmed">The Adventures of Prince Achmed</a> </i>(1926)<i>—</i>presented in an unbelievable hand-tinted archival print provided by
Milestone Films (Reiniger’s short <i>Cinderella </i>from 1922 also played);
Fritz Lang’s two-part epic <i>Nibelungen </i>of 1924-1925, largely considered
the silent era’s <i>Lord of the Rings, </i>as well as his <i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/destiny-festival-2016">Destiny</a> </i>of
1921, a triptych of deathly portents and fantastical netherworlds; and finally,
<i>Ella Cinders</i>—that Jazz-Age adaptation of Perrault’s ultimate fairy tale
closed out the program in a nod to the early Hollywood’s reliance on the <i>Cinderella
</i>tale of rags to riches. Each screening also featured a preceding short
drawn from the most fantastical of the <i>féerie</i> genre—from Méliès, of
course, to Albert Capellani, and other cinematic conjurers of stencil-colored
fantasy.<br /></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuQ0tnwWjwHrVb8JeWLVaYYjhCsTMfj6iMQbuVJkOO5i4HHu9hEC1_FICk5IUl0oR0Scz_LvU2PSIl6rUW2ygCOGhyphenhyphenyIgJToL7I3Go0nNY0UbUwNWjb0MRQqAXkq5ii4IVQEp4gMVL6f0/s1600/Der+mude+todd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1438" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuQ0tnwWjwHrVb8JeWLVaYYjhCsTMfj6iMQbuVJkOO5i4HHu9hEC1_FICk5IUl0oR0Scz_LvU2PSIl6rUW2ygCOGhyphenhyphenyIgJToL7I3Go0nNY0UbUwNWjb0MRQqAXkq5ii4IVQEp4gMVL6f0/s640/Der+mude+todd.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><u><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">DESTINY </span></u></i></b><b><u><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">(Fritz Lang, 1921, Weimar Republic)</span></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">Opening
the series with a newly-produced 2K restoration of Fritz Lang’s early
masterpiece <i>Destiny </i>allowed for a contemplation of the fairy tale and
fantasy genres importance to our most lauded and celebrated auteurs. An
expressionist fairytale rich in visual mastery and powerful storytelling, <i>Destiny
</i>inspired the filmmaking aspirations of Luis Buñuel, as well as Alfred
Hitchcock. Released in the early years of German Expressionism—with its
remarkable production design and command over the medium—it highly influenced
both Weimar filmmaking and the fantasy genre in America. After her fiancé is
abducted by Death—personified to grim perfection by Bernhard Goetzke—a young
woman (Lil Dagover) is granted three chances to save her lover from the
afterlife. With chapters set in Persia, Quattrocento Venice, and ancient China,
Lang takes viewers on a surreal fairytale journey, one that would solidify his
reputation as a master filmmaker. So hypnotic and visually distinct was it that
Douglas Fairbanks purchased the American rights to the film to copy its
impressive production design and special effects for 1924’s <i>The Thief of
Bagdad</i>. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">The tinted
and toned restoration produced by Germany’s</span><span style="background: white; color: black;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">Friedrich
Wilhelm Murnau Foundation was stunning on the big screen, and while we
generally favor 35mm archival presentations, the profound upgrade to the
quality of the picture, especially in terms of its tinted colors—crucial for
casting a macabre mood—made up for the digital presence. While watching it in
the context of “The Enchanted Screen,” I was struck by its innovation. Each of
the three vignettes are wholly self-sufficient as their own wondrous
works—haunting, yet ultimately life-affirming. Although it details death
incarnate, <i>Destiny </i>is more hopeful than its Weimar counterparts. And
while the handful of children who attended were sufficiently disturbed, the
film encapsulated the brooding, macabre magic of the Germanic fairytale.</span></span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh67-SH2A7gKncCCIYETLXAo7hr5WEYjEVGfWlGG-pZQTelj1UTD4c_lW5I3oewqDcAalDWCAdusfmZNs05BPJxWnyGJVFlZd3F5OxybmOSychbve7KwxXf8qv2puFjQfrMVmuCFjDU0AA/s1600/Peter+Pan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="946" data-original-width="1200" height="504" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh67-SH2A7gKncCCIYETLXAo7hr5WEYjEVGfWlGG-pZQTelj1UTD4c_lW5I3oewqDcAalDWCAdusfmZNs05BPJxWnyGJVFlZd3F5OxybmOSychbve7KwxXf8qv2puFjQfrMVmuCFjDU0AA/s640/Peter+Pan.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><u><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">PETER PAN </span></u></i></b><b><u><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">(Herbert Brenon, 1924, US)</span></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">Next up
was a recognizable property that I had hoped would draw a family crowd with its
sprinkling of fairy dust and promise of childlike wonder. In the first onscreen
adaptation of J.M. Barrie’s classic <i>Peter Pan</i>—one of the silent era’s
crowning achievements—Herbert Brenon whisks viewers to Neverland. Betty
Bronson, the eighteen-year-old actress personally selected by Barrie for the
role (she beat out both Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson), established many of
the physical tropes and characteristics that would define performance standards
of the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, and began the tradition of Pan being played by
a spritely film actresses, such as Jean Arthur, Veronica Lake, and Mary Martin.
Inspiring future <i>Peter Pan </i>productions, especially Disney’s 1953
animated version, Brenon’s pioneering adaptation fully realizes Barrie’s
fantasy with visual splendour and whimsy. Tinkerbell (Virginia Browne Faire),
Princess Tiger Lily (Anna May Wong), Neverland’s mermaids, and, of course, Peter’s
foe, the villainous Captain Hook (Ernest Torrence) dazzle the Darling children
and viewers alike—especially entertaining is Nana the Dog, embodied to comic
effect by George Ali in a fluffy dog suit (Ali also depicts Neverland’s
crocodile). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">More
modern than the Brothers Grimm, J.M. Barrie was one of the biggest names of the
era, and an international celebrity in his own right. His play <i>Peter Pan, or
the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up</i> had its first performance in London in 1904,
and became a sensation that would soon overshadow the beloved author’s other
work. In 1924, the first film adaptation of Barrie’s iconic property went into
production. Directed by Herbert Brenon, and sticking close to Barrie’s original
stage play, Paramount’s <i>Peter Pan</i> was a box-office sensation and served
as a substantial contribution to the art of silent motion pictures. Its special
effects, which made use of trick photography to depict a diminutive Tinkerbell
were hailed as revolutionary and hugely influenced fantasy films to come. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">Truthfully,
the genesis for “The Enchanted Screen” was my desire to see this timeless film,
in the only archival print available, again on the big screen. I had first
viewed it at The Eastman Museum while studying there and found it mesmerizing
and multilayered—mature, yet childlike, dark at times, yet whimsical and
bouncy. Hearing an audience of children (as well as adults) frantically
clapping to save Tinkerbell’s life is a career highlight. Brenon’s <i>Peter Pan
</i>is magic on screen and an emphatic reminder of the silent era’s lasting
appeal.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjST5NK_FUDfhFGbqhhHvc6ieFbHwUdjKD70kaDErh6N_ZBLCLS9oQutJCeurINK46Q9Tn9YDhqu2eludcArijfuKaQi5R5IXIDkQJq0PY-w0V448JZCnyt4y6GHBqQmMFbzTCvtu7KFxE/s1600/Snow+White.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="589" data-original-width="736" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjST5NK_FUDfhFGbqhhHvc6ieFbHwUdjKD70kaDErh6N_ZBLCLS9oQutJCeurINK46Q9Tn9YDhqu2eludcArijfuKaQi5R5IXIDkQJq0PY-w0V448JZCnyt4y6GHBqQmMFbzTCvtu7KFxE/s640/Snow+White.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><u><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">SNOW WHITE
</span></u></i></b><b><u><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">(J. Searle
Dawley, 1916, US)</span></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">In January
1917, <i>The Kansas City Star</i> sponsored five screenings of a popular silent
film at the city’s convention hall to reward its newsboys. Sixty-seven thousand
newsies showed up. To accommodate the overwhelming crowd, exhibitors projected
the film simultaneously on four walls of the hall, creating an experiential
moving image box—like a proto 360</span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">°</span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;"> cinema.
The chosen film was J. Searle Dawley’s <i>Snow White</i>, an<i> </i>adaptation
of the popular theatrical staging, which had premiered just a few weeks prior
in New York during the Christmas season of 1916. Featuring a childlike
Marguerite Clark, who also starred in Winthrop Ames’s 1912 stage version and
was considered a rival to Mary Pickford, Dawley’s <i>Snow White</i> was—at a
time when feature-length narratives were new cinema attractions—a sensation.
This immersive screening of <i>Snow White</i> would go on to exert a powerful
impact on the history of the medium, as one of those 67,000 newspaper delivery
boys was a fifteen-year-old Walt Disney. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">The 1916
film version of <i>Snow White</i> that so captivated a young Disney departs
from the Grimm fairy tale substantially—including the division of the evil
Queen’s character between Brangomar and a witch known as Hex (Alice Washburn).
Dawley expertly exploited the magical effects made possible by the moving image
for <i>Snow White</i>, and while it diverges from the fairy tale, it transfixed
Disney. In adapting the fairy tale for his studio’s first feature length
production, Disney drew from Clark’s performance and the film's Gothic-inspired
production design. But Dawley’s <i>Snow White </i>wasn’t even the only
Grimm-adaptation produced that year! Charles Weston’s <i>Snow White</i>, with
Aimee Ehrlich, is still extant, albeit rarely revived. It briefly saw the light
of day during a 1987 Disney TV special commemorating the 50th anniversary of <i>Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs,</i> which misattributed clips from the Ehrlich
version as the source of Uncle Walt’s inspiration. It was cautionary tale
for me, and I set out to “know my Snow Whites” (even separating out stills from
the two 1916 versions proved challenging at times). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">Watching <i>Snow
White</i>, I was struck by its modern quality—a true feat for a film set in
19th century Bavaria. Its pacing is distinctly balanced as a three-act play and
never wears on its viewer with unnecessary exposition, as many early feature
lengths do. Its performances, by Clark as well as Washburn, are light and airy,
and reject overly-wrought pantomime—a result no doubt of its lead actress and
her past experiences in the role. Outside of its influence on Disney, and by
extension its pivotal role in film history, Dawley’s <i>Snow White </i>is a
highlight of the era—an appropriately Gothic spin on the princess fairy tale
genre. Menacing at times, it’s a remarkable film that builds tension around the
looming threat to a young woman’s life. Its seriousness is remarkable for 1916
and while it represented a bit of a deep cut, it deserves wider devotion.<br /></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8MYx14lWi5IYL3ulR54Yl2lzyv4Kszp3C7l2VQFgF_Z1ZcDiUhA_0EH2miwjyBedVwMU4L16IUUdskeV-hJvT1a9g0vNKWKJwTBkVmOMnmV8KuJBegEa7qCTgrlpyLUpHxMU0a1o_JkM/s1600/Achmed.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8MYx14lWi5IYL3ulR54Yl2lzyv4Kszp3C7l2VQFgF_Z1ZcDiUhA_0EH2miwjyBedVwMU4L16IUUdskeV-hJvT1a9g0vNKWKJwTBkVmOMnmV8KuJBegEa7qCTgrlpyLUpHxMU0a1o_JkM/s640/Achmed.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><u><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">THE
ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED </span></u></i></b><b><u><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">(Lotte Reiniger, 1926, Weimar Republic)</span></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">While
Disney is occasionally misattributed as the first producer of a feature length
animation, in reality pioneering German animator Lotte Reiniger holds that
distinction. Reiniger produced the earliest <i>surviving </i>long form
animation in 1926. Yet, even then that attribution is murky. History reveals
that Argentine Quirino Cristiani, director of <i>El Apóstol</i> from 1917 and <i>Sin
dejar rastros</i> of one year later, produced the “first” animated feature
length works, yet this is rarely cited as both films were destroyed in a fire.
Lucky for us, <i>Prince Achmed </i>is alive and well. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">Exquisitely
composed of intricate paper cut-outs, magic is infused in every frame of
Reiniger’s silhouette animated film. Reiniger drew from <i>The Blue Fairy Book</i>’s<i>
</i>“One Thousand and One Nights”<i> </i>for her enchanted Arabian tale of
Achmed—a prince tricked by an evil sorcerer and banished to a foreign land
where he falls in love with a princess, only to have to save her from the
kingdom’s evil demons. Claiming to believe “more in the truth of fairy tales
than that found in the newspapers,” Reiniger, unlike her fellow avant-garde
artists who critiqued Weimar politics, dedicated her storytelling to
traditional fables, working well into the sound era with adaptations of <i>Cinderella</i>,
<i>Sleeping Beauty</i>, <i>Puss in Boots</i>, and <i>The Frog Prince</i> to
name a few. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
most-widely attended screening within the series, <i>Prince Achmed </i>is a
testament to animation's lasting hold on audiences. I also appreciated that the
most successful screening was the only film in the series directed by a woman.
I was ever-grateful to Milestone Films for loaning their radiant hand-tinted
print. If ever there was a film that flaunts materiality, it is <i>Prince
Achmed</i>—adding a handcrafted element to the modern, mechanical
twentieth-century marvel is a fitting tribute to one of the twentieth century
most important film pioneers. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHdmyrSvNohmUOoyMC_mZeUM2eHfn8Mm5OrjmSMWbdMrQQdl0R8RTolgqgdxyWbvbKCYg9uK0a9hP-IRjN8xxDCtdZYO0cjVoLGHSA4295qXUFoE58otfr8xjGH5ibHDxfSloyd-j_FZU/s1600/Blue+Bird+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1233" data-original-width="1600" height="491" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHdmyrSvNohmUOoyMC_mZeUM2eHfn8Mm5OrjmSMWbdMrQQdl0R8RTolgqgdxyWbvbKCYg9uK0a9hP-IRjN8xxDCtdZYO0cjVoLGHSA4295qXUFoE58otfr8xjGH5ibHDxfSloyd-j_FZU/s640/Blue+Bird+3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><u><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">THE BLUE
BIRD </span></u></i></b><b><u><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">(Maurice
Tourneur, 1918, US)</span></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">With its
visual splendour, innovative special effects, and enchanted storyline, <i>The
Blue Bird </i>soars to wondrous fairy tale heights, and is widely regarded as a
crowning achievement in the silent filmography of French filmmaker Maurice Tourneur.
Utilizing his background as a graphic designer and assistant sculptor to
Auguste Rodin, Tourneur produced a visually resplendent, enchanting masterpiece
for Paramount Studios. Adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1908 stage play, <i>The
Blue Bird </i> tells of two siblings, Mytyl (Tula Belle) and Tytyl (Robin
Macdougall), who seek to catch “the Blue Bird of Happiness” in the hopes of
restoring their neighbor—a sick little girl. When a fairy godmother (Lillian
Cook) grants Tytyl the power to see the souls of inanimate objects, fire and
water spring to life, as do household items, and the siblings’ dog and cat, who
can magically speak. With its anthropomorphizing of objects and animals <i>The
Blue Bird </i>anticipated Disney’s routine trope of imbuing personality into
the inanimate. (Disney’s 1991 <i>Beauty and the Beast</i>—while in quotation of
Cocteau’s <i>La Belle et la Béte</i>, seems especially influenced by Tourneur’s
sensibilities.) </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">The beauty
and whimsy of <i>The Blue Bird </i>are undeniable—its production design feels
drawn from the very best designers of Belle Époque Paris. Among the “Enchanted
Screen” selections, it was also the most in keeping with the traditional fairy
tale’s dark overtones. For a film about children it is profoundly disturbing at
times—a sequence where Mytyl and Tytyl meet the spirits of their
unborn/miscarried siblings is especially poignant. The Eastman Museum’s
gloriously tinted restored print was a reminder of how imperative theatrical
experiences of these grand European-influenced films are. Experienced together,
with live accompaniment, the fairy tale magic infused within the medium of
moving images is apparent. While Tourneur’s <i>The Blue Bird</i> was a bit of a
deep cut (Tourneur is well studied for his collaborations with Mary Pickford
and big screen adaptations like <i>The Last of the Mohicans</i>), it is a
testament to the director’s singular creativity and ability to distill European
aesthetics within American studio productions. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRKc5DF9scqUKTGZL4r9LD6anCVTJVWCxJvZqqc1p75MaGmfmAhuCwEFGg648q36MYPV5YP58DHL3ygaBH-gxgCqdkFx1hf4np0tYq-bMpS9G3chjR9GMJpTmNoMb17BpNBb-EV0tUbQA/s1600/Nibelungen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="859" data-original-width="1200" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRKc5DF9scqUKTGZL4r9LD6anCVTJVWCxJvZqqc1p75MaGmfmAhuCwEFGg648q36MYPV5YP58DHL3ygaBH-gxgCqdkFx1hf4np0tYq-bMpS9G3chjR9GMJpTmNoMb17BpNBb-EV0tUbQA/s640/Nibelungen.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><u><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">DIE
NIBELUNGEN</span></u></i></b><b><u><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;"> (Fritz Lang, 1924-1925, Weimar Republic)</span></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">Based on
13th century Norse legend, Fritz Lang's stunning two-part epic was the silent
era's <i>The Lord of the Rings </i>in its visionary rendering of literary
fantasy and mythic storytelling. In <i>Sigfried</i>—the first part of the <i>Nibelungen
</i>cycle and the genre forebear of the fantasy film—Lang envisioned a distant
past with Teutonic knights slaying dragons, magical trolls threatening
kingdoms, and evil queens seeking vengeance. A tale of chivalry, the warrior
Prince Sigfried (Paul Richter) is mesmerized by stories of princess Kriemhild's
(Margarete Schön) beauty. He sets out to find her in a distant kingdom, passing
through enchanted woods and encountering peril along the way. After slaying a
fierce dragon, Sigfried bathes in its blood making him invincible to all foe,
or so he believes. However, winning the hand of Kriemhild is just the beginning
of a long battle that will end in tragedy. With the second installment, the
underrated <i>Kriemhild’s Revenge</i>—released the next year—the story
transitions into a dark expressionist nightmare of war and bloodshed, with the
princess commanding an army in her quest to avenge the death of her beloved.
Predating <i>Metropolis </i>(1927) with its innovative special effects, lush
production design, and masterful direction, <i>Die Nibelungen </i>is an
achievement of epic proportion and one key to understanding Lang’s command over
the medium.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">Presented
in a recent 4K restoration produced by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation
(the digital restorers of <i>Destiny</i>), and, with audience comfort in mind,
screened over two consecutive evenings, Lang’s epic played with as much
excitement and visual splendor as any modern big budget fantasy franchise. Its
gargantuan 280-minutes long runtime felt remarkably svelte—a testament to
Lang’s mastery in pacing. Having now seen it projected on a big screen, it’s
difficult to imagine seeing it any other way. The only screening within “The
Enchanted Screen” to not feature live musical accompaniment, we took advantage
of the restoration’s score—drawn from Weimar composer Gottfried Huppertz’s
original 1924 orchestration for the film. The perfect blending of sound and
vision, <i>Die Nibelungen </i>could have marked a breaktaking climax to the
series, yet I wanted to close with something lighthearted, fun, and fancy free.
</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvp_QTE2rND1cA0JbJK-VttPl6f0werdxqYtcRj56jHUD1zKjQsHN4oF6o5BFZbiVJ9do0RtDok75UM342EVG00hw-_9TdPHGWS1ISmUvEtH6VkU3O4m0W0MKObTe3cB-UiheaM9h_LxU/s1600/Ella-Cinders.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="535" data-original-width="938" height="364" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvp_QTE2rND1cA0JbJK-VttPl6f0werdxqYtcRj56jHUD1zKjQsHN4oF6o5BFZbiVJ9do0RtDok75UM342EVG00hw-_9TdPHGWS1ISmUvEtH6VkU3O4m0W0MKObTe3cB-UiheaM9h_LxU/s640/Ella-Cinders.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><u><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">ELLA
CINDERS </span></u></i></b><b><u><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">(Alfred E. Green, 1926, US)</span></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">To me, <i>Ella
Cinders </i>(1926)<i> </i>was the perfect conclusion to “The Enchanted Screen.”
A modern retelling of Cinderella for the Jazz Age, it<i> </i>stars flapper
extraordinaire Colleen Moore as a hard-done-by sweetheart treated cruelly by her
stepmother and stepsisters. Spoofing Hollywood’s rags to riches themes, Ella
attempts to realize her dream of becoming a starlet by entering a beauty
contest that promises its winner a bonafide studio contract. Required to attend
a dance at the town’s hall, wherein the winner will be chosen, Ella is
mortified by her evil stepsisters’ betrayal and is forced to flee the ball.
Having left a slipper behind, the contest’s judges seek out the mysterious
girl. With its meta-Hollywood theme, the film features numerous cameos from
noted 1920s players, including Harry Langdon (in a sequence attributed to
director Frank Capra). A charming comedy that was based on a syndicated comic
strip, <i>Ella Cinders</i> is a brilliant updating of the most classic of fairy
tales. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">Alfred E.
Green’s modern fairy tale retelling is as hilarious as the celebrated King
Vidor comedies <i>The Patsy </i>(1928)<i> </i>and <i>Show People </i>(1928)—both
similar in their lampooning of Hollywood excess and ego. Hilarious, whimsical,
and eccentric, <i>Ella Cinders </i>is an important reminder for why we must pay
attention to Colleen Moore—in it, her wit and physical comedy are outstanding.
In closing “The Enchanted Screen” with <i>Ella Cinders</i>, I wanted to remind
audiences that sprinkles of fairy dust can be found throughout film history,
even within modern settings. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9IIKiwjAVycxRG6ZLY7JvYxTIp965YZl-8s400MrCIjhfNC_NRSue08lD-T5rbxELAzGtSk6IPC9dstC3o3w_9krPrfn7_yotE-bp9D7kAZNo65BXC-gzLpK7pqUjOF_Ws3B3DO8pOz8/s1600/Kiss+for+Cinderella.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="631" data-original-width="800" height="504" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9IIKiwjAVycxRG6ZLY7JvYxTIp965YZl-8s400MrCIjhfNC_NRSue08lD-T5rbxELAzGtSk6IPC9dstC3o3w_9krPrfn7_yotE-bp9D7kAZNo65BXC-gzLpK7pqUjOF_Ws3B3DO8pOz8/s640/Kiss+for+Cinderella.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">Looking
forward</span></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">Not all
dreams come true. While I’m proud of the eight features, and several shorts
that I presented, and eternally grateful to their lenders, notable, coveted
titles had to remain on the drawing board, including Brenon’s follow-up to <i>Peter
Pan</i>, <i>A Kiss for Cinderella </i>(1925). Also starring Bronson in the
title role, as well as Esther Ralston—who had played the Darling matriarch in <i>Peter
Pan</i>—as Cinderella’s fairy godmother, <i>A Kiss for Cinderella</i> was
another success for Paramount and the director. A gem of the silent era, it is
an under-programmed, rarely discussed film. Prints are relatively difficult to
screen due to rarity, hence the omission from “The Enchanted Screen.” Should
“The Enchanted Screen” ride again, I would go to even greater efforts to
include Brenon’s <i>Cinderella </i>retelling, a film that I am sad to admit to
having not seen—but I can attest to its beauty on the basis of its lush
production stills. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">As the
series progressed week to week, more titles came to mind as the expanding
definition of the fairy tale came to light. Lubitsch comedies like <i>The Doll </i>(1919)
seem perfectly poised to fit in with this kind of enchantment. So too do German
Expressionist masterworks outside of Lang’s realm—Murnau’s <i>Faust </i>(1926),
for instance, or Paul Leni’s <i>Waxworks</i> (1924). It’s my hope that “The Enchanted
Screen” finds new venues, as well as an ever-evolving life as a series that
continues to absorb new, fascinating takes on what a fairy tale on screen can
mean. The fantasy genre has always held a nebulous, shifting definition,
bleeding over to a number of other genres. This is apparent in the silent era,
as well as today. What fantasy and fairy tale provided me, as a framework, was
a lure to draw in audiences—Disney nostalgics, Tolkien fanatics, comic book
junkies—to the marvels of the silent era. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">When
discussing the Disney-funded restoration of <i>Peter Pan </i>on stage, my
remarks pointed out that Disney—currently a corporate conglomerate that
consumes and re-packages our most valued fantasy-infused properties (the
Muppets, Marvel, etc.) under their branding—can never truly exercise ownership
over stories and characters that live in the shared cultural imagination. As I
finished my introduction, which argued for looking further than Disney and into
the silent era for an explanation of why we continue to turn to these stories,
the 35mm archival print from the Eastman Museum was finally projected, and
there, up on screen was that unmistakable Disney logo from the 1990s—that one
that played over every one of my cherished Disney VHSs. An artifact of its preservation
history, or more specifically, its funding, it made me realize that the Disney
of my childhood created the preconditions for a love of silent film—magic,
whimsy, at times macabre and grotesque musings of fairy tale and folklore.
Inherently, we are trained to seek out these stories, both because we were
raised on Disney, and because it taps into something far older. And if any
conclusion can be drawn, it’s that fantasy’s stronghold on today’s box office
isn’t new, nor is it only attributable to The House of Mouse—but rather it was
always there, from the very crank of the first moving image projectors. The box
office sensations of the teens and twenties, these films are remarkably modern
and timeless in their appeal. They look back and they look forward. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /><b>About the Author</b><i><br /></i></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><i><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></i></span></span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><i><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Alicia Fletcher is a Toronto-based visual researcher, curator, and educator dedicated to promoting and advocating for the preservation of the moving image and its ephemera. Since 2012, she has curated <a href="http://revuecinema.ca/revue-series/silent-revue/">Silent Revue</a>, Toronto's year-round exploration of silent film held at the historic Revue Cinema, as well as <a href="http://theroyal.to/ladies-of-burlesque/">Ladies of Burlesque</a>, a vaudeville-inspired classic film series at Toronto's Royal Cinema currently in its third year. Recently, the Toronto International Film Festival's Cinematheque featured Alicia's curated programs "The Enchanted Screen: Fantasy in Silent Film," as well as "Safety Not Guaranteed: A Century of Harold Lloyd." Her</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div style="color: #222222; display: inline!important; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; white-space: normal;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div style="color: #222222; display: inline!important; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; white-space: normal;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div style="color: #222222; display: inline!important; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; white-space: normal;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> film criticism appears regularly in Cinema Scope Magazine and she is a member of the Visual Researchers Society of Canada.</span></div>
</span></span></div>
</span></span></div>
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</style>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05769385689593543014noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-16922138812268471782018-04-15T17:48:00.000-07:002018-05-13T06:01:49.222-07:00Keeping It 'Brevity': Celebrating Inscrutable Shorts on DVD and Blu-ray<div class="MsoNormal">
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by Kyle Westphal</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkB4UfqR_wPwck8ZfyBJ9oFejW34gFV8Rv8oGmkCOyIOoz_zQ5oyE14RWWDij0G5nxl2xajPteCf_yrxsDwrplnHnNC2Yo5ULVtvZrNwGx1a-3PM9qkbWoUjpeTKugMK9gn2qzq8GjKAU/s1600/menu_the_covered_wagon_m05_blu-ray.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="211" data-original-width="281" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkB4UfqR_wPwck8ZfyBJ9oFejW34gFV8Rv8oGmkCOyIOoz_zQ5oyE14RWWDij0G5nxl2xajPteCf_yrxsDwrplnHnNC2Yo5ULVtvZrNwGx1a-3PM9qkbWoUjpeTKugMK9gn2qzq8GjKAU/s640/menu_the_covered_wagon_m05_blu-ray.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
How has film culture changed as fans move from the video
store to streaming services, and what’s been lost?</div>
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<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/movies/dvd-extras.html">A piece in the<i> New York Times </i>earlier this month</a> asked this increasingly familiar question, focusing on
the fate of future filmmakers growing up today without access to the audio
commentaries, making-of featurettes, and assorted extra that my generation took
for granted. “[H]ours of geeky, director-narrated analysis at a low cost is
gone” laments Fabrice Robinet, who coaxes similar sentiments from the makers of
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Stranger Things </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Kindergarten Teacher</i>, this year’s
directorial prizewinner at Sundance.</div>
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It’s true that the supplements that once clogged DVDs and
Blu-rays like barnacles on a schooner are increasingly absent from streaming
platforms and digital download services, and even big studio releases that
would’ve rated multi-disc collector’s editions a decade ago are hitting the
marketplace in perfunctory plainwrap. The once-familiar “film school in a box”
moniker attached to DVDs and Blu-rays feels increasingly archaic, not least
because studios are betting that consumers will forgo the box in favor of the
cloud.</div>
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If DVDs and Blu-rays are truly yesterday’s delivery system,
I won’t miss all the audio commentaries and alternate angles and vfx
featurettes. What I will miss are all the strange, unaccountable shorts hauled
out of the vault and plopped onto discs to accompany the main feature,
seemingly at random. Warner Bros. found a new home for its massive library of
one- and two-reel mishegoss when it inaugurated the “Warner Night at the
Movies” program on its 2003 DVDs of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Adventures of Robin Hood </i>(1938), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Treasure of the Sierra Madre </i>(1948), and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yankee Doodle Dandy </i>(1942), pairing a feature film with cartoons,
travelogues, comedy shorts, and trailers, unrelated but for being released in
the same year as the main attraction. I don’t think I’ll ever make it through <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cimarron </i>(1931), but I’ve watched its
accompanying short, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Devil’s Cabaret </i>(1931),
five or six times already. This hellfire musical comedy has nothing to do with
the feature, just an accident of historical proximity and corporate synergy. (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cimarron </i>was released by RKO and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Devil’s Cabaret </i>by M-G-M, but
they’re now united under one intellectual property roof at Warner Bros.)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With silent films on DVD and Blu-ray, the addition of shorts
often goes a long way towards conjuring a cultural context that is otherwise
irretrievable. Of course, producers of silent film discs have fewer options for
extras from the start. (How many silent film directors are still around to
record a nuts and bolts, how-I-made-this-movie-and-you-can-too audio
commentaries? Luckily, historians and archivists have capably taken their place
in the recording studio.) Indeed, two recent releases highlight the genuine
scholarly value that such shorts can provide.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ14XZLtz0AqZ3lMgOFVLC6GvfNka068FHtltBMmkiWW3GIsZv9lcHpV0cwtgedS9EPlRwV3gcYW7N0z-F4vgDMAl792CNv-1XK7ZyUKlwWVxPY20oB4f87J_b7DfLg5in7vTuI-xQX-Q/s1600/CoverWagon_BD_V3-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1373" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ14XZLtz0AqZ3lMgOFVLC6GvfNka068FHtltBMmkiWW3GIsZv9lcHpV0cwtgedS9EPlRwV3gcYW7N0z-F4vgDMAl792CNv-1XK7ZyUKlwWVxPY20oB4f87J_b7DfLg5in7vTuI-xQX-Q/s320/CoverWagon_BD_V3-1.jpg" width="273" /></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Kino</b> has seen fit
to release James Cruze’s epic western <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Covered Wagon</i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>(1923) on Blu-ray, a quantum leap for a
canonical title that last saw a commercial home video release on VHS in 1995. The
Blu-ray recycles an organ score by the late Gaylord Carter from that VHS, and
its creaky ambiance suggests a seventh inning stretch more than it does the art
of cinema. (You might think that’s a crack, but only partly: as film historian
Toby Roan discusses on the accompanying audio commentary, Carter’s long musical
career included a gig playing the organ at Dodger Stadium!)<br />
<br />
As <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Covered Wagon </i>was
M.I.A. for the first twenty years of the DVD era, its reputation has been
eclipsed somewhat by John Ford’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Iron
Horse </i>(1924). Fact is, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Covered
Wagon </i>has long been treated as a museum piece; indeed, it was one of the
very first titles donated to the Museum of Modern Art and made available on
16mm through its Circulating Film Library. It pops up repeatedly on film
society schedules in the 1940s and 1950s, less so as the years wear on. </div>
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That antique positioning was deliberate. As even its
staunchest advocates will acknowledge, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Covered Wagon </i>possesses a self-important air—it’s a B-picture script
elevated by A-level production values and florid intertitles that inflate the
central love triangle to a national epic about “the blood of pioneers – the
blood of lion-hearted men and women who carved a splendid civilization out of
an uncharted wilderness.” It’s a film that historicizes itself, not by quoting
chapter and verse on research sources as Griffith did in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Birth of a Nation </i>(1915) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Intolerance </i>(1916), but by foregrounding the typicality of its incidents,
and freighting them with a force of mythic proportions. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Covered Wagon</i> was an enormous box office success in 1923, but
it feels calculated to play even better to the educators, curators, and amateur
historians of 1943—or 2018. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
That the characters in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Covered Wagon</i> are strictly stock only enhances the folkloric undertow.
Compared to the popular Western films of William S. Hart, whose heroes sought
redemption from genuinely grim sins, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Covered Wagon </i>can only muster J. Warren Karrigan, whose dark past is
revealed to be an opportunistic misunderstanding, with the exoneration
delivered by Abe Lincoln himself.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The video transfer on the Kino disc is unavoidably a mix bag,
assembled as it is from film elements of widely varying quality. The encoding is top-notch and
the Blu-ray capably conveys the photographic beauty of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Covered Wagon</i>, a major feat from Karl Brown that is perhaps
most impressive for how tossed-off and natural his careful compositions appear
to be. The disc is further enhanced by an enthusiastic audio commentary from
Toby Roan and insightful liner notes from my friend Matt Hauske. Neither say
much about the remaining supplement included in the package: a short film
called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Pie-Covered Wagon</i> (1932)
from Poverty Row producer Educational Film Exchanges, transferred from a
latter-day print from Kit Parker Films.</div>
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As a spoof, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Pie-Covered Wagon</i>—which features diaper-clad toddlers shooting arrows,
hunting game, indulging in cringe-inducing racial stereotypes, and, yes,
staging a pie fight—has almost no insight or interest in its target. Its
inclusion suggests only a small fraction of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Covered Wagon</i>’s cultural influence. One would learn more about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Covered Wagon</i> by comparing Cruz’s
epic<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>to its feature successors like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">North of 36 </i>(1924) or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Big Trail </i>(1930). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjviz8PS9yfS5WH122OUcIs8Ve4qI9ciMKp620JldgBjnWVQRwtPrIy2HGz-VuKL8IuPlyRf8Pfk99wGIz7Q2g-pEPND23Af2xLi9hjdKTy1qnYiDWF7Fomx7XqDC6p8TEUOyMftYLERlg/s1600/Pie+Wagon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="485" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjviz8PS9yfS5WH122OUcIs8Ve4qI9ciMKp620JldgBjnWVQRwtPrIy2HGz-VuKL8IuPlyRf8Pfk99wGIz7Q2g-pEPND23Af2xLi9hjdKTy1qnYiDWF7Fomx7XqDC6p8TEUOyMftYLERlg/s400/Pie+Wagon.jpg" width="400" /></a>Watching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Pie-Covered
Wagon </i>for ten agonizing minutes (relieved somewhat by truly crowd-pleasing
dog stunts), one cannot help but wonder why this strange little film exists at
all. It would be easy to assume that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Pie-Covered Wagon </i>simply reflects the contempt reflexively heaped on silent
cinema in the early sound era. If one of the era’s most successful films can be
lampooned as nursery stuff, then nothing’s sacred. </div>
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But no film is produced in a vacuum, even if we’d prefer it
be sucked up by one. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Pie-Covered
Wagon </i>becomes more legible when placed alongside other shorts from the era that are also
scattered as also-rans on various DVDs and Blu-rays. </div>
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To start, the fact that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Covered Wagon </i>was a silent film did not make it an automatic target for
ridicule. There are other contemporary shorts, such as M-G-M’s Dogville series,
that parodied fresher, talkie product (c.f., <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Dogway Melody</i>, a canine take-off on the studio’s own Best
Picture winner <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Broadway Melody </i>from
the year before.) More pertinently, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Pie-Covered Wagon</i> was actually part of a series, The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Burlesks">Baby Burlesks</a> (yes,
really), that was so reviled that it had to switch distributors twice over the
course of eight shorts. As the review of <i>The Pie-Covered Wagon</i> in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hollywood Filmograph </i><a href="http://ia801704.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/0/items/hollywoodfilmogr12holl/hollywoodfilmogr12holl_jp2.zip&file=hollywoodfilmogr12holl_jp2/hollywoodfilmogr12holl_0271.jp2">observed</a>:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Director Charles Lamont had every
opportunity to make the kids do something that would create legitimate laughs,
and resorted to old hokum, making the children look like a lot of manikins
….The first of these fun-films was by far the best, and if Educational are not
careful the School Boards of Education will ban these subjects, as it will make
the children feel that they can get away with most anything. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the positive side of the ledger, the Baby Burlesks
offered Shirley Temple her first screen appearance. The series began at
Universal in 1932 with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Runt Page</i>,
which answers the ever-ready question of how the hard-drinking, hard-living
milieu of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Front Page</i> (1931)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>would play if recast with juvenile
journalists, once again swaddled in diapers. (Both Kino and Criterion have
released different editions of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Front
Page</i>, but neither package includes this wince-inducing short; luckily, it’s
unceremoniously included in Universal’s single-disc Shirley Temple Little
Darling Pack, which collects the only two Temple features in the Universal
library. This DVD once again highlights the superiority of miscellaneous vault
dross to navel-gazing commentary tracks.) </div>
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Eagled-eyed collectors will recognize that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Runt Page</i> is part of the Universal
Brevities series, which also included a short film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boo! </i>(1932), which has been reflexively included on every DVD and
Blu-ray edition of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frankenstein </i>(1931)
since the late 1990s. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boo! </i>is another
half-hearted ribbing of not-really-so-old movies, with a Borsht Belt <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">spieler</i> adding wise cracks and fart
noises to scenes from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frankenstein</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nosferatu </i>(1922), and the otherwise-lost
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Cat Creeps </i>(1930)—a proto-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">MST3K</i> short on laughs but awash in
irreverence. </div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUdDd70kb0A7bgB9KvfiOijhjtACReAbYoBxZdIf60BikWssjqCOOmqszYjEShguP6IuAyAPEL8Uf18tukF5dIMofMcRowPI_Yo1DMaMRuuY1VvwcyYNAUc033_6jCXjtbBpolflqVUYo/s1600/Shoes+Milestone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="564" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUdDd70kb0A7bgB9KvfiOijhjtACReAbYoBxZdIf60BikWssjqCOOmqszYjEShguP6IuAyAPEL8Uf18tukF5dIMofMcRowPI_Yo1DMaMRuuY1VvwcyYNAUc033_6jCXjtbBpolflqVUYo/s400/Shoes+Milestone.jpg" width="281" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Universal Brevities mystery comes full circle with Lois
Weber’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shoes</i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>(1916),
recently released in an exceptionally thoughtful Blu-ray Disc from <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Milestone Films</b>. We’ve <a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2017/05/watching-lois-weber-beginners-guide_18.html">discussed</a>
Weber’s unusually hard-hitting and innovative social problem feature before
(SFSFF’s Rob Byrne produced an <a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/shoes">earlier
iteration</a> of the restoration seen here), so I want to focus on the extras
and Milestone’s commitment to contextualizing even the most head-scratching
inclusions. Not only does the disc include <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Unshod Maiden </i>(1932), the first Universal Brevity, it also includes an
overview of the ill-fated Brevities series from film historian Richard
Koszarski that goes a long way towards dignifying the historical stature of
this very undignified film. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boo!</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Unshod Maiden </i>ransacks a title from the
vault and treats it with all the care of a stock footage merchant, condensing
the story of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shoes </i>to ten minutes and
turning Mary McLaren’s frown into an uncomfortable chuckle. To audiences of
1932, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Unshod Maiden </i>was an innovative
repurposing of unsaleable studio assets. (Per Koszarski’s trade press
clippings, audience and exhibitor enthusiasm was quickly won—and more quickly
squandered.) New Universal product is slickly referenced: there’s an allusion
to John M. Stahl’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Strictly Dishonorable </i>(1931)
and the title itself is a play on James Whale’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Impatient Maiden</i> (1932). If there’s any film that doesn’t merit
this treatment, it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shoes</i>, a film
that was still very much an artistic credit to the Laemmle regime. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
And yet this crude burlesque (burlesk?) on Weber’s socially
engaged drama ultimately proved crucial in the restoration of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shoes</i>, as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Unshod Maiden</i> included footage of select scenes from the original
film not present in any other copy. (Similarly, even the lowly <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boo! </i>offers a brief glimpse of the
otherwise-lost <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Cat Creeps</i>.) It
would be perverse to suggest that watching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Unshod Maiden </i>enhances one’s appreciation of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shoes</i>, but its inclusion highlights all the weird and unfathomable
stuff we would be leaving behind in a streaming world. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-28913043038320920792018-03-21T15:19:00.004-07:002018-05-05T17:38:55.887-07:00The Gospel of Cecil: The King of Kings<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Kyle Westphal<br /> </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivFy0nPXgrQQJ3S3qzp3g6VfmsXVaXrWMv7XP6V9cOAWoo0zlPXdpIUmYh6nhZRaZXetIsYiOw82v1bsN6Zee69nICmVA5Igm-wSvFBFB04e4qJO1eRGo5_cmf53u3KkwrhnWzvxtXRe8/s1600/KoK+Brock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="720" height="444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivFy0nPXgrQQJ3S3qzp3g6VfmsXVaXrWMv7XP6V9cOAWoo0zlPXdpIUmYh6nhZRaZXetIsYiOw82v1bsN6Zee69nICmVA5Igm-wSvFBFB04e4qJO1eRGo5_cmf53u3KkwrhnWzvxtXRe8/s640/KoK+Brock.jpg" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As much a showman as a filmmaker, Cecil B. DeMille
purportedly stumbled upon his first religious epic through a publicity stunt in
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Los Angeles Times</i>. Thousands of
readers submitted story ideas for DeMille’s next picture and the winning entry
came from a lubricant manufacturer in Lansing, Michigan, with a flair for
vernacular verve: “<a href="http://www.chicagofilmsociety.org/2012/04/07/a-mental-and-emotional-red-sea-the-ten-commandments-1923/">You
cannot break the Ten Commandments—they will break you</a>.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Nearly one and a half million dollars later, DeMille debuted
his 1923 rendition of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Ten
Commandments</i>, a film that contrasted the Exodus of the Old Testament with a
modern story of a family struggling to revere and abide by Mosaic law. A
gargantuan hit that played for months, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Ten Commandments</i> suggested a new direction for a filmmaker who had cut his
teeth making westerns, sex comedies, and society melodramas. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So it shouldn’t be surprising that after DeMille
deliberately sought to duplicate the success of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Ten Commandments</i> after he left Paramount Pictures to form his
own production company. Again relying on the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Los Angeles Times</i> for story ideas from the great unwashed masses,
DeMille selected ‘The Deluge’ as his next picture in 1926. Rumors that Warner
Bros. was planning its own rendition of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Noah’s
Ark </i>pushed DeMille to abandon the idea. (Warner eventually made good on
those plans and its 1928 version of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Noah’s
Ark</i>, directed by Michael Curtiz, would follow the formula of DeMille’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Ten Commandments</i>, contrasting the
Great Flood with the recently concluded Great War.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Casting about for a replacement, DeMille received a
flattering proposal from contract writer Denison Clift: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Why skirt around the one great
single subject of all time and all ages—the commandeering, majestic, and most
sublime thin that any man can ever put upon the screen: the Life, Trial,
Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ: in other words, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Life of Christ</i>, with its aw-inspiring
power, its simplicity, and its unutterable tragedy, There are only one or two
men who could possibly have within themselves the power and the understanding
to do this thing. Certainly, to my mind, you are the one to do it. The title of
the picture would be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The King of Kings</i>.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">DeMille instructed his regular scenarist Jeanie Macpherson
to fashion a film from the Gospels. One initial idea followed the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ten Commandments</i> structure, with the
life of Christ contrasted with a modern man who attempts to follow Christ’s
path. Next, Macpherson drew upon Gnostic apocrypha that proposed Judas had
actually been Mary Magdalene’s lover and fashioned a scenario, ‘Thirty Pieces
of Silver,’ that focused on Judas. The final film retains the suggestion of
this sexual union, but uses it largely as a prologue, introducing the audience
to the ancient world through Roman decadence and debauchery so as to better
suggest the decisive break that Christ represented. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT4NKA8ai3MrlhbY7kRPgqYU0Fey-dopa-c9b12839JowOCku-X5bDv5bCTlo_wOFQVwA9hGPv4EcpV8kECqWK5y81PLE7wpzdFcS9WW3cJAHNdO4O-3cU-pyENMpc7wVkDkUDHPQfMyM/s1600/KoK+New+York.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="777" height="339" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT4NKA8ai3MrlhbY7kRPgqYU0Fey-dopa-c9b12839JowOCku-X5bDv5bCTlo_wOFQVwA9hGPv4EcpV8kECqWK5y81PLE7wpzdFcS9WW3cJAHNdO4O-3cU-pyENMpc7wVkDkUDHPQfMyM/s640/KoK+New+York.png" width="640" /></a></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">DeMille’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The King of
Kings</i>, which finally premiered in New York two days after Easter on 19
April 1927, was scarcely the first attempt to bring the life of Christ to the
screen, nor would it remotely be the last. With the DeMille version of the
Passion Play so thoroughly embedded in popular culture and its successors upping
the ante on the story’s theological ambiguity (Scorsese’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Last Temptation of Christ</i>) and graphic violence (Gibson’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Passion of the Christ</i>), it’s perhaps
difficult to appreciate how modern <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
King of Kings </i>would have felt to audiences in the late 1920s, especially in
light of other Biblical films of the silent era. Kalem sent a company to Egypt
and Palestine to produce <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From the Manger
to the Cross</i> in 1912, and that early feature serves as an instructive
comparison to the Gospel of Cecil. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Both films wear their piety proudly, literally quoting
chapter-and-verse in their intertitles. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Manger</i>
used no text save for the Bible; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">King of
Kings</i> took a somewhat more liberal approach, quoting the Gospels at every
opportunity but not bothering to cite a Scriptural basis for one memorable card
in the first reel: “Harness my zebras—gift of the Nubian Kings! This Carpenter
shall learn that he cannot hold a man from Mary Magdalene!” As the title
suggests, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From the Manger to the Cross</i>
glossed Christ’s 33 years in about 70 minutes, while <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">King of Kings</i> covers the last year or so of Christ’s life at a
little over two and a half hours. But the greatest contrast between the two
films comes down to visual style and cinematic grammar. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From the Manger to the
Cross</i> roughly coincided with the importation of historical epics from
Europe (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Quo Vadis</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cabiria</i>) but it looks appallingly
primitive, not only compared with contemporaneous features but with short films
from almost a decade earlier. By 1912, films from Cecil Hepworth’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rescued by Rover</i> to D.W. Griffith’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lonely Villa </i>had already pointed the
way towards a seamless cinematic grammar, building instantly comprehensible
continuity through a succession of shots and camera angles. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From the Manger to the Cross</i> is Cinema,
Anno Domini Zero: a Scriptural quote, then a tableau illustrating it, then
another quote, then another shot. There is no attempt whatsoever to construct
any dynamic relation between shots or successive scenes. Fidelity to text and
setting is always foremost: the flat photography and craggily actors
occasionally suggest that the film itself is as old as its source material.</span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnC2ZCWbaRvFe-hnaa2HR-vzxaHR9gcOBRBEFvXfdBVlP3byccuY5MvY_lzB6NCwMm5cW0hU2xzyT08FXSj3bOul-mSPKnqRkYN261GIu-LRgXedwphlKOm0dzqXySJeTsdi5Tv33PK7I/s1600/KoK+Two-Color+Tech.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="1035" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnC2ZCWbaRvFe-hnaa2HR-vzxaHR9gcOBRBEFvXfdBVlP3byccuY5MvY_lzB6NCwMm5cW0hU2xzyT08FXSj3bOul-mSPKnqRkYN261GIu-LRgXedwphlKOm0dzqXySJeTsdi5Tv33PK7I/s400/KoK+Two-Color+Tech.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">By contrast, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The King
of Kings</i> is the height of cinematic and photographic sophistication. The
craft, especially the art direction of Mitchell Leisen and his uncredited
predecessor Paul Iribe, is on such a high level that the film is captivating
for devout and secular alike. It can’t match <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Manger </i>for authenticity (Catalina Island stands in for Galilee) but
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">King of Kings</i> boasts some of the
finest cinematography of DeMille’s films, including two sequences—the opening
scene with Magdalene and the Resurrection—photographed in two-color Technicolor.
The cameraman was twenty-five-year-old J. Peverell Marley and his work suggests
the ethereal aura of a Pictorialist photogravure. Moving away from liturgical
tableaus and medieval sources that inform other Biblical films, the Crucifixion
scenes feel disarmingly modern and recall the tactile immediacy and eroticism
of F. Holland Day’s 1898 platinum print series <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/269295"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Seven Words</i></a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Describing a movie as ‘timeless’ often connotes a sales push
as much as a critical judgment, but the word genuinely applies to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The King of Kings</i>. Not only is H.B.
Warner’s portrayal of Christ so elemental as to suggest a flesh-and-blood embodiment
of the Messiah familiar from religious tracts, candles, illustrated Bibles, and
the like, the movie itself has proven one of the most commercially durable
films of the silent era. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">William M. Drew’s study <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Last Picture Show: Silent Films on American Screens in the 1930s</i> brackets <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The King of Kings</i> with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Birth of a Nation</i> as ‘the longest
running silent feature.’ That status is no mere accident of history or taste,
but the result of continuous efforts to keep the film commercial viable. Following
the 1927 road show engagements, DeMille released an abridged version of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The King of Kings</i> with a recorded score
and sound effects in 1928, which became the basis for a long theatrical and
non-theatrical afterlife. Two decades after its initial release, the film was
still playing to full houses during Holy Week, as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boxoffice </i>reported in 1948. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLrMUut0cl3urvZC8CXCHe2FnlVgd2RZgH94IUOjwQ5qCpzQn715lopp-r06CmbWOf_fq0AZrMDJCitaiy8_DtyYRSVRm2Qk7ikaZJR6tjeY0kNYNsoF5ex0XfmzTtlrTimkoxG1diD4c/s1600/KOK+Educational+Screen.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="735" data-original-width="991" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLrMUut0cl3urvZC8CXCHe2FnlVgd2RZgH94IUOjwQ5qCpzQn715lopp-r06CmbWOf_fq0AZrMDJCitaiy8_DtyYRSVRm2Qk7ikaZJR6tjeY0kNYNsoF5ex0XfmzTtlrTimkoxG1diD4c/s400/KOK+Educational+Screen.png" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The King of Kings</i>
found a new audience at schools and churches through 16mm after Kodak licensed
the film for its Kodascope Library in 1934. The amateur magazine <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Movie Makers</i> heralded the release as one
that would “permanently enrich the field of substandard library films.” Though
the film’s 16mm distributor changed over the years, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">King of Kings</i> was available in that gauge for decades, seemingly
without interruption. Thousands of 16mm prints were used by traveling
missionaries, including copies with Chinese, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, and
Hindustani intertitles. A 1938 estimate placed the film’s worldwide audience at
six hundred million. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, unlike most silent films, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The King of Kings</i> has never been in any danger of vanishing without
a trace. Yet it’s been some ninety years since viewers could experience the
film as it was seen by its original roadshow audience. The best source for the
bulk of the film remains DeMille’s personal 35mm nitrate print in the
collection of the George Eastman Museum. An earlier black-and-white
preservation derived from this print serves as the basis of the Criterion
Collection DVD of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The King of Kings</i>,
but the nitrate itself is tinted and (briefly) toned. The new Lobster
restoration is scanned in 4K direct from the tinted nitrate, as well as
surviving two-color Technicolor footage from UCLA Film & Television
Archive, with a few brief shots from other sources. The new restoration also
features a digital recreation of the hand-colored effects from Gustav Brock,
which have likewise not been seen since 1927. Seeing is believing. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>SFSFF hosts the American premiere of the restoration of </i>The King of Kings<i> at San Francisco's magnificent Grace Cathedral on Saturday, March 24 at 7:00pm, with a special introduction from Serge Bromberg of Lobster Films. Acclaimed organist David Briggs will
accompany the film on the cathedral's 7,466-pipe Aeolian-Skinner organ. Tickets are still available <a href="https://prod3.agileticketing.net/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=345262~d9133282-4896-49aa-be18-b053ee8cefc3&epguid=9352cd82-5442-4c47-913d-f99702ed1ffb&">here</a>. </i>
</span><br />
<br /></div>
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</style>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-43493567390264308912018-03-09T11:04:00.000-08:002018-05-05T17:39:38.048-07:00When Independents Were in Flower: An Interview with Ben Model and Eric Grayson<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">by Kyle Westphal</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /> </span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvVfOt6BCbJaD0e1QKXlKDJZujkU_Ilya8IU_8V_Y6pWnsE1gmkMrIrIBg62q3IoJ5Fe6zfo9_mZy4xgcBgAJe5Jt_aG7pu_575ulZ0iriLzZvfnuWVvHflLsTMVWSbdQ0lLwMBEQwS-c/s1600/when-knighthood-was-in-flower-1922-image-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="922" height="474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvVfOt6BCbJaD0e1QKXlKDJZujkU_Ilya8IU_8V_Y6pWnsE1gmkMrIrIBg62q3IoJ5Fe6zfo9_mZy4xgcBgAJe5Jt_aG7pu_575ulZ0iriLzZvfnuWVvHflLsTMVWSbdQ0lLwMBEQwS-c/s640/when-knighthood-was-in-flower-1922-image-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Longtime collectors of silent films on home
video remember such labels as Video Yesteryear and Sinister Cinema. Even if you
could barely make out the film after adjusting the tracking three times, it
felt like a privilege just to see the film in any form.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">We’re currently living through a golden age of
availability, with regular silent film DVD and Blu-ray releases from Kino
Lorber, Milestone, Olive Films, and the Criterion Collection. (Region-free
collectors can also count on first-rate releases from Masters of Cinema, the
British Film Institute, and Edition Filmmuseum, among others.) In addition to
these boutique labels, the past few years have seen a handful of efforts from
private individuals who have polished up archival holdings and released discs that
can proudly stand side-by-side with more commercial efforts.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Two recent releases, </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/When-Knighthood-Was-in-Flower-Blu-ray/dp/B072HTTCKV"><i><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">When Knighthood Was In
Flower</span></i></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> from </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="http://tbrnewsmedia.com/historian-ben-model-helps-silent-films-live/"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Ben Model</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">’s </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://www.undercrankproductions.com/DVDs.html"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Undercrank Productions</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> and </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Little-Orphant-Annie-Blu-ray-Combo/dp/B076ZFSNMM"><i><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Little Orphant Annie</span></i></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> from Indiana-based </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="http://www.drfilm.net/blog/"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Eric Grayson</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">,
exemplify this new frontier of collaboration between large archives and
passionate independent producers. Neither film was lost prior to Model’s and
Grayson’s efforts, but they existed in much diminished forms, shorn of
elaborate tinting schemes, hand-colored effects, and even basic continuity.
Both films to home viewers on DVD and Blu-ray; theatrical audiences can see <i>Knighthood
</i>in DCP and <i>Orphant </i>in a newly-struck 35mm print. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I recently conducted a joint interview with
Model and Grayson to explore their methodology and vision for the future of
collaborative restoration projects. <br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">This interview has been
lightly edited for space and clarity.</span></i><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">KYLE WESTPHAL:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Do we want to just dive into it?</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BEN MODEL:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> [Laughs]</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">ERIC GRAYSON:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Yeah, that’s fine.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> I’m chuckling because often whenever I ask Eric a question, his
response is “Yes, but the answer is long and boring.”</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> That’ll probably be something I hold in the cards tonight, too.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> [Laughs]</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Well, I’ll start with Ben, then.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> All right. My answers will be short and less boring.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> The question could be for both of you. What was the impetus of
your projects—both <i>When Knighthood Was in Flower</i> and <i>Little Orphant
Annie</i>—and why did you feel it was upon you personally to take these on,
rather than leaving them to an institution?</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Go ahead, Ben.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> [Laughs] Well, an institution was not going to take this on. I
think Eric is probably in the same boat.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Yep.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSvUzGTiKV-HV5mvU323gxSPce9qtpMLF-a3drtz7-O39MUnQd0dTyaurcIAXJLaBmAk5PxEQWl06zp4IDOQayxbPRMroJmzNts8V8EaVHtAdWqYBU0r9hsgtcGJ1_xhgNm3SGUinsN9g/s1600/when-knighthood-was-in-flower-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="390" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSvUzGTiKV-HV5mvU323gxSPce9qtpMLF-a3drtz7-O39MUnQd0dTyaurcIAXJLaBmAk5PxEQWl06zp4IDOQayxbPRMroJmzNts8V8EaVHtAdWqYBU0r9hsgtcGJ1_xhgNm3SGUinsN9g/s400/when-knighthood-was-in-flower-1.jpg" width="346" /></a></div>
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> There’s a lot of things you see on social media, people
complaining that archives are holding films hostage and they’re not restoring films
out of spite. It’s not that way at all: it’s just that there’s not enough money
and personnel</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">—but especially money</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">—</span></span>to restore all the material that’s in their care.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">What’s great about what’s happened over the last
five years in terms of crowdfunding is that archives who have preserved
materials can work with independent archivists and preservation people to help
put things out. It’s not really on the archives to restore and distribute every single thing
in their care—it can’t be done. Plus it’s not like it’s in an archive’s mandate to act as a distributor, which is a separate kind of business itself.
</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">So, with me, I was looking for another project
to do after doing a number of DVDs of shorts and I thought, ‘Haha, it would be
much easier if I do a feature.’ And it was the same amount of work.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Why did you think it would be less?</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Because it’s one film, as opposed to eight or nine shorts—</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/silentfilm/the-mishaps-of-musty-suffer-silent-film-dvd"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">”The Mishaps of Musty
Suffer”</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> or </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/silentfilm/the-marcel-perez-collection-silent-film-dvd"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“The Marcel Perez
Collection.”</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> As it happened to turn out
with the Marion Davies project, <i>When Knighthood Was in Flower</i>, it wound
up taking longer but only because 400 ft. of film that nobody knew existed
turned up and that added time to the project.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I was looking for a feature. I looked at a few
different titles and with <i>When Knighthood Was in Flower</i>, I watched it
and I thought it was a good film. “Really? This isn’t available? This is pretty
good. It’s an important film.”</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Eric, was it largely the same thing that drove you to put out <i>Little
Orphant Annie</i>, the same thinking?</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Yeah, there was a little bit more with me. First of all, I knew
that the film existed. I knew there was demand for it. It’s an Indiana film and
Indiana films have some demand here. And I knew that I could get </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1622418422/colleen-moore-jw-riley-little-orphant-annie-silent"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">funding</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> for it.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I went to Library of Congress and they said,
“Look, this isn’t on our list of stuff we’re going to restore.”</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I said, “OK, fine.”</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">For the same reasons Ben said, there was no
reason to accuse them of being a terrible custodian of history, ‘cause that’s
not what they were. They just knew that this was not important for what their
mission was. I knew I could get funding for this and they said, “Great!”</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Then they scanned all the copies of it—they had
a rotting [35mm] nitrate and they had several 16mm copies. Just like Ben, I
kept finding [more]: ‘Ooh, there’s another piece of this here’ or, ‘There’s
another collector has another piece of this.’ There’s another piece of it out
here.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I had another problem that Ben didn’t have—lucky
for Ben. The prints that I had on <i>Little Orphant Annie</i> were terrible.
They were just absolutely, hideously bad and it needed digital restoration even
to be watchable. So, I kept looking at this and going, ‘Oh man, this is a
problem.’ But again, I knew that I had a small audience for it. I knew that I
could get it preserved and I knew, just frankly, that if I didn’t do this, it
was never going to be done.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Exactly.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9BitSk381-LZIjJlj6sxZqs6y7fEe5Wwpr71cHFB2MrgETL3QYSF3GKBJ4KRKuj614xz_sgeC90OTnGWyjXmLj4d9OhDOoRob3GSArRDxL-DNlB5a1Pon8Xz2XVKy4me5ZuhrRc83dJ8/s1600/Little+Orphant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1216" data-original-width="1600" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9BitSk381-LZIjJlj6sxZqs6y7fEe5Wwpr71cHFB2MrgETL3QYSF3GKBJ4KRKuj614xz_sgeC90OTnGWyjXmLj4d9OhDOoRob3GSArRDxL-DNlB5a1Pon8Xz2XVKy4me5ZuhrRc83dJ8/s400/Little+Orphant.jpg" width="400" /></a><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> If I hadn’t done this, the nitrate on <i>Little Orphant Annie</i>
would’ve rotted. We only got six minutes of it, but it’s six minutes of really fun
film. The 16 wasn’t in great shape, either—it was jittering so much you could
hardly watch it. The 16s are still around, but the 35s aren’t, so we got to
this just in time.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> And the 35 gave you a clue as to the tinting and toning scheme.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Oh, the 35 was indispensable for that. Not only did it give me a
clue to the tinting and toning, but the 16s had been printed out of sequence
because the 16s were in tinting order. So, the 16s on this had been wrong since
1926 and they didn’t make any sense. This movie had been out there, it had been
bootlegged to video years ago and it had been unfairly maligned in the
marketplace because it didn’t make any sense.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">It was printed in tinting order and nobody ever
figured out that it was in the wrong order because you jumped around in time
and all this kinda stuff. It was just really goofy. I had to undo all that. And
the 35 gave me an idea—even though it was rotting, you could see, OK, this
shot’s here, this shot’s here, and I could see what order it was supposed to be
in, instead of what order it was actually in.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> So, there was no surviving script or continuity for it?</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Yes, there is surviving script and continuity --</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Really?!</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> -- and I found that out about six months into the restoration.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Cool.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Would you have been able to do the project without that? I assume
the end product is better because you had it.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Not really that much difference because I had figured out exactly
what the continuity should be and I had it right. It wasn’t that hard to figure
out once you knew why the problem was there.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Colleen Moore had actually saved an early
version of the script that wasn’t the final script, so it gave you an idea of
the some of the scenes they cut prior to release. And so we understand that
they changed the ending, so it gave us insight into that, but I don’t think it
made much difference finding the script.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Ben, you mentioned that five years ago, this wouldn’t have been
possible. Is that just because of crowdfunding and restoration technology or –</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> It’s absolutely because of crowdfunding. The technology, to some
degree, was always there, in terms of what could be done by an independent
person, but the costs involved with the production, whether it’s shipping
material back and forth or getting things scanned or, in Eric’s case, a
film-out, or paying for a score—and boy, you should see what I charge.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> I bet.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Just kidding. For me, that was a game-changer. That, and the ease of distribution through an MOD platform like Amazon’s CreateSpace.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDsfYk0KQGD1oZZRiVBsz_snN920IGZ_BxcIh1TXycW9WUuXwdQFxy2dNy8INJ-XoN8xYxCesD4bOMv0fxXFUc2LK5hGYu9TGa3t-2fYU4mKH8zn_5g4zIY-5vF2PMy1kNOVdTJa02JZk/s1600/AP1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="285" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDsfYk0KQGD1oZZRiVBsz_snN920IGZ_BxcIh1TXycW9WUuXwdQFxy2dNy8INJ-XoN8xYxCesD4bOMv0fxXFUc2LK5hGYu9TGa3t-2fYU4mKH8zn_5g4zIY-5vF2PMy1kNOVdTJa02JZk/s320/AP1.jpg" width="228" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">My first Kickstarter was 2012 and that was for </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/silentfilm/accidentally-preserved-rare-and-lost-silent-films"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Accidentally
Preserved, Vol. 1</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">, which was eight or
nine rare comedy shorts that I had in my closet. I thought, if nobody sees
them, they’re still lost. So, I thought, lemme see what happens. I was able to
fund that.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">In the previous year or two I had been
researching what people in the music industry were doing as far as making a
living, because the bottom had fallen out for them ten to fifteen years prior
with the death of album sales. By going to webinars and subscribing to blogs by
people Seth Godin and Dave Kusek, and trying to understand, how do you reach
fans, how do you connect with people?</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">So, I thought, ‘OK, this could certainly work.’
That’s what gave me the idea. Crowdfunding has really changed it. Every one of
the Kickstarters that I’ve done has been successfully funded. I think
everything that Eric has done has been successfully funded. Everything that </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1079843982/on-dangerous-ground-1917"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Ed Lorusso</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> has done and </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="http://moviessilently.com/"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Fritzi Kramer</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">
did one. Every year we see more of these. The </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="http://www.3dfilmarchive.com/"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">3D Film Archive</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">,
some of those have been crowdfunded. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="http://www.cartoonsonfilm.com/"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Tommy Stathes</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">.
There are fans out there who are willing to say, “I like what you’re doing, I
want to see this, I don’t care if I send 25 or 30 bucks and I have to wait
seven or eight months for it—I believe in you and the project.”</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> I’m also curious how much of a change there’s been in the
relationship between big, institutional archives and collectors and independent
preservationists like yourself that would make even starting a dialogue like
this possible in terms of licensing.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> It’s been possible for a few decades at least for people to buy
copies on film or video or digital from the Library of Congress. That’s
something that has not changed. It’s not like Library of Congress is now making
this stuff available. That’s always been possible and </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/mopic/rates.html"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">they’ve always had their rates posted online</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">And I’d intended, with the Mishaps of Musty
Suffer, to go that route, but I’m in a specific position because I’m one of the
Library of Congress’s film accompanists and I’m down there five or six times a
year and was able to work out a co-branding arrangement.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I don’t think any of the other archives have
changed but their funding situation is different. But the Library of Congress
is government funded and they’re in a different position.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> I’m going to have to disagree with Ben gently on these points –</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Okay.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> -- and part of it is because of what we’ve done. When it comes to
technology … I did my first one of these with my own thing in 2012: a
restoration of <i>King of the Kongo</i>, because I knew where all the elements
were. And I can tell you that the technology has certainly gotten a lot better
from 2012 to now. I could not have done what I did with <i>Little Orphant Annie</i>
in 2011, 2012. It wouldn’t have happened. The technology wasn’t there, the
computers weren’t fast enough, the hard drives weren’t big enough. Just in
those few years, it’s changed and gotten better.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKEgLEXJEjOmAb-NqRniEPp9b_tIS_-HzO1qx4Obnzd_ykHHT7l0mGpzy5EvVlUquze6fsHbHxdhdNZ2L6-l5w1CFf08x2rgCeWjMIXkzJYKn9IZyetzme51AP1tXUCrcZ2wPpORapio0/s1600/LOA+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1216" data-original-width="1600" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKEgLEXJEjOmAb-NqRniEPp9b_tIS_-HzO1qx4Obnzd_ykHHT7l0mGpzy5EvVlUquze6fsHbHxdhdNZ2L6-l5w1CFf08x2rgCeWjMIXkzJYKn9IZyetzme51AP1tXUCrcZ2wPpORapio0/s400/LOA+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">What’s also happened—and this is partly due to
what Ben and I have done, but especially Ben—the fact that we’re doing these
and the fact that this has been seen and known is making all the other archives
sit up and take notice. I contacted UCLA the other day—and I can’t tell you <i>why</i>
I had contacted UCLA, but I contacted them for a restoration that I wanted to
do.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I said, “I’d like access to such-and-such film.”</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">They said, “Oh yeah, we know who you are. You
did <i>Little Orphant Annie</i>.”</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">And I said, “Oh wow.”</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">So, they’re sitting up and taking notice.
They’re realizing that there’s been a longstanding idea that collectors are bad
guys because there have been so many collectors who <i>were</i> bad guys, like
Raymond Rohauer. What we’re now starting to realize is the collectors aren’t
bad guys—they want this stuff to be available, too.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Now that you can do some restoration and some
quality work, not only are the archives taking me seriously, the film labs are,
too. They’re saying, “I realize that you’re doing this and I realize that
you’re doing for a good cause. Maybe we can give you a break on lab fees.” I’ve
gotten some good stuff with that, too.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> That’s good news.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Yes, it is. It needs to happen because there’s been too much of a
chasm between the film archives who have so many of these films and the people
saving them. And I think we’re all in the same boat.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> So, Eric, I know you can’t talk about the UCLA project, but are
there any projects that you can talk about, that you think would be ideal for
this kind of model?</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Well, it’s interesting that projects are being thrown in my
direction now by people who want something done. One of them is—and Ben I
haven’t talked to you about this because it’s still burgeoning—but one of them
is <i>Ella Cinders</i>.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Oh yeah.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> It’s a very interesting project because we’re finding that
there’s documentation on the missing reel and a half of footage that didn’t
make it to preservation but we have script and music continuity.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> And that film just survives in Kodascope if I’m not mistaken.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Kodascope form, yes.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I’m also working on a Tod Browning film called <i>The
White Tiger</i> from 1923, which may be another potential project.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">And I just finished something that most people
don’t even think is a good preservation project, but it really got funded by </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://www.filmpreservation.org/"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">National Film Preservation Foundation</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">. I’ve worked with them—I’ve done three National Film Preservation
projects now and they fund lab work, which really helps me. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://www.filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/2016-federal-grant-winners"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The Milan High School
games</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">, which was the inspiration
for the movie <i>Hoosiers</i> back in ’86. It’s not a big deal in Chicago, but
once you get over the line into Indiana, everyone knows about this. Those films
were on the brink of dying. I got to save it—and we actually have the original
game films that weren’t thought to survive.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy1Ut-DPQlyFflMk98w7hZte2bPz6bg1pjw6HIwammkVr9kv7W5nF0WyCelICFhOwzQs15APcPOOF2ke1uUSzCFszh5eS5BPepqaMftCF1XiwY4VcQii3xu40slVf7iXY9ws503WTfxf4/s1600/when-knighthood-was-in-flower-1922-image-13.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy1Ut-DPQlyFflMk98w7hZte2bPz6bg1pjw6HIwammkVr9kv7W5nF0WyCelICFhOwzQs15APcPOOF2ke1uUSzCFszh5eS5BPepqaMftCF1XiwY4VcQii3xu40slVf7iXY9ws503WTfxf4/s640/when-knighthood-was-in-flower-1922-image-13.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> I have a DVD coming out in the spring that is something that
Library of Congress approached me about, which was a project they had done
working with the Thomas Edison Museum, restoring several Kinetophone sound
films from 1913.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Cool!</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> I saw the restorations, and they’re amazing. I was also able to shoot an extra that documents the history of the films. If I can get the time together, that should be out in May, if not sooner.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> You won’t need to accompany those films.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> That’s the best part. My favorite part about the Lon Chaney and <i>Whispering Shadows </i>DVDs from last
year were the [scores] from Jon Mirsalis and Andrew Simpson. Thank God I didn’t
have to play the piano for them. Those turned out very well.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">But as far as the future, I’m not really sure.
It’s gotten much more difficult, just in the last few months, just to get the
word out. Facebook has changed their algorithm, both on the business pages and
your own personal page and it’s just gotten harder to reach people. It’s a lot
of time and a lot of work that goes into these things.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">And also, as every year passes, I think, ‘This
is the end of DVDs and Blu-rays.’ And it hangs on for another year. Streaming,
unfortunately, is very limited in terms of what can be offered, what is
offered. There’s no money in streaming.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I do shows at universities and about a year ago
I realized, ‘Schmuck, don’t bring your DVDs to sell, because they don’t know
what it is. They don’t know what a DVD is, they don’t have a way to play it.’
There’s an audience, and all they do is stream, but no one is going to look for
your stuff because it’s so obscure. Some of my stuff is available for streaming on Amazon and
I’ve sold three downloads in a couple of years.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> You can go on YouTube or Archive.org and this stuff is up there,
but it’s up there in terrible, unwatchable quality.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> There’s definitely a need for that kind of streaming service, but
there’s no money in streaming.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> I think the only thing we do is start our own site.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> It’s the only way to make it happen.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> I’m working on it.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> That’s great. The most important thing is that people understand
that rather than looking to people like me and Eric to do more projects, we
need five Erics and four of me and a couple of Tommy Stathes and four Ed
Lorussos and a few Steve Stanchfields and three Fritzi Kramers. I’m happy to explain the basic formula of
how this works. What we really need is more people taking on projects so that
more material can get out there.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Well, I’d be very sorry if you stopped doing projects like this,
especially because, as you said, there’s always this feeling of, ‘But not for
me taking on this project, this film, which might not look very good in its
current form, might not look very distinguished, might not look like it’s worth
restoring at all --‘</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy0ViHRP8LShDR6421nLkfG0ikyQZvQPA-ezEIyKL2l3Ucmwveq_ZPSuDqSXaWI31oQC3ZHHX-aAz28KLpkqhRHRNsC2j9sMDG60NMGSXGsSFeGcBCND9i495KjJ3pG-uFT_S-9KJIdOc/s1600/Goblins.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1216" data-original-width="1600" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy0ViHRP8LShDR6421nLkfG0ikyQZvQPA-ezEIyKL2l3Ucmwveq_ZPSuDqSXaWI31oQC3ZHHX-aAz28KLpkqhRHRNsC2j9sMDG60NMGSXGsSFeGcBCND9i495KjJ3pG-uFT_S-9KJIdOc/s400/Goblins.jpg" width="400" /></a><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Right.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> You have that nagging sense inside yourself that’s not so much
ego as an obligation to the material.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Right. I appreciate that, but what’s been great is that there are
more people out there having the same idea, like the project that Fritzi Kramer
has embarked on with the Edison program that she’s putting out. It started out
as a</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1765285926/release-kidnapped-1917-four-short-films-on-dvd"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none;"> </span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">project to release the movie <i>Kidnapped</i></span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> and it turns out that all the shorts that were part of that
program survive at the Library of Congress.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The thing is, it isn’t that complicated. It’s a
matter of the willingness to do it. It doesn’t have to be me. I’m really not
sure. I can’t tell what I’m going to be able to do. I think Eric will back me
up on this—the amount of time. It always takes longer than you think and it
takes up more of your life than you expect. You have to find a way of balancing
it. Here’s a film that should be out there, but do I have time?</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Yes, well, I agree with all of those things except if I can make
my money back on <i>Little Orphant Annie</i> … [Laughs]</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> [Laughs]</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> -- which is going to kinda dicey because I went over budget on
that and over time on that, what I’m hoping to do is a little different. I’m
hoping to keep doing this and I’m hoping to be more of a supervisor of this
stuff and farm it out to various different people.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> I’m actually in the same place – if I could figure out a way to
outsource more of the project and streamline the process in terms of my own
involvement, I’m with you on that.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> I did that with <i>Little Orphant Annie</i>. I did everything I
could possibly do and Thad Komorowski worked on some stuff, Tommy Stathes
worked on some stuff for me. I did only the work that I absolutely needed to
do. Unfortunately, the work that I needed to do was extremely horrible and took
way too much time, but I think I can streamline that.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">So, the question is, can I farm this out and are
people motivated enough to help me without causing me a bunch of political
stuff? Can you get somebody to help you? Can you get this stuff farmed out so
that I can do what I’m best at, which is the preservation and the history,
while someone else figures out how to get the dust out or can duplicate three
frames back [to fill in a missing frame].</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAJAPlC3Aze3hkhlDhEHCZU-JG3ZC7_jQjSRdaxpV0buGNVnuBlE7kRGy-s_nE1n9QCnG2ytPTpaZ0j3bbkbTCAqreLTl5AZlUSlIEUY48NlNjUvGkMCIvnkZV1aDgG9dy281UC19VPE4/s1600/when-knighthood-was-in-flower-1922-image-18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAJAPlC3Aze3hkhlDhEHCZU-JG3ZC7_jQjSRdaxpV0buGNVnuBlE7kRGy-s_nE1n9QCnG2ytPTpaZ0j3bbkbTCAqreLTl5AZlUSlIEUY48NlNjUvGkMCIvnkZV1aDgG9dy281UC19VPE4/s400/when-knighthood-was-in-flower-1922-image-18.jpg" width="400" /></a><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Or make titles for you. I’ve gotten someone to do titles for me
on the new Perez DVD. “Oh, great, I now don’t have to do that anymore.”</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Those are all kinds of things that we need to do. We need Ben for
playing the piano. I need more people to learn Colorshop and Final Cut Pro. I
need more people to learn PF Clean. It’s definitely possible.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> But we really need more people who, instead of complaining why
they can’t get access to stuff, to roll up their sleeves and help us –</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> No kidding!</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> -- and make more projects happen.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Exactly.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> There is material, just a matter of more people shifting from
being consumers to being part of the solution as well.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> The same thing with all this, you have plenty of people who say,
“I want to sit at home and not do anything,” and they also want to complain
that this stuff isn’t available.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Well, you know, I put my rubber to the road and
I’m going to go to Chicago and run <i>Little Orphant Annie</i> and I’m going to
go to Ohio and go to Cinesation. I’m going to go to New York and watch movies
there and I’m going to spend money at labs and get lab stuff printed. If
someone wants me to help with other things, I can’t do all those. I’m happy to
be a part of it, but I’m not Superman and I can’t dance at two weddings.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Yeah, we just need more people to roll up their sleeves and join
the party. Access is the commodity now, being able to see stuff.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> The more of this we do, the more the archives are going to take
us seriously, the more the labs are going to take this seriously, and think,
‘OK, yeah, let’s do this.’</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> You put out a quality product and they realize you’re not just
bootlegging stuff.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">It’s a lot. I’ve just gotten to the point where
I’m looking at the future of being able to more of these projects. This happens
every time I do a DVD. By the time I’m done, I’m like, ‘Never again.’ Then
something will come up and ‘Uhhh, this really should be available.’</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">A few months will go by and I’ll watching
something at the Library of Congress and Rob Stone will say, “You know, there’s
no donor restrictions and it’s public domain.”</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeIHmeNrh2iRyoRynvienofE7QA2RSln0TJVP3NfzYp0zr4FbXYB349WMOP1vmw5Vd0Xe1NyYsW2iA1nI5p_neGCJRRPq4iahxv-a078vz3ocMEhrO5C62ztXHG4ZqNGrHuDyGXpNPyT0/s1600/LOA+BD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1296" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeIHmeNrh2iRyoRynvienofE7QA2RSln0TJVP3NfzYp0zr4FbXYB349WMOP1vmw5Vd0Xe1NyYsW2iA1nI5p_neGCJRRPq4iahxv-a078vz3ocMEhrO5C62ztXHG4ZqNGrHuDyGXpNPyT0/s400/LOA+BD.jpg" width="345" /></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Eh, yeah, maybe this should be available. Then I
kick myself every time.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">But the thing is, there is a fanbase that wants
to see this stuff and a couple of us have found ourselves in a position where
we can be the vessel or the envoy or whatever the right word is. I’m happy to
tell you how to do. More people need to do this. Not that me and Eric need to
do more projects. We need an exponential number of people to get stuff out
there.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">KW:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> I hope that some of the folks reading this will heed that call
and get in touch with you.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> <a href="http://bit.ly/UndercrankDVDs">And buy our DVDs</a>.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> [Laughs]</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">BM:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> That’s the most important thing.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">EG:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Yeah, no kidding. It’s not greed, it’s self-preservation.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-56339206016480750572018-02-23T07:17:00.001-08:002018-05-05T17:40:16.622-07:00What's New Is Old Again<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">by Kyle Westphal</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdesVTiw0pvgoWXkgtRTXynELZU-5jtfPEhizPG_HrtRm02jo3c9UHOjl-2f97bhnzN30cQ4B7-YX2YNdEwaQjF8-aojCg4TPchqkbcQ5-OKf_KvjKviHzvIT8g8FbzoZoeAEAIf9XfYU/s1600/LargeLouiseLovely300ppi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1220" data-original-width="1600" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdesVTiw0pvgoWXkgtRTXynELZU-5jtfPEhizPG_HrtRm02jo3c9UHOjl-2f97bhnzN30cQ4B7-YX2YNdEwaQjF8-aojCg4TPchqkbcQ5-OKf_KvjKviHzvIT8g8FbzoZoeAEAIf9XfYU/s640/LargeLouiseLovely300ppi.jpg" width="640" /></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Does anybody remember <i>The Artist</i>?</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Seven long years ago, Michel Hazanavicius’s
glistening throwback was tipped to usher in a new age of silent film
appreciation. Septuagenarian silent cinema fanciers celebrated it as a movie
that would get the kids interested in something other than MTV or frisbees or
whatever passing fad had seduced the younger generation. Longtime accompanists
performed <i>The Artist </i>with a live score, in hopes that new audiences
would be sufficiently smitten to return the next week for a Raymond Griffith
double bill. And veteran distributors of silent film on home video repackaged
their chestnuts for maximal confusion with the improbable Best Picture winner.
Even if one didn’t particularly like the film, there was enormous pressure in
the community to support it, to leverage the once-in-a-lifetime supernova
opportunity to spread the good word about silent movies. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfBxJmeE-Q-mxmIjIEgS66paNBsrQZPZzbAEg9-knXxwTZLleDJ-XzrAqQTSGziP6wD4uURTpVH6c3P8ol1NsScaeCChrsH1en2I6sm-4SR6ChnG3PswIKgQue19GxpNTq5Tq1fKYwZM8/s1600/The+Artists+Boxset.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1059" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfBxJmeE-Q-mxmIjIEgS66paNBsrQZPZzbAEg9-knXxwTZLleDJ-XzrAqQTSGziP6wD4uURTpVH6c3P8ol1NsScaeCChrsH1en2I6sm-4SR6ChnG3PswIKgQue19GxpNTq5Tq1fKYwZM8/s400/The+Artists+Boxset.jpg" width="281" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">(<i>The Artist</i> was also, of course, the last
hurrah of Harvey Weinstein, plucking a black-and-white French film from the
Croisette and transforming it into an Oscar heavyweight, and its critical
stature is inevitably bound up with his. Weinstein would have six more years of
wheeling and dealing before the full weight of his sexual violence caught up
with him, but he would never again dazzle the critics and the Academy so
thoroughly and unaccountably as he did with <i>The Artist</i>.) </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">I was living in Rochester, New York, when <i>The
Artist </i>opened theatrically, which meant that I didn’t have a chance to see
it until roughly two months into its slow roll-out. By the time <i>The Artist</i>
finally reached Rochester’s Little Theatre, my opinion on the film had already
been sought by friends, family members, friends of family members, and family
members of friends. With a build-up like that, what’s left to say?</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Ultimately, the conservatism of <i>The Artist </i>kept
me at a distance. By using a well-worn silent film idiom to evoke the
passing of that very storytelling tradition, Hazanavicius was making the safest
possible choice, working within an established style without ever really wading
into the depths of its grammar. It would be akin to a movie set in medieval
times that was content to slavishly copy the panels of an illuminated
manuscript but not add anything else to the equation. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">It needn’t be this way. Miguel Gomes name-checks
one of the all-time greats in his <i>Tabu </i>(2012), but uses F. W. Murnau’s
film as a point of departure, rather than the destination. Guy Maddin
consistently mines the stranger aspects of encountering silent films in
suboptimal circumstances (the distressed images of a dupey print, the
flickering signal of a worn-out VHS) and foregrounds them as an integral part
of a deeply personal aesthetic. A similar alchemical affection can be seen in
Lee Daniels’s <i>The Paperboy </i>(2012) and Anna Biller’s <i>The Love Witch </i>(2016)<i>,
</i>which both aim to pay homage to a certain kind of ’70s exploitation film
but wind up burrowing so deep inside the conventions to create something new.
They play like the purest example of a genre that never quite existed, or never
quite existed in this way. In all cases, the filmmakers are taking the hasty
production shortcuts, questionable narrative choices, and calculated political
posturing of their sources at face value, presuming a seriousness of purpose
that is both touching and radical. They begin as scholarly explorations of dead
languages but wind up discovering new forms of expressive syntax. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4AJz0kJBYfGAAis8fMJ-leaYZIb5H3eNlWR-V-kViPnLe1qPapZ10EoA1qnli_CDEaRXAjsqTxvzTZhpLxuwK5iu0ZOqo20G57A-hcFFMW0oVxrYEZoIKmt_vQvBKk7-85z-QlosUynk/s1600/wonderstruck+poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4AJz0kJBYfGAAis8fMJ-leaYZIb5H3eNlWR-V-kViPnLe1qPapZ10EoA1qnli_CDEaRXAjsqTxvzTZhpLxuwK5iu0ZOqo20G57A-hcFFMW0oVxrYEZoIKmt_vQvBKk7-85z-QlosUynk/s640/wonderstruck+poster.jpg" width="425" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">The past year brought two exemplary films about
silent cinema that serve as enticing introductions to the form and suggest it
is nowhere near exhausted: Todd Haynes’s <i>Wonderstruck </i>and Bill
Morrison’s <i>Dawson City: Frozen Time</i>. If there’s any justice, both will
act as gateway drugs for the next generation, a potent new strain for folks who
just couldn’t get high on <i>The Artist</i>. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">As someone who’s always admired Haynes’s craft
but rejected his films because they so often slip into frictionless academicism
when pure emotionalism would suffice, I went into <i>Wonderstruck </i>skeptically.
The reviews out of Cannes and a bare synopsis did not inspire confidence;
indeed, they suggested something like the 1:1 equation of period and style that
I found so wan in <i>The Artist</i>.<i> </i></span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Wonderstruck</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> tells two parallel stories that echo one another five decades
apart; the core relationships remain deliberately vague and ill-defined until
the two stories converge in ways both deliciously clever and completely earned.
In the 1970s, an orphaned boy (Oakes Fegley) becomes deaf after a freak
electrical accident and sets out for New York to unravel a clue about his late
mother’s life. In the 1920s strand, a young deaf girl (Millicent Simmonds) also
travels to New York in hopes of catching sight of a matinee idol (Julianne
Moore) she knows from silent pictures. The 1970s scenes have the grimy
green-yellow cast of a print struck from a faded Eastmancolor negative left to
rot at Movielab, while the 1920s sections mimic a silent film: wordless,
black-and-white, and almost effortlessly lustrous. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">The set-up is schematic but the execution
deepens and justifies the gambit. Ed Lachman’s cinematography has a
surface-level resemblance to its sources, but the delicacy of the lighting,
especially in the ’70s scenes, takes the work into an exalted realm of lived-in
naturalism. Every beam and shaft of light has a realistic and motivated source,
color temperature, and narrative purpose. It plays less like an homage to
gritty landmarks like <i>Dog Day Afternoon </i>or <i>The French Connection </i>than
a new work drafted from the same raw materials. All due respect to Hoyte van
Hoytema and Roger Deakins, but Lachman’s work is the most accomplished
cinematography of 2017.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwXVkzPibD86nwtIa1fmnLoJ1IGfsomCbyV7IQdtC02n_sFgMs8KS9WO2zyt0diQPYCW6E-7m6d9iv_ledfyU2wcCR80NSOlv9AtW4Wuw7yAjvNJYp5qhUWO88MZRwprU4ezAeeAke1e0/s1600/wonderstruck_moore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwXVkzPibD86nwtIa1fmnLoJ1IGfsomCbyV7IQdtC02n_sFgMs8KS9WO2zyt0diQPYCW6E-7m6d9iv_ledfyU2wcCR80NSOlv9AtW4Wuw7yAjvNJYp5qhUWO88MZRwprU4ezAeeAke1e0/s400/wonderstruck_moore.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">The silent sections in <i>Wonderstruck </i>are
less rewarding and betray a certain lack of engagement with the form. One gets
the impression that the mandate came down to simply tell the story without
words, rather than traffic in the complex interplay of image and text that is
essential to so many silent films. (We never see a single intertitle, though
several key bits of plot are conveyed in handwritten notes.) </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">The film is adapted from a book by Brian
Selznick, whose <i>The Invention of Hugo Cabret </i>formed the basis for Martin
Scorsese’s luminous cinema history lesson. <i>Wonderstruck </i>is nowhere near
as didactic as <i>Hugo</i>, but yet it likewise ranks as a seductive initiation
into the world of silent cinema for an obtuse but simple reason: it conveys the
majesty of a lost art and the mix of incomprehension and awe that greets its
surviving artifacts. The film’s namesake is an imagined book, an impossibly
elaborate tome on museum curatorship published at the tale end of the silent
era that simultaneously suggests a treasury of fairy stories, a deco coffee
table book, and an <i>objet d’art</i> in its own right. Over the course of the
film, we learn the origin and context of the book, but it’s the first glimpse
of <i>Wonderstruck </i>that sets the story in motion—the humbling encounter with
a work we lack the experience and vocabulary to get our arms around just yet.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">In the appendix of his magisterial <i>American
Silent Film, </i>William K. Everson surveyed the state of contemporary film
scholarship and reserved special praise for Kevin Brownlow’s <i>The Parade’s
Gone By</i>. Everson vouchsafed the accuracy of Brownlow’s work and
acknowledged the broad range of oral histories he had collected, but rested the
argument on physicality of the product. “Although <i>The Parade’s Gone By</i>
has been issued in paperback form, the hard-cover original is recommended,”
wrote Everson, “since the layout of the stills, the quality of the printing,
and the texture of the paper are deliberately designed to capture the pictorial
elegance of the silent film.” <i>Wonderstruck</i> has much the same effect: you
can imagine a trade paperback version, but you really just want to run your
fingers over the dustjacket and luxuriate in the texture of the spine. It
suggests history in all its unrecoverable grandeur and gaudiness, its physical form
and its elusive spirit. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">The effect is more direct in Morrison’s <i>Dawson
City: Frozen Time</i>, a seemingly straightforward documentary that only
reveals its structural eccentricities on repeated viewings. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRxcGX0yQfRw2FE65LjJfU7u76y0Rm_uO5kAmAvntC8-sy01apZhQUk9ogTS9S7CiHcqfXtW0RpxOpNokPaQ34J1ConHvVtse6uVdCfU9dDHJPW63uFssKeCXnxV2eepnqArarTYBblv4/s1600/01+First+Avenue+in+Dawson+1898+courtesy+of+Vancouver+Public+LIbrary+VPL+32671+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1063" data-original-width="1600" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRxcGX0yQfRw2FE65LjJfU7u76y0Rm_uO5kAmAvntC8-sy01apZhQUk9ogTS9S7CiHcqfXtW0RpxOpNokPaQ34J1ConHvVtse6uVdCfU9dDHJPW63uFssKeCXnxV2eepnqArarTYBblv4/s640/01+First+Avenue+in+Dawson+1898+courtesy+of+Vancouver+Public+LIbrary+VPL+32671+.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Prior to <i>Dawson City</i>, Morrison was best
known as maker of <i>Decasia: The State of Decay</i>, an hour-long avant-garde
assemblage of severely deteriorated nitrate footage. The fragments in <i>Decasia</i>
went unidentified, and the thrust of the project received little context beyond
a few stray clips of a foreboding film vault. Clearly, the target audience for <i>Dawson
City </i>is less specialized, as Morrison resorts to such standard TV docu
tropes as talkings head interviews, vintage news clips, and slow pans across
select details of old photographs. Every film excerpt is identified, too; most
derive from a cache of nitrate films found buried under the Yukon permafrost of
a former hockey rink in Dawson City in 1978. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">The Dawson City film find story is undeniably
fascinating and frankly difficult to screw up. It already inspired generations
of film archivists before Morrison’s film wandered in from the cold. As my
Chicago Film Society co-conspirator Becca Hall once wrote, “The idea that it
was possible to find – in the ground! – not just shards of pottery or old
medicine bottles but actual <i>photographic evidence</i> of the lives led and
stories told by people born 100 years before me was stunning. The idea that
physical film could have a life that long, and that there were still machines
that could read this information… It was like finding out that bodily <i>resurrection</i>
was possible.”</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Simply recounting the discovery of the prints
would be compelling enough, but the scope of <i>Dawson City</i> is more
expansive and unruly than that: it encompasses the history of Dawson City's
indigenous Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in people, the fixing of the 1919 World Series, a
trove of glass plate photographic negatives repurposed for cabin insulation,
the vagaries of the Canadian banking system, the murder of one-time
"Yukoner" William Desmond Taylor, and the tawdry origins of Donald
Trump's family fortune. Each digression seems gratuitous and shapeless at
first, but emerges as part of a grander design. Dawson City, a boom town that
reverted to its humbler origins within a few years, is the land of eternal
returns: sooner or later, the cycle of fire—some incidents nitrate-inflicted,
but many not—will come for your theater, your hotel, your casino, your library.
Real estate contracts, telegrams, photographic records, and newspaper listings
reverberate through the years, their implications not fully understood for
decades. If anything, the films themselves, compelling as they are, become
noise at the periphery of a tragic social history.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Morrison's form is something of a reclamation,
too. <i>Dawson City</i> contains no voice-over narration; aside from interview
clips at the very beginning and the very end, almost the full narrative arc is
carried by intertitles. Not quite as snappy as some comedy intertitles of the
late 1920s, the intertitles in <i>Dawson City</i> are nevertheless cut from the
same cloth. Brevity remains the soul of wit, and certain titles (“In Dawson,
one learned to mine the miners”) have the stark concision of their ancestral
forebearers. <i>Dawson City</i> points the way not to an empty revival of the
form, but a purposeful excavation of it. It is the last silent film, a finale a
century in the making.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Dawson City: Frozen Time <i>is available on
Blu-ray and DVD from Kino Lorber. </i>Wonderstruck<i> is streaming for Amazon
Prime members now, but no DVD or Blu-ray release has been announced. Portions
of this essay appeared previously on Cine-File Chicago.</i></span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-56953035812950566772017-06-04T00:35:00.003-07:002017-06-04T10:55:08.757-07:00Mutoscopes Keep on Flippin' in San Francisco<style type="text/css">
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<i>This is the third part of Christine U'Ren's series on early movies. Read parts </i><i><a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2017/04/kinetoscopes-those-wicked-phonographs.html">one</a></i><i> and <a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2017/05/mutoscopes-market-street-parlors-and.html">two</a>. </i><br />
<br />
But what was it like to be in one of those raucous phonograph parlors, back in the 1890’s?
Well, if you’re anywhere near San Francisco, you can find out for yourself by
visiting the city’s own <a href="http://museemecaniquesf.com/">Musée
Mécanique</a> on Fisherman’s Wharf. Founded by Edward Galland Zelinsky and now operated by his son Dan, the
museum boasts “the world's largest (over 200) privately owned collection of
coin-operated mechanical musical instruments and antique arcade machines in
their original working condition.” And here’s the kicker: you can play them all
yourself!</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-rI4zeSp3dqESq7UDHkFIThfHHjEUJ3oX-tV6vEzsTytE_yeSqA5VfyDNI1XXjWH7_6dKaWWA0TqOW9554JfYTNT6QrGkr-LZyfgz8JYBO3e7CAWow1UpyILQpIszPvPm9HNnsT6BiMc/s1600/MuseeEntrance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Musée entrance" border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-rI4zeSp3dqESq7UDHkFIThfHHjEUJ3oX-tV6vEzsTytE_yeSqA5VfyDNI1XXjWH7_6dKaWWA0TqOW9554JfYTNT6QrGkr-LZyfgz8JYBO3e7CAWow1UpyILQpIszPvPm9HNnsT6BiMc/s640/MuseeEntrance.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A recent photograph of the entrance to the Musée Mécanique, on Fisherman’s Wharf, which is open until at least 8pm every day. The name is French for “Mechanical Museum.”</td></tr>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3I1Wijwre5epidk8k0Lo_OSoqLCsvczujOHQBf6tTMD3u_k3DcFAUia-C619BODKFuZ2XvZOVqal-AV5DXgOgMCsrBCmqcH0xwj49rQJ5jdDQMYiLmvnkWf9s4jzD5AIp31fScY1VqqM/s1600/DanZelinsky.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="photo of Dan Zelinsky" border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3I1Wijwre5epidk8k0Lo_OSoqLCsvczujOHQBf6tTMD3u_k3DcFAUia-C619BODKFuZ2XvZOVqal-AV5DXgOgMCsrBCmqcH0xwj49rQJ5jdDQMYiLmvnkWf9s4jzD5AIp31fScY1VqqM/s640/DanZelinsky.jpg" title="" width="480" /></a></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dan Zelinsky glides through the vast Musée with the help of roller skates: “I couldn’t run this place without ’em.”</td>
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<br />
The museum is lively with the sounds of old-time player pianos and newer pinball machines, and
uncannily matches the late-1890's newspaper descriptions of San Francisco's
original arcades, from the "<a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990507.2.180.65&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22peter+bacigalupi%22-------1">shrieking
phonograph</a>" to the fact that
it is “<a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18981106.2.142&srpos=1&e=------189-en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-%22crowded+day+and+night+with+sightseers%22-------1">crowded</a> day and night with sightseers." It
also shares something else with its forebears: a sense of being perhaps a
slightly transgressive place to be, a place where innocent mechanical horses and
miniature Merry-Go-Rounds sit right next to mildly risqué or gently terrifying
images, in a way that can be both charming and unsettling. (Although Zelinsky
claims the museum’s "most risqué thing" is "somebody’s ankles hanging out.")<br />
<br />
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy_qvpjZmOgFkPOHjQKSADQLfIWgwF88PS0ZqPNJdST5hy9793WB2pHNDV0qUofxi_pRATngIsBtb2E5lrC_bXWCHR5m-M2g-L2p_ZLQSbnUxeWOigge_1xtR2Eq7fLy__u0DhKIcFj78/s1600/TomMixAndFriends.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy_qvpjZmOgFkPOHjQKSADQLfIWgwF88PS0ZqPNJdST5hy9793WB2pHNDV0qUofxi_pRATngIsBtb2E5lrC_bXWCHR5m-M2g-L2p_ZLQSbnUxeWOigge_1xtR2Eq7fLy__u0DhKIcFj78/s640/TomMixAndFriends.jpg" width="640" /></a></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A clamshell Mutoscope (right), featuring footage of Tom Mix, is crowded next to other tantalizing machines.</td></tr>
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"[It] is a perfect museum of mechanical contrivances," one <i>San Francisco Call</i> reporter <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990507.2.180.65&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22peter+bacigalupi%22-------1">enthused</a> over Bacigalupi’s warehouse, not knowing he was also describing a future San Francisco business. "In the front room you will find every kind of nickel-in-the-slot machine which has ever been invented…"<br />
<br />
"I specialize in what's fun and interactive to play with," Dan Zelinsky told me, "As long as it was originally a coin-operated, mechanical machine."<br />
<br />
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc0Qcgc2kz2VzLzOBiK89yA_KREEKXkVZClirWp6zDzagxoF8X4ouch1CZo2QEExhDlhGtvzcM_dGP8ZGfXhPeDaret0OU-Oaoml3beSe8xzUZATNWXcQsTxDi1j8Xkor6b7ah3x4J9QM/s1600/DropCoinHere.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="coin slot" border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc0Qcgc2kz2VzLzOBiK89yA_KREEKXkVZClirWp6zDzagxoF8X4ouch1CZo2QEExhDlhGtvzcM_dGP8ZGfXhPeDaret0OU-Oaoml3beSe8xzUZATNWXcQsTxDi1j8Xkor6b7ah3x4J9QM/s640/DropCoinHere.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Many machines at the Musée Mécanique are a mere 25¢ to play.</td>
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"Everything that I have here,” he said, “That’s in its original working condition, is
durable enough because it was built to be durable enough to be used every day
by the public. So that's what actually survived."<br />
<br />
As we have seen, the Mutoscope far outlasted the prior Kinetoscope, even in the early days.
Today, working Kinetoscopes are extremely rare, and the old celluloid films
that have passed through the Musée’s collection have been too brittle for
public use. So no Kinetoscopes are on display in San Francisco—the few still in
existence are in the kind of museum where you can’t touch anything. But
Zelinsky estimates that he has “6-8” Mutoscopes, turn-of-the-twentieth-century
originals from the American Mutoscope Company, that show antique reels, as well
as a variety of Drop Picture Machine (aka Stereopticons), <a href="http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=1265">Cail-O-Scopes</a>, and other viewing machines. All of
them are available for you to peer into and/or crank by hand—for a small outlay
of (generally) 25¢ each--the same price that the first Kinetoscope parlor
charged in 1894! An unbeatable bargain. (Change machines are available at the
museum for no extra charge, and there is no entrance fee.)<br />
<br />
Zelinsky, who is an expert at maintaining and repairing coin-operated arcade machines, happily opened up some of his devices to show how they work.<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Dan Zelinsky, owner/operator of the Musée Mécanique, opened up one of his Mutoscopes to demonstrate how the dropped coin activates the light, and the hand-crank turns the reel.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiOKYV0wnIp7OjdezPs20E6Rn6L6zFxGoK42ymea4S768e18bofI1wqjK1OfMZfHTLtu3Md81Pi96WWRPwCSeCGksqMBvBrz92FwhdiV9czYSaNayqphSa_ciYHqjPLC5p7bzMIuIOIqw/s1600/Mutoscope_Innards2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiOKYV0wnIp7OjdezPs20E6Rn6L6zFxGoK42ymea4S768e18bofI1wqjK1OfMZfHTLtu3Md81Pi96WWRPwCSeCGksqMBvBrz92FwhdiV9czYSaNayqphSa_ciYHqjPLC5p7bzMIuIOIqw/s640/Mutoscope_Innards2.jpg" width="480" /></a></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dan Zelinsky points out how the coin drops down the slot to activate the machine.</td>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7X2NRAD7qFGlJ8W6YmBIW7cYdb8wJxol6lbAjr-Wyi33elMn6LCSkjiC3qAniC7OTtnylFReBrldizHle_9zUXvY_PF6QXC_qSsZva6cSu1PXcQUm9zN7vOJN5EilteSIll6Ecat5Iqc/s1600/MutoscopeDrawingSideBySide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="389" data-original-width="650" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7X2NRAD7qFGlJ8W6YmBIW7cYdb8wJxol6lbAjr-Wyi33elMn6LCSkjiC3qAniC7OTtnylFReBrldizHle_9zUXvY_PF6QXC_qSsZva6cSu1PXcQUm9zN7vOJN5EilteSIll6Ecat5Iqc/s640/MutoscopeDrawingSideBySide.jpg" width="640" /></a></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The inner workings of a Mutoscope—basically the same today as when patented in 1895.</td>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-BsgE1-bqnaRKxjUWBKXXoHW4jTkfGca0mvzvYyJDpqzysTLOkSrqllEcXZopM0klBky9EwE2h56wVm8a-y9cnGekLJTt7du9jNhhBdmJtFG-gDIf3IvsQh3wxf4X2mVR48cF94YjoGw/s1600/MutoscopeTrademark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-BsgE1-bqnaRKxjUWBKXXoHW4jTkfGca0mvzvYyJDpqzysTLOkSrqllEcXZopM0klBky9EwE2h56wVm8a-y9cnGekLJTt7du9jNhhBdmJtFG-gDIf3IvsQh3wxf4X2mVR48cF94YjoGw/s640/MutoscopeTrademark.jpg" width="480" /></a></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The shortened form of the company name indicates that this machine was manufactured before 1899, when the word “Biograph” was added.</td>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">This Drop Picture Machine may resemble the device that got Peter Bacigalupi arrested. The cabinet here has been opened to briefly view the mechanism.</span><br />
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVl1lzp2eIRUnZCEfN0GUYc4fyvIuOtBmI9hzfjbbV0Up_HvRZvyLiEwiuXX2rLnSrE5pBFc_USaAPPzSyFpkymAdjo4aLQExE4vxgbG7e6dx2g0WMCt9xhGecWkZeYWcQoxilMSNoZzY/s1600/ArtistsModels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVl1lzp2eIRUnZCEfN0GUYc4fyvIuOtBmI9hzfjbbV0Up_HvRZvyLiEwiuXX2rLnSrE5pBFc_USaAPPzSyFpkymAdjo4aLQExE4vxgbG7e6dx2g0WMCt9xhGecWkZeYWcQoxilMSNoZzY/s640/ArtistsModels.jpg" width="480" /></a></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Antique viewers often sport photos and signs that were made years after the viewer was manufactured, as the contents of the machines were updated far more often than the machines themselves.</td>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4VbKUqwU1dj76UDa4ZbHdGJNlLXcc6t-crJ5L9ohaT-iYPVfxr61yZnVjJVkzIgHAhh8frBjv1-4ft-xZALY8AeVDYG037fwcBEmvD_ACrmFZ17iCD6PNUkl9z7ldjxClAJdXF4jElA4/s1600/Carnival.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4VbKUqwU1dj76UDa4ZbHdGJNlLXcc6t-crJ5L9ohaT-iYPVfxr61yZnVjJVkzIgHAhh8frBjv1-4ft-xZALY8AeVDYG037fwcBEmvD_ACrmFZ17iCD6PNUkl9z7ldjxClAJdXF4jElA4/s640/Carnival.jpg" width="640" /></a></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A handmade, miniature Carnival with delightful moving parts…</td>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBwEO2o68hHyy4OXP6j10GHTHL_tdKSMk1LSPgkBeD2oYyxgAip2yemjaMs8EPBGDz5ojNYLKljLptL0yy12CYhknFJXHTzzKIrOrlVn4HD_rsJ1TdLsyNtZpFnhWq4pk005EZXo2VQJw/s1600/Carnival_Innards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBwEO2o68hHyy4OXP6j10GHTHL_tdKSMk1LSPgkBeD2oYyxgAip2yemjaMs8EPBGDz5ojNYLKljLptL0yy12CYhknFJXHTzzKIrOrlVn4HD_rsJ1TdLsyNtZpFnhWq4pk005EZXo2VQJw/s640/Carnival_Innards.jpg" width="640" /></a></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">…and the surprisingly simple pulley mechanism underneath that makes it go.</td></tr>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD1ZEAGEbuHoAyt5fhrwcCPwZXup9NDKMUTBt_y_2KPxvM9e6sg8By6syiDW0yoE8TUzckbjBxOmOtXkibp_l9OLbVgWmRGCsQPL_m5aghms_QZXw-ydikO6aJAPmL-StMkz5t11Au_A0/s1600/1930sCarnival2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD1ZEAGEbuHoAyt5fhrwcCPwZXup9NDKMUTBt_y_2KPxvM9e6sg8By6syiDW0yoE8TUzckbjBxOmOtXkibp_l9OLbVgWmRGCsQPL_m5aghms_QZXw-ydikO6aJAPmL-StMkz5t11Au_A0/s640/1930sCarnival2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pick out the silent-film stars from this miniature bulletin board of 1930’s movie actors.</td>
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Although the Biograph studio shut down in 1915, major stars of the mid-1920’s still performed in the Mutoscope: the company that purchased the trademark offered snippets of popular feature films for use in their machines, and these can be run in the older AMC viewers as well. The Musée Mécanique features silent stars Laura La Plante, Harold Lloyd, and Tom Mix in its viewers. The museum’s pre-1899 Mutoscope now features a scene from Laura La Plante’s 1927 film, <i>Beware of Widows</i>, showing just how long-lived these machines (and reels) can be, if well-maintained.</div>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb8630YaaaJOnTpyMRQyjEP3lnRW637a_VoCE-sQ1bu9K-3SzU0Y9dGCOZRf_x8IWkL5kVm-SyTxu6TC536AHz-VfGbeySyFXlmsXt1-lD75jXLkLpWU_d-b9fP4XcZVVEsmFvt7ErCoA/s1600/LauraLaPlanteSign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb8630YaaaJOnTpyMRQyjEP3lnRW637a_VoCE-sQ1bu9K-3SzU0Y9dGCOZRf_x8IWkL5kVm-SyTxu6TC536AHz-VfGbeySyFXlmsXt1-lD75jXLkLpWU_d-b9fP4XcZVVEsmFvt7ErCoA/s640/LauraLaPlanteSign.jpg" width="480" /></a></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A 1927 film plays in a pre-1899 viewer.</td>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl9vOaPPkLgGHw1nVUNMWO7x3Mtxgl67zaqhkb0l_OPtElr3F92jvb306VPE02Q9S-oq6Q_AIBVGvtzaBIqnif8d0N0NpJgF8BAkFYPM2ejYVP7-nAg8FBgi9JSPf5O2RUx0nCikKhB2I/s1600/HaroldLloyd_Musee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl9vOaPPkLgGHw1nVUNMWO7x3Mtxgl67zaqhkb0l_OPtElr3F92jvb306VPE02Q9S-oq6Q_AIBVGvtzaBIqnif8d0N0NpJgF8BAkFYPM2ejYVP7-nAg8FBgi9JSPf5O2RUx0nCikKhB2I/s640/HaroldLloyd_Musee.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The antique Mutoscope featuring Harold Lloyd is advertised with a modern sign.</td></tr>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjONPGBysLr8XEMY9pNDWjRYdG5x-1TGZlmJFRVUO9JVanoce1FlB2T5tqSSBU7QZgnHR6KtlT7MddErx7TXE2QIME6O6esqfPPXRWLY_baA8WY2Lq_5zXGYsZ0Gsh55LLhyphenhyphenDDelAxuoac/s1600/PopularMutoscopeSubjectsSideBySide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1238" data-original-width="1600" height="494" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjONPGBysLr8XEMY9pNDWjRYdG5x-1TGZlmJFRVUO9JVanoce1FlB2T5tqSSBU7QZgnHR6KtlT7MddErx7TXE2QIME6O6esqfPPXRWLY_baA8WY2Lq_5zXGYsZ0Gsh55LLhyphenhyphenDDelAxuoac/s640/PopularMutoscopeSubjectsSideBySide.jpg" width="640" /></a></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The International Mutoscope Reel Company included many short scenes from longer silent features on their reels. [Images from <i>Mutoscope’s Money-Makers</i>, a promotional booklet produced by the company, late 1920s. Page order adjusted.]</td>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit9YNq_xK8ptRhx-iNP_6oGyXkhdzgwXWgLCiOmR9RBAd5RphQR_NEAoSwATkbXHWnsZSszXlOjHNw79JdQ_oacV0rO8sJhDxOIiKlxF4SQ97VoapEawNwMYDG5LT5bdig0m0qsr4LxkE/s1600/PopularMutoscopeSubjects.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br />
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZzlA_gYQFi5JpPIY30KhFkjINODF_PlYCgxl2oP6lfP37W76CtxIbGFdU7hKM8S7zQc4Ck3CHPWTWrFQlbgGYDyB2GRydTqwGTsVd82snnRSiZBEmkjU5ZfVp_Vuk0oGHjYo1OvAXUN0/s1600/LauraLaPlante.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZzlA_gYQFi5JpPIY30KhFkjINODF_PlYCgxl2oP6lfP37W76CtxIbGFdU7hKM8S7zQc4Ck3CHPWTWrFQlbgGYDyB2GRydTqwGTsVd82snnRSiZBEmkjU5ZfVp_Vuk0oGHjYo1OvAXUN0/s640/LauraLaPlante.jpg" width="480" /></a></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An original American Mutoscope Company and a post-1909 International Mutoscope Reel Company machine, side by side.</td>
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Like the original phonograph parlors, the Musée does feature a few exhibits that may disturb some modern visitors, but today the discomfort is mostly due to oppressive racial conventions of the past, not sex. One device is memorably labeled, “Do not play this machine if you are easily offended.” (“And of course, that makes everybody want to play it,” Zelinsky remarked.) The displays are relatively mild: seriously offensive exhibits have simply been pulled permanently from the floor, much as Peter Bacigalupi retired his Parisian “stero-photicons.” (“There are several machines that we just flat-out got rid of…it would entertain ’em, but it wouldn’t be pretty!”) </div>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTp3ySueE30AU05tzJHN2jSSjp3Ctft_XzE6xgrU4jr4K9HMFmbHl5Bg3pIfYwtGeWQhIS_zN1X2wu-ZR6HheIofSPE9O5xBkd1kKseDuBRxB2yt1NXPGNqT6YymrAxtHobimHO4h2lMc/s1600/MutoscopeXXX.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTp3ySueE30AU05tzJHN2jSSjp3Ctft_XzE6xgrU4jr4K9HMFmbHl5Bg3pIfYwtGeWQhIS_zN1X2wu-ZR6HheIofSPE9O5xBkd1kKseDuBRxB2yt1NXPGNqT6YymrAxtHobimHO4h2lMc/s640/MutoscopeXXX.jpg" width="480" /></a></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Racy!</td>
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But Zelinsky told me his biggest worry isn’t fear of complaint or legal trouble—it’s vandalism. In fact, the machines at the Musée are purposely left a little bit shabby looking on the outside, because, in direct opposition to the “broken windows” policing theory, arcade perfection attracts vandals. (“If it’s already a little worn, it’ll last forever,” Zelinsky said.) The important thing is to make sure the mechanisms work: an angry customer who’s lost a quarter to a malfunctioning machine might do “thousands of dollars’ worth of damage” trying to get it back. Thieves have also been known to ruin a rare antique just to get at the small number of coins inside. The mechanical demands of the Musée keep Zelinsky constantly busy on his roller skates.</div>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2sr9UbrJHwQtISIu0tcj8mfKOugwFgI1HpusFKl4p0St6waIqEh3zVBRBA1FM5FDXsqHsgUM-LZXeEyI970-IZ6Ztk_ue-c1ZeZmBWqamGBnVSwixwtzOY_ufx1h1oourTdzunEcVlyo/s1600/Praxinoscope.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2sr9UbrJHwQtISIu0tcj8mfKOugwFgI1HpusFKl4p0St6waIqEh3zVBRBA1FM5FDXsqHsgUM-LZXeEyI970-IZ6Ztk_ue-c1ZeZmBWqamGBnVSwixwtzOY_ufx1h1oourTdzunEcVlyo/s640/Praxinoscope.jpg" width="640" /></a></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Keep an eye out for the <a href="http://www.earlycinema.com/technology/praxinoscope.html">Praxinoscope</a>, the oldest machine in the Musée Mécanique.</td>
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Motion pictures in their various forms have been with us for well over a hundred years now, and the technology has developed beyond W.K.L. Dickson’s dreams…but progress doesn’t travel in a straight line. Watching a movie on YouTube has quite a few elements in common with the old Kinetoscopes and especially Mutoscopes, down to the frame-by-frame viewer control. Still, there is something attractive about the form of time travel that the Musée Mécanique represents, something all silent-movie fans should understand. As Dan Zelinsky put it, "Once again, something that's new is sought after, and the old is kind of 'ehhh…' Until the old gets older, and then it's nostalgic, and then it's <i>back</i>."</div>
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<h4>
<b>For further reading and viewing (related to all three parts of this essay):</b></h4>
Bitzer, G. W., <i><a href="https://centuryfilmproject.org/2014/06/19/billy-bitzer-his-story/">Billy Bitzer: His Story</a></i>, 1973 (written in 1944)<br />
A colorful memoir by one of the first great cinematographers.<br />
<br />
William and Antonia Dickson, <i><a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/History_of_the_Kinetograph_Kinetoscope_a.html?id=fMnMYOBwPzEC&source=kp_cover">History of the Kinetograph, Kinetoscope, and Kinetophonograph</a></i>, 1895<br />
A charming short volume by the inventor and his sister, drolly recounting days in the Edison studio.<br />
<br />
Gordon Hendricks, <i><a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Origins_of_the_American_film.html?id=rd44AQAAIAAJ">Origins of the American Film</a></i>, 1962<br />
Contains three previously published works: <i>The Edison Motion Picture Myth</i>, 1961, <i>The Kinetoscope</i>, 1966 and <i>Beginnings of the Biograph</i>, 1964<br />
A dense volume detailing the inventions of celluloid film and Edison’s and American Mutoscope/Biograph’s film viewers and projectors in their earliest forms.<br />
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Neil Miller, <i><a href="http://www.beacon.org/Banned-in-Boston-P685.aspx">Banned in Boston: The Watch and Ward Society's Crusade Against Books, Burlesque, and the Social Evil</a></i>, 2010<br />
An entertaining and informative volume describing the powerful Boston version of San Francisco’s Pacific Coast Society for the Suppression of Vice. The unelected Watch and Ward Society staged major raids on gambling houses and brothels without bothering to inform the police, and prevented books from being sold without a word to the public. <br />
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<i>Annual Report and Supplement of the Pacific Coast Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and Animals and Suppression of Vice</i><br />
<a href="https://archive.org/details/annualreportofpa189899pac">1898 and 1899</a><br />
<a href="https://archive.org/details/annualreportofpa1900paci">1900</a><br />
Though the Society, a local branch of “reformer” Anthony Comstock’s original New York group, committed disturbing acts of censorship and overreach, it also dealt with truly horrifying cases of child abuse and animal cruelty.<br />
<a href="http://fac-staff.seattleu.edu/staleyj/web/documents/publications/contestedchildhoods1.pdf">Read an essay</a> discussing one case involving Frank Kane and children in San Francisco’s Chinatown (by Jeffrey L. Staley, PhD Seattle University).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifFgANP-mYPHN63X6YQWPDnsO0tdhzk8qWhgeNaSxkggX9-DUrZjd6bERjJMFhaZzuf5z92ykU05SoTlBa2HuDXluBvTlYlbZ67htXID49J8rr02iaofl8av34-E6CVmjG31l6WRoXPOU/s1600/SFCall_pieincidentPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1209" data-original-width="657" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifFgANP-mYPHN63X6YQWPDnsO0tdhzk8qWhgeNaSxkggX9-DUrZjd6bERjJMFhaZzuf5z92ykU05SoTlBa2HuDXluBvTlYlbZ67htXID49J8rr02iaofl8av34-E6CVmjG31l6WRoXPOU/s400/SFCall_pieincidentPic.jpg" width="216" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By 1906, even the <i>San Francisco Call</i> may have been tiring of Frank Kane’s reforming: they humorously <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC19060628.2.123&e=-------en--20--41--txt-txIN-+%22frank+kane%22++vice-------1">publicized</a> a dispute he got into with a waiter about a perceived 5¢ overcharge for “apple pie, solid-roofed.”</td></tr>
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Charles Musser, <i><a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520085336">The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907</a></i>, 1990<br />
A thorough history of the development of the early film companies in America and their various technologies, as well as a somewhat Freudian assessment of the films they made. May be available digitally via your local public library.<br />
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Charles Musser, <i><a href="http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3q2nb2gw&brand=ucpress">Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company</a></i>, 1991<br />
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Ray Phillips, <i><a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Edison_s_Kinetoscope_and_Its_Films.html?id=rbEfAQAAIAAJ">Edison's Kinetoscope and its Films – a History to 1896</a></i>, 1997<br />
Written by a skilled technician who restores and rebuilds Kinetoscopes, this book gives not only a history of the machines, but also detailed information about their mechanics. Includes a catalogue of Edison films and their survival status, as well as locations for the few extant Kinetoscopes.<br />
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David Robinson, <i><a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/From_Peep_Show_to_Palace.html?id=TedcugT6xRUC">From Peep Show to Palace: the Birth of American Film</a></i>, 1996<br />
A survey of the development of early motion pictures, from medieval “magic lantern” projectors, to the beginnings of the modern movie-star cult in the 1910s.<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7QX7CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=beyond%20the%20screen&pg=PP1%22%20\l%20%22v=onepage&q&f=false">Beyond the Screen: Institutions, Networks, and Publics of Early Cinema</a></i>, various authors, 2016<br />
A series of essays (some in French) covering diverse topics as films of the Red Cross, Edison’s forays into educational films, the Mutoscope’s production “diversity,” the World War I films of Hippolyte De Kempeneer, and “Eroticism and Death: The Skeleton in the Trick Film.”<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictures-and-sound-recordings/articles-and-essays/history-of-edison-motion-pictures/">Library of Congress pages</a> on the history of Edison motion pictures.<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD28424FAA9414F49">Edison films</a> at the Library of Congress YouTube channel.<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/LibraryOfCongress/search?query=biograph">American Mutoscope Company/Biograph films</a> at the Library of Congress YouTube channel.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search?custom_search_id=collections-search&edan_local=1&edan_q=mutoscope&op=Search&edan_fq%5B%5D=online_visual_material%3Atrue">All the Mutoscope pieces</a> in the collections of the National Museum of American History (Smithsonian Insitution).<br />
<br />
<i><a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/edison/">Edison</a></i> by the American Experience (PBS). Watch it before all funding is cut!<br />
In a hurry? Here’s just the bit about the Kinetoscope:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sfI0NVC0hLU/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="380" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sfI0NVC0hLU?feature=player_embedded" width="640"></iframe></div>
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<br />
Read Peter Bacigalupi’s memories of the earthquake <a href="http://archive.org/stream/edisonphonograph04moor#page/n81/mode/2up/search/bacigalupi">here</a>.<br />
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The <i>Edison Phonograph Monthly</i> printed Bacigalupi’s tribute to San Francisco just two months after the earthquake: <i><a href="http://archive.org/stream/edisonphonograph04moor#page/n65/mode/2up">Bacigalupi the Phoenix: “Stick to Frisco”</a></i><br />
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<a href="http://www.instructables.com/id/Mutoscope-The-Hand-Cranked-Cinema/?ALLSTEPS">Make your own Mutoscope!</a><br />
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<i>Christine U'Ren is a <a href="http://www.christineu.com/">graphic designer</a> and longtime silent film enthusiast. She began posting this third part of her essay during the interval between </i>Filibus <i>and </i>Outside the Law<i> at the 22nd San Francisco International Silent Film Festival.</i><br />
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Christine U'Renhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14193613940794675362noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-41038345661676530322017-06-01T07:32:00.000-07:002017-06-01T07:32:03.244-07:00"Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves": Flicker Alley's "Early Women Filmmakers: An International Anthology"<br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This year’s San
Francisco Silent Film Festival line-up includes two recently restored features
directed by women: Lois Weber’s </i><a href="http://prod3.agileticketing.net/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=276002~d9133282-4896-49aa-be18-b053ee8cefc3&epguid=1822aae7-3fda-46c4-8940-081224f26742&">The
Dumb Girl of Portici</a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> (1916) and
Dorothy Arzner’s </i><a href="http://prod3.agileticketing.net/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=276001~d9133282-4896-49aa-be18-b053ee8cefc3&epguid=1822aae7-3fda-46c4-8940-081224f26742&">Get
Your Man</a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> (1927). These revivals,
abetted by ever-expanding scholarly interest in the wide variety of creative
roles that women played in early Hollywood, coincide with the release of
Flicker Alley’s six-disc DVD/Blu-ray box set “<a href="https://www.flickeralley.com/classic-movies/#!/Early-Women-Filmmakers-An-International-Anthology/p/80085513/category=20414531">Early Women Filmmakers: An International Anthology</a>,” which our correspondent Kyle Westphal reviews below.</i></div>
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While working as a projectionist in college, my
least-anticipated assignment was an annual double bill offered in conjunction
with Media Aesthetics, an introductory humanities class for undergraduates. A
few hundred students would enroll every year, which meant that several sections
would shuffle in and out of the Film Studies Center over the course of a day.
Each section watched the same two silent films in 16mm prints: D.W. Griffith’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Drunkard’s Reformation </i>(1909) and Maya
Deren’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Meshes of the Afternoon</i>
(1943). There was no introduction offered before the films, though once I
roused myself from the booth and did my damnedest to convince these
eighteen-year-old that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Meshes</i> would
blow their friggin’ minds. </div>
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Even without any introductory remarks, the contrast between
the Griffith and the Deren was immediately apparent. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Drunkard’s Reformation </i>presents Griffith at his most didactic: an
alcoholic toddles home late, gets reprimanded by his wife, and takes his
daughter to the theater. Under the proscenium unfurls a production of Zola’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">L'Assommoir</i>; the drunkard is rapt,
watching his own horrible abuses enacted on stage. The play delivers a profound
catharsis to its viewer, an exorcism of recognition wherein the sins are laid
bare and shrivel away in sunlight. After this encounter with art, the drunkard
is a changed man, responsible, sober, and newly committed to his family. It is
a remarkable film, not least for its earnest belief in the power of art to
change lives. In this one-reel short, the power of art is almost diagrammatic,
speaking to the audience not as a group with a shared identity but as
individual people with specific vices to be redressed, one by one, through an
unambiguously prescriptive example.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaz5kcv9AZcszUXDL75JauD_B5ULhrTQTnc3kTUfIfxkH_6FW_Gn9hY_fnd0wz8rHMwrXBkGJynZJ_ut3-nO0qK7HOWSYkGwo46RHd9-GXonmefWz0cXnGrJGyD2tbXeV-wetgj1Klvcs/s1600/Meshes+of+the+Afternoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="785" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaz5kcv9AZcszUXDL75JauD_B5ULhrTQTnc3kTUfIfxkH_6FW_Gn9hY_fnd0wz8rHMwrXBkGJynZJ_ut3-nO0qK7HOWSYkGwo46RHd9-GXonmefWz0cXnGrJGyD2tbXeV-wetgj1Klvcs/s320/Meshes+of+the+Afternoon.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Meshes of the Afternoon</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Deren’s film was much the freer of the two, less uptight, devoid
of moralizing, stuffed with richly symbolic but inherently personal objects.
The most influential and widely imitated film of the American avant-garde,
Deren’s psychodrama used the familiar set-up of domestic melodrama and SoCal
noir to fling its viewers to points unknown. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Meshes of the Afternoon</i> suggests a different way to watch films and
demands an expansive, free-wheeling engagement from the viewer, wholly distinct
from the supine sermon of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Drunkard’s
Reformation</i>. The contrast was obvious, even to the novice media
aestheticians: one filmmaker gave you a road map, the other simply a point of
departure. </div>
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The promise of Deren—a break from the past, a wholly new and
untrodden avenue of cinematic expression—goes beyond simple grammar, of course;
as a woman filmmaker working on the margins of Hollywood, her example is not
just different but actively contrary. To appropriate the title of Claire
Johnston’s famous feminist essay, it is “<a href="https://cinefiles.bampfa.berkeley.edu/cinefiles/DocDetail?docId=7598">Women’s
Cinema as Counter-Cinema</a>.” So it’s only appropriate that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Meshes of the Afternoon</i> is the final
selection in Flicker Alley’s new box set, “Early Women Filmmakers: An
International Anthology,” as if to suggest that the films that came before it were
the first steps down a new path, successive drafts of a long-gestating escape
plan. </div>
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The selections in “Early Women Filmmakers” are too
diverse—in historical import, narrative approach, and aesthetic quality—to
suggest any sort of unified lineage. The anthology brings together short films
and features from the US, France, Germany, and the Soviet Union, spanning four
decades from Alice Guy’s turn-of-the-century efforts for Gaumont to Deren’s
independent breakthrough in the early 1940s. The selections were curated by the
late David Shepard, to whom the release is dedicated; <a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-un-lost-world-conversation-with.html">Serge Bromberg of Lobster Films</a> oversaw the video restorations, and <a href="http://www.flickeralley.com/reclaiming-film-history-an-interview-with-women-film-pioneers-project-manager-kate-saccone/?utm_source=May-2017-Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Early-Women-Filmmakers">Kate
Saccone</a> of the <a href="https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/">Women Film
Pioneers Project</a> at Columbia University wrote the liner notes. </div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgimwVeJyP103dc_RCIeRA07KBTX4X_Pyw4-0EtoVrbfF90qHzxTgcDICijq7F6E_N51oyVuSKg5hNN1kMBtlj4d5yUtOxXSPgVnn77MwS5qKq0-DTJKttCcDp_9bM7shqTlIctMR0hyoM/s1600/Early-Women-Filmmakers-cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="424" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgimwVeJyP103dc_RCIeRA07KBTX4X_Pyw4-0EtoVrbfF90qHzxTgcDICijq7F6E_N51oyVuSKg5hNN1kMBtlj4d5yUtOxXSPgVnn77MwS5qKq0-DTJKttCcDp_9bM7shqTlIctMR0hyoM/s400/Early-Women-Filmmakers-cover.jpg" width="282" /></a></div>
These collaborators have produced a very commendable
release, though their agendas and approaches at times seem to diverge.
Saccone’s liner notes repeatedly invoke these “14 early filmmakers” and make a
valiant effort to discuss them as a group, even as we quickly realize that
politics and circumstance differentiate them, perhaps more than a shared gender
unites them. The trajectory suggested by “Early Women Filmmakers” is
simultaneously scattered, mystifying, incoherent, and maddening: promising
careers develop and dissipate, women directors continually demonstrate their
commercial instincts and financial reliability but the industry offers them few
opportunities in return. Rather than a forward march of progress, our journey
takes downwardly-mobile detours into Poverty Row studios and lurches towards
outright fascism. (The inclusion of a film by <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1975/02/06/fascinating-fascism/">Leni
Riefenstahl</a> in an anthology that asks us to ‘celebrate’ pioneering women is
regrettable.)</div>
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Not every filmmaker included here is exemplary, but the
range of genres on offer is generous and revealing: there are
commercially-oriented narrative features, but also documentaries, animation,
amateur productions, B movies, and other unclassifiable efforts. It would
likewise be a reach to claim that every title here advances a
socially-conscious act of “counter cinema,” but few represent “business as
usual” either, with moments of uncommon sympathy for women characters and
attention to the highly gendered plights of single women, wives, and mothers. </div>
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Some of the films included in “Early Women Filmmakers” will
be familiar to scholars and hobbyists who have taken up the challenges posed by
prior box sets such as “The Movies Begin” (Kino, 2002), “More Treasures from
American Film Archives” (NFPF, 2004), “Unseen Cinema: Early American
Avant-Garde Film, 1894 - 1941” (Image, 2005), “Gaumont: Le cin<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>ma
premier, 1897 - 1913, Volume 1” (Gaumont, 2008), and “Masterworks of American
Avant-Garde Experimental Film, 1920 - 1970” (Flicker Alley, 2015). Among the
familiar items are a handful of films by Alice Guy (subsequently Alice Guy
Blach<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>),
including the excellent family drama <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Falling
Leaves </i>(1912) and the immigrant saga <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Making
an American Citizen</i> (1912); <a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2017/05/watching-lois-weber-beginners-guide_18.html">Lois Weber</a> and Phillips Smalley’s innovative
thriller <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Suspense </i>(1913); Mabel
Normand’s Keystone comedy <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mabel’s Strange
Predicament </i>(1914); avant-garde animations by Mary Ellen Bute, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Parabola </i>(1937) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Spook Sport: A Graveyard Gambol </i>(1939); and the aforementioned <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Meshes of the Afternoon</i>. Many of the
films already released in other editions represent substantial upgrades from
what was available before, especially Weber’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Blot</i> (1921).</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKiYwnChMRUis8B4RoSJdAp5UR_fIEv4NMyRQiBRBJ-ipQhtbad9UCqIZwhzwJ1dhRS7w5ILB9i-MZMaWUVsZuIFbEOeGdcyExqDb95_yVMIiO1YKBOEdUi0Eo_7hVfXaVmeEHN1HJ7VE/s1600/Star+Prince+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKiYwnChMRUis8B4RoSJdAp5UR_fIEv4NMyRQiBRBJ-ipQhtbad9UCqIZwhzwJ1dhRS7w5ILB9i-MZMaWUVsZuIFbEOeGdcyExqDb95_yVMIiO1YKBOEdUi0Eo_7hVfXaVmeEHN1HJ7VE/s320/Star+Prince+2.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Star Prince</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Consequently, I would like to focus on a handful of titles
that are appearing on home video for the first time, many of them unknown to
all but the most ardent scholars of silent cinema.</div>
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The most obscure and puzzling item is probably Madeline
Brandeis’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Star Prince </i>(1918), an
independently-produced fairy tale with children playing every role. Saccone
discusses <a href="https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-madeline-brandeis/">Brandeis’s
career</a> at some length in the liner notes and cites Radha Vatsal’s
dissertation, “She Started Out to be a Motion-Picture Producer: The Film
Industry and Madeline Brandeis, 1918 - 1937,” to make the case that Brandeis, a
wealthy socialite and children’s book author, should not be written off
strictly as an amateur filmmaker. The public reception, industry acceptance,
and commercial success of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Star Prince</i>
would make a fascinating study, but the evidence of the film itself doesn’t
quite obviate the “amateur” label. (The film element used here is a very flat
looking dupe, which does the cinematography no favors, but given the film’s
budget and limited distribution, we are lucky it survives in any form at all.)
The special effects are primitive and the production values almost
non-existent; when boys are made up to stand in for grown men, their beards
look like hand-me-downs from a church production of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Salom</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span></i>. And yet <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Star Prince</i> has its own brand of
off-kilter integrity, filled with bizarre digressions, animal tricks, and all
manner of narrative sleight of hand. One suspects that if Joseph Cornell had
even deigned to pick up a camera, the resulting juvenile fantasia would be much
like this: precious, whimsical, and a touch unhinged. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw95ryfR81n84J3Pl2JT4u4DmShqZ0HHgs9Mmh8lykqGQkRsH-RxtWFSe8j5RUN6PpSjqa0CKKxHAqkfR1q9Yt7JOyYPlU26nXA0Bo19MmN5MFHlMsjO4HzeSLOysliPG5SugedqCmf_s/s1600/Beudet+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw95ryfR81n84J3Pl2JT4u4DmShqZ0HHgs9Mmh8lykqGQkRsH-RxtWFSe8j5RUN6PpSjqa0CKKxHAqkfR1q9Yt7JOyYPlU26nXA0Bo19MmN5MFHlMsjO4HzeSLOysliPG5SugedqCmf_s/s320/Beudet+1.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>La Souriante Mme. Beudet</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The theoretical writings and films of Germaine Dulac are
hardly unknown, though astonishingly her most famous work, <a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/the-smiling-madame-beudet"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Souriante Mme. Beudet</i></a> (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Smiling Madame Beudet</i>, 1923) is only
now appearing on DVD (and Blu-ray), some two decades after the introduction of
the format. A classroom classic that’s been available in 16mm from the Museum
of Modern Art’s Circulating Film Library seemingly forever, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Beudet</i> offers textbook examples of
subjective camerawork throughout, as well as an unabashedly feminine
point-of-view. The sense of domestic claustrophobia is underlined by the choice
to segment the screen and further isolate characters with irises and mattes—a
strategy adopted by Carl Th. Dreyer several years later in his marital drama <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master of the House</i> (1925). </div>
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And yet the other Dulac title in the set, the much less
familiar <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La cigarette </i>(1919), her
earliest extant film, works better for me. The two films share several
similarities, each portraying a disintegrating marriage and illustrating
Chekhov’s dramatic imperative about the fate of a gun glimpsed in the first
act. But <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La cigarette</i> is the subtler,
more effective film; whereas distorting lenses and crude comedy establish the
boorishness of the husband in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Beudet</i>,
Dulac achieves deeper and more affecting characterization in<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>the earlier film through the
conventional craft of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mise en scene</i>.
The placid surface throws the stark craziness of the premise—a middle-aged
Egyptologist keeps a mummy in his study and looks to ancient history for the
classiest way to commit suicide when he believes his wife is unfaithful—into
(bas-)relief. One delirious late act of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">l’amour
fou</i> represents the best acting to be glimpsed in the anthology, demonstrating
that Dulac’s avant-garde bona fides are no impediment to her canny judgment as
a commercial filmmaker. And if that weren’t enough, the copy on offer is
gorgeous, pin-sharp with the original tinting intact. (There’s also a good
amount of nitrate decomposition, missing emulsion, and general wear, but it’s
represented so faithfully that I almost wanted to reach out and glide my
fingers across the TV.)<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU9gAucL6MMyYuQFhM_zHMbPFOQAAaam_tLFfnGmHeZ2V9OgRz2ip_jpenX9N3fOd70fj0nXEyeGxO-F7fyWpoB9XzQ9RMOn-Hd8jx4aHSNVsMD7vW1kQMjY7pKCig4YoIXpdIgWISYTU/s1600/La+cigarette+7.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU9gAucL6MMyYuQFhM_zHMbPFOQAAaam_tLFfnGmHeZ2V9OgRz2ip_jpenX9N3fOd70fj0nXEyeGxO-F7fyWpoB9XzQ9RMOn-Hd8jx4aHSNVsMD7vW1kQMjY7pKCig4YoIXpdIgWISYTU/s640/La+cigarette+7.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>La cigarette</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjikTbVPAIBTGk-JIKqjj-U312TKyRYqJUqWD3wT89AvghznBusPlGq8SJ4Nz5Pal2PPcot7yMTcCq1Oh5ib0-BRUx9J6dkdHLjz7HJqRgC19qN9stRm4PMPrJBe5TDqohiR2x7qTQCJx8/s1600/Woman+Condemned+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjikTbVPAIBTGk-JIKqjj-U312TKyRYqJUqWD3wT89AvghznBusPlGq8SJ4Nz5Pal2PPcot7yMTcCq1Oh5ib0-BRUx9J6dkdHLjz7HJqRgC19qN9stRm4PMPrJBe5TDqohiR2x7qTQCJx8/s320/Woman+Condemned+1.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Woman Condemned</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Having recently caught up with <a href="https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-dorothy-davenport-reid/">Dorothy
Davenport’s</a> fine rural melodrama <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Linda</i>
(1929), newly preserved by the Library of Congress, I was very much looking
forward to seeing her final directorial effort, the Poverty Row talkie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Woman Condemned </i>(1934). Produced by
Willis Kent, the same exploitation sleazeball who claimed a “Presented by”
credit for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Linda</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Woman Condemned</i> unfortunately hews
closer to his trademark method than hers. A hodgepodge of generic situations
and incoherent mystery trimmings, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Woman Condemned </i>is a departure from <a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive-by-year/2016-festival/dorothy-davenports-message-movies">Davenport’s
socially-inflected work</a> of the 1920s. Studios were turning out
extraordinarily sophisticated and verbally exquisite movies in 1934 (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Thin Man</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twentieth Century</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Heat
Lightning</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It’s a Gift</i>), but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Woman Condemned </i>plays like a stingy
effort where the screenwriter was paid by the word. Fortunately, Davenport’s
career eventually rebounded and she spent the next two decades as a
consistently employable screenwriter. (Many of her screenwriting credits are
also Poverty Row junk, but she eventually clawed her way back to studio work,
including the charming 1951 effort <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rhubarb</i>,
a comedy about a cat who inherits a baseball team.)<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
Much
more involving (and curious, given the paucity of resources in English) is the
case of Marie-Louise Iribe, an actress who worked for Jean Renoir, Louis
Feillaude, and Jacques Feyder and managed to direct only two films: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hara-Kiri </i>(1928, co-directed with Henri
Debain) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Le roi des alunes </i>(<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Erlking</i>, 1929 per Flicker Alley;
other sources list 1930 or 1931). The latter is included here and is the
stand-out of the anthology for this reviewer. An adaptation of Goethe’s <i>Erlkönig</i>
Iribe’s version begins, worryingly, with a wide shot of Goethe’s poem, followed
by a closer view that moves down the parchment line-by-line. Will this movie be
merely a dry, academic recitation, taking advantage of the new resources of
sound cinema for the dullest of ends? No, not at all.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguTt0mhNmJcn1gDDyCfjhyphenhyphenFWkkDbvjHI17wXlMayhgr-28cgIppBIBwhYpAYG0khLQ1UuMArBobsGiVnnWXsADTIJZkNXabd9UfcT7lfgwAIi1RLnXXmOwxhGLAGXg0LIxkeseedQ4lpI/s1600/Erlking+18.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguTt0mhNmJcn1gDDyCfjhyphenhyphenFWkkDbvjHI17wXlMayhgr-28cgIppBIBwhYpAYG0khLQ1UuMArBobsGiVnnWXsADTIJZkNXabd9UfcT7lfgwAIi1RLnXXmOwxhGLAGXg0LIxkeseedQ4lpI/s320/Erlking+18.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Le roi des alunes</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Taking a short poem and stretching its narrative out to three-quarters
of an hour, <i>Le roi des alunes</i> is among the most sustained and fluid
feats of visual storytelling of its era. Its photographic effects are
startling, sophisticated, and often quite beautiful, rendering the fantastical
elements of Goethe’s ballad in a wholly convincing and credible way. Working
with a simple and spare text, Iribe manages to plot the topography of its
central setting—a dark and magical forest—with dense specificity and
unrelenting logic. And like many of the best efforts of continental filmmaking
during this transititional era, <i>Le roi des alunes</i> preserves the visual
coherence of silent cinema while making room for the rhytmic possibilities of
music mixed with an occasional line of dialogue. I didn’t know this film
existed before last week, and the faintest possibility that there’s anything
else like it in the world will keep me digging into anthologies like this as
long as they’re published. </div>
<br />
<b>About the author of this post</b><br />
<a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/author/kyle/" target="_blank">Kyle Westphal</a> is a programmer at the <a href="http://www.chicagofilmsociety.org/" target="_blank">Chicago Film Society</a>,
which he founded with Becca Hall and Julian Antos in 2011. Under the
auspices of CFS, he oversaw the photochemical preservation of the
independent musical <i>Corn's-A-Poppin'</i>; he is currently working on preserving the avant-garde films of Fred Camper. He is a graduate of the <a href="https://eastman.org/selznickschool/" target="_blank">L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation</a> and was a past recipient of the <a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/about/preservation" target="_blank">San Francisco Silent Film Festival Fellowship</a>. Westphal has also worked at the Pacific Film Archive and the George Eastman Museum. <br />
<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-76115353831497043382017-05-28T13:15:00.000-07:002017-05-30T12:18:16.438-07:00The Un-Lost World: A Conversation with Serge Bromberg of Lobster Films<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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By Kyle Westphal </div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV-wi7b5ryBKb80rDlzBES2pRd918H2iNAqlqq9bLBg15D2JmjMVmVx1-HtAtGMsYgfPgscz7vFtlMbWtLNhyphenhyphen9Ee-IOckspMb6KraDfMAdbp5ZSSV736yiz6WxQferM1WKrUWV0p-2fgE/s1600/Lost+World.11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1036" data-original-width="680" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV-wi7b5ryBKb80rDlzBES2pRd918H2iNAqlqq9bLBg15D2JmjMVmVx1-HtAtGMsYgfPgscz7vFtlMbWtLNhyphenhyphen9Ee-IOckspMb6KraDfMAdbp5ZSSV736yiz6WxQferM1WKrUWV0p-2fgE/s640/Lost+World.11.jpg" width="420" /></a><br />
<i>The French film collector and preservationist Serge Bromberg
is a long-time friend of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, which has
screened many restorations from his company Lobster Films over the years. For
this year’s Festival, Bromberg will be presenting two programs: a new spectacular
restoration of </i><a href="http://prod3.agileticketing.net/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=276014~d9133282-4896-49aa-be18-b053ee8cefc3&epguid=1822aae7-3fda-46c4-8940-081224f26742&"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lost World</span></a><i> (1925)
and a tribute to his late partner David Shepard, <a href="http://prod3.agileticketing.net/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=276005~d9133282-4896-49aa-be18-b053ee8cefc3&epguid=1822aae7-3fda-46c4-8940-081224f26742&">“Magic and Mirth: A Collection of Enchanting Short Films: 1906 - 1924.”</a> </i><br />
<br />
<i>The new version of </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Lost World</span><i> is actually Bromberg’s second attempt at restoring this beloved
dinosaur epic. An earlier version, produced in standard definition video, was
drawn largely from a 35mm black-and-white Czech print and a 16mm amber-tinted
Kodascope print, as well as a few other sources. With many of the intertitles
surviving only in Czech, Bromberg and Shepard consulted the original script to
painstakingly recreate the English titles.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Shortly after that restoration was completed and released on
DVD through Image Entertainment, Lobster Films acquired an incomplete 35mm
nitrate copy from the original release—four reels of the original nine. Using
this element as a guide, Bromberg and Shepard set out to reconstruct and
restore the film again, drawing upon a number of other newly discovered
elements. The Festival’s screening on June 4 will be the U.S. premiere of the
new restoration, which Flicker Alley will release on Blu-ray later this year.</i><br />
<br />
<i>I spoke last week with Bromberg over Skype. We discussed his
efforts to restore </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lost World</span><i>,
his memories of David Shepard, and his general thoughts on the archival
landscape. The following transcript has been lightly edited for space and
clarity. </i></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Jigsaw Puzzle: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lost World</i></u><br /> </b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> The first thing I noticed in reading over your notes for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lost World</i> is that this restoration
came from eleven different film elements and sources. Is that a record for you?</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> Probably.
Actually, the more I think about it, the more complex it is. I would say it’s certainly
one of the most complex reconstructions we’ve ever achieved.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> More complex
than even <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Trip to the Moon </i>[<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La voyage dans la lune, </i>1902]? </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNXVnKN27AffYMR_AmXhUuRdum50OR-PFvfb9-Phe0Gaf2A8_QvtzFlugiejCudC8TELZ0mC2GZv6srK6kc3ruAqB-zh0TWGMroPpIZFQzLEqmxMY_v2gm4JrgrZXR42VCGNTHBOH4XSQ/s1600/a_trip_to_the_moon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1431" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNXVnKN27AffYMR_AmXhUuRdum50OR-PFvfb9-Phe0Gaf2A8_QvtzFlugiejCudC8TELZ0mC2GZv6srK6kc3ruAqB-zh0TWGMroPpIZFQzLEqmxMY_v2gm4JrgrZXR42VCGNTHBOH4XSQ/s400/a_trip_to_the_moon.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A Trip to the Moon</i> (1902)</td></tr>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Trip to the Moon</i> was made from one
element. [The <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-trip-to-the-moon-as-youve-never-seen-it-before-68360402/">reconstruction of </a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-trip-to-the-moon-as-youve-never-seen-it-before-68360402/">A Trip to the Moon</a> </i>utilized a unique hand-colored print, which survived in thousands
of pieces and had to be digitally reassembled frame-by-frame. – Ed.] Actually, three,
because for some totally missing frames, we had to go back to black-and-white
material, which is less than five percent of the [footage]. Those black-and-white
frames came from two different elements, so that’s three in the end. Here,
we’re speaking [of] more than ten. Which, of course, raises ethical issues: what
does restoring a film mean? What can we do and not [do]?</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> I want to
focus first on your emotional experience, because this is the second time that
you’ve restored this film with David. Previously, you were recreating titles
based on the script because you didn’t have the nitrate. What does it feel like
when you’ve spent hours and hours reconstructing a sequence and reconstructing intertitles,
and then years later you have the nitrate and then all the work you’ve done [is
obsolete]? You have, on the one hand, the reconstruction that you’re proud of,
and, on the other hand, the authentic thing.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> In a way, it
is like a jigsaw puzzle. We try to get as close as possible to what we believe
was the original version, and there is no pride in getting it right or not, as
long as we’ve done our best.</div>
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<br />
What we had done in 2000—when the original print had not [yet]
surfaced—was, we thought, the best it could be. We went as close as can be to
the original novel or script or whatever we could find. Then we got proof of
what actually existed in 1925 and then realize that we had made a few mistakes—but
not so many!</div>
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<br /></div>
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For example, on many occasions, you would think that the
documentation you find on paper is exactly what was on the film. But on some
occasions, the original script describes some action and intertitle text that
did not make it into the final film, because they changed their mind in a later
stage of the production process. That, of course, we couldn’t know based on only
the original scripts. </div>
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Emotionally, I must admit that every time you reconstruct a
film or every time you have to guess something because the information does not
survive, you feel a bit guilty. “Should I guess this or that?” You discuss it
with many specialists and wonder, “Am I right?” At the same time, you must keep
records of what you’ve done because one of the standard rules in film and art restoration
is that everything you’ve done can be undone. So we keep track of our choices,
and whatever we’ve had to make up. And obviously the closer we get to the
original material, the happier we are. Not only in terms of reconstruction but
also in terms of sharpness, quality of the image, tinting. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO4es1XMl8lA9CzmUEEUwjCzBxU1jVCicy_fcCe_lcjgnzh4_t6W9UOSd8LyNxZejAl05I58Wf-NCIesDhGQojzJh5Vorp4PtPfycPkf0toxOzxXWJPAQC-VI_oQ44vgO-rSAWySePXbg/s1600/Hand-Color+GTR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1171" data-original-width="1600" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO4es1XMl8lA9CzmUEEUwjCzBxU1jVCicy_fcCe_lcjgnzh4_t6W9UOSd8LyNxZejAl05I58Wf-NCIesDhGQojzJh5Vorp4PtPfycPkf0toxOzxXWJPAQC-VI_oQ44vgO-rSAWySePXbg/s400/Hand-Color+GTR.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Great Train Robbery</i> (1903) [Hand-colored verison]</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
One of the most complex situation is to decide what to do
when you find two original prints of the same film, and on the first one, a specific
shot is tinted in blue, and it is yellow on the other. Which is right? What are
you supposed to guess? Which came first? Why that difference? All these issues
wind up as one question. I don’t know which of the two options was right and
which of the two was a mistake – or not. Or there were two releases. What
should I do? And that’s where we are.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> I think that
speaks to a situation that folks, especially those who are just starting to get
into silent films, aren’t always aware of. When we talk about restorations of
later films, talkies, there’s the sense that there’s one integral version,
there is a perfect version and we’re trying to get [back] to that. But the
fascinating thing about the silent era is that a lot of these versions are
equally legitimate. You look at something like, say, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Great Train Robbery </i>[1903], where shots were moved around in
different copies. I’ve seen prints that were hand-colored, others that were
tinted completely. In a way, each of these is valid. It’s not as if there is
one legitimate text and a bunch of illegitimate texts.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> Right, that’s
a very good comparison because Edison never offered <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Great Train Robbery</i> as a hand-colored print, which means the black-and-white
prints and the tinted prints are original, authentic Edison releases. But the
hand-colored one, which came from a collector named Karl Malkames (now in the
David Shepard-Blackhawk collection), was probably hand-colored by some
exhibitor— which is part of the history of cinema, but it should not be
regarded as the original way Edison wanted his film to be shown. It’s just one of
those versions of the film. </div>
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So, for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lost World</i>,
it’s about the same thing. In the cans we found, we found multi-tinting, we
found Handschiegl coloring. Probably there were prints in pure black-and-white
because those were cheaper, and that is just as authentic as the one we have
found. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> I had a
question about the opening of the film, ethically-speaking. Because there
you’re drawn by two different impulses. You know that in the original, based on
the continuity, you have Arthur Conan Doyle introducing the film. At the same
time, you know you don’t have that actual footage. In the restoration, that
short scene is drawn from a 1927 newsreel with Conan Doyle. So, on the one
hand, you’re authentic to the continuity, but you’re definitely introducing something
that wasn’t in the film. So, as an archivist and a restorationist, how do you
think through that situation?</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> Two things
here. We haven’t found one print with the opening with Conan Doyle. Neither
have we found the scene with the cannibals. Was it there? Was it removed before
release? We don’t know, OK? Now, it does not exist.</div>
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<br /></div>
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So what do we do? We take that opening with images that are
not Conan Doyle at his desk but Conan Doyle in his garden. And we explain
before, in the text, that the opening scene is not authentic. For the people
who want to disregard this as inauthentic material, that’s fine with us. They
know the authentic film starts later. For those of us who want to have the
impression of the [original] audience, to get the impression of what the film
probably was at the beginning, I think we’re more in our place reenacting this
opening because it was part of the original intention. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBgbD7B_3wvgcu6rst0rwFJwk1AXUoWGcV7ZT4zqMQMvq8p5QE5cPyuatIDRke54WFxowM8a88jxwfJj9nB-whqZoYhxs_3-uWK0_SfT9CkYgXPFhVbAdcWDTz5ibaxqES_LxgwlJBk0c/s1600/Hanschliegel+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1023" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBgbD7B_3wvgcu6rst0rwFJwk1AXUoWGcV7ZT4zqMQMvq8p5QE5cPyuatIDRke54WFxowM8a88jxwfJj9nB-whqZoYhxs_3-uWK0_SfT9CkYgXPFhVbAdcWDTz5ibaxqES_LxgwlJBk0c/s400/Hanschliegel+.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Handschiegl color in<i> The Lost World</i> (1925)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We found everything that survives, and done our best. But
once this is done, those ethical questions are for historians, specialists,
professionals. The audience in the theater, they want to see the thing! I
believe what we do is ethical because we say what we do; it is respectful both to
the audience of today and to the original intention of the film. At least that
was David Shepard’s choice in 2000 when we did the first restoration, and I
must say I stick with it 120%.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> I’ll stick
with 110%, how ‘bout?</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> [Laughs] You
lack ambition. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> So I guess
the question then becomes—this isn’t so much about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lost World</i>, but
everything you do—we can’t go back to 1925. We can’t be that original audience
sitting in the theater. So what does it even mean for you when you put all this
work into something and you bring it back before an audience? They have to have
two minds about it. They are always “now” but they’re trying to project
themselves back to this unattainable moment, too, right? <br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> I’m not a man of the past. I’m
like Frankenstein—the doctor, not the monster. Dr Frankenstein wanted to give
life back to dead bodies. In a way, what we are also trying to achieve is both
to restore the bodies/film as they were, but also – and maybe mostly - to
restore the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">life</i> of the films. </div>
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<br /></div>
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In a way, what makes a restoration a success is that the
audience likes it and goes into the emotion of the film as they used to do in
the ’20s. Of course, we’ll never revive the smaller screens, the smaller
orchestras, the smelly theater, the wooden seats, and so on. We all want good
seats, good picture quality and so on. So I’m not trying to recreate what they
went through in the ’20s. You know, they didn’t see the defects. Even if the
film was out of focus, they would not realize because cinema was such an event
in the end. Today we are more demanding. We have images around us and people
want the best quality that can be. They do not know what a scratch on 35mm is.
I love scratches, but people don’t understand what it is anymore. What I want
for the audience is to get back to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">amazement</i>
of the film. Each film was made to thrill the audience one way or another.
Could be romantic, could be scary, could be funny, could be anything. That’s
the feeling I want to recreate. </div>
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<br /></div>
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So, for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lost World</i>,
I must admit I made a few screenings here in Paris, including a few I’ve [accompanied]
myself on the piano. People came up to me at the end and said, “But everything
you have in the monster films today is already here.” I said, “Yes, yes, of
course, the special effects are not perfect by far. It has the poetry that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">King Kong</i> has, that the newer films do
not.” That’s what I like.<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Films First: Remembering David
Shepard</u></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> So I was
wondering if you could describe your collaboration with <a href="http://silentfilm.org/homepage/whats-new/a-tribute-to-david-shepard">David Shepard</a>. I know
you worked with him for decades, and he was a friend of mine as well—not nearly
as close to me as he was to you, and of course, for the readers who don’t know,
he passed away a few months ago. How did you start working with him and how did
your collaboration work across the years?<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsv9lqIljTiva5jnnV_ERVeg4sNoGyM6dKzo3pMeEkCfDXnlCJ-CtoFMYBBiNuXlRnDWE1Lv6pJplwwY4rR0VPTnu9yRT0e2WwdEuVBZaC1gHxJm0YDfQayhRXjd_YhsjzQCOekyK0b-k/s1600/Blackhawk+Films.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="284" data-original-width="755" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsv9lqIljTiva5jnnV_ERVeg4sNoGyM6dKzo3pMeEkCfDXnlCJ-CtoFMYBBiNuXlRnDWE1Lv6pJplwwY4rR0VPTnu9yRT0e2WwdEuVBZaC1gHxJm0YDfQayhRXjd_YhsjzQCOekyK0b-k/s400/Blackhawk+Films.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blackhawk Films rented and sold hundreds of titles on 16mm and Super8</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> That’s a very complex story,
it’s very long. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But to make a long story short, when I was a kid in France,
I used to buy Super 8mm prints of Laurel and Hardy that the Blackhawk Library
used to distribute, only for the United States. (I had a cousin in the United
States; he would buy them and ship them to me in Paris.) So I started to
collect films by buying films from the Blackhawk catalog. At the time,
Blackhawk was a legend. Maybe the younger audiences won’t know what it is, but
basically every month we received a catalog of 16mm and Super 8mm prints that
you would buy and show at home and show to our friends. So that’s the beginning
of [my] film collection. Leonard Maltin, Scorsese, hundreds, thousands of
people, film archivists have been raised on the legend of Blackhawk. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But, of course, Video Killed the 16mm Star, and the
Blackhawk company was basically sold out to Republic Pictures in the mid-’80s
because no one wanted to buy film [prints] and Republic was moving to VHS. In
1986, former Vice President David Shepard, who had developed and improved the
catalog [in the 1970s], bought back the entire Blackhawk library and the rights
that went with it. [He] bought back the film elements and deposited them in the
Academy Film Archive in Los Angles, then started his company Film Preservation
Associates which distributed the Blackhawk Film Collection. So there have been
DVDs and Blu-rays, which have been released through Flicker Alley, Kino, and
many others. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In 1991 or 1992, I was in New York and realized that the
Blackhawk Library had totally vanished for more than ten years, fifteen years,
from the market. I asked a collector, “Where is the Blackhawk Collection now?”
And he said, “I think it’s with a man called David Shepard, who bought it
back.”<br />
<br />
So I cancelled my flight back to Paris and flew to Los
Angeles and tried every David Shepard in the phonebook, and there were twelve.
He was the last one to answer because he was on vacation and I could only reach
him at 11pm in the evening before my return to Paris. So I call in the middle
of the night, and he says, “Well, if you’re here until tomorrow, why don’t you come
over?” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, in the middle of the night, I went to his Blackhawk film
lab in the San Fernando Valley and from that moment, we became very close.
Lobster has a huge collection in Paris, too. So he wanted our films, we were
very interested in his films. Basically we were partners from the beginning.
That partnership became very official in 2000, although not public. David and
Lobster decided to become two sister companies within the same holding. And the
holding is now here in Paris and Lobster and Film Preservation Associates are
now in the same “group”. Not only did we work together and reconstruct
together, now the message in the publicity we have in the [SFSFF] catalog is
that Lobster Films is now officially the home of the Blackhawk Films collection
and the Film Preservation Associates collection. Basically this has been
decided by David Shepard 17 years ago exactly. By losing David, we lost our
closest friend, partner, and mentor.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW: </b>So how old
were you when you were just someone in Los Angeles just dialing every David
Shepard in the phonebook? He was a different generation than me or you ...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikH9vrz_NAoBBQJlaaVcToCWiQq3O3ePmFztNEmohaE0YlIHNScR5gnady_Dd4Fyg8lN8MA7R1-4MPtiSnta4H9P1PiDQS209zxHEv5nqoVnsFskZv5Gt4TntynqYUriuI3Of7KC4SakE/s1600/9.+The+Dancing+Pig.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1162" data-original-width="1600" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikH9vrz_NAoBBQJlaaVcToCWiQq3O3ePmFztNEmohaE0YlIHNScR5gnady_Dd4Fyg8lN8MA7R1-4MPtiSnta4H9P1PiDQS209zxHEv5nqoVnsFskZv5Gt4TntynqYUriuI3Of7KC4SakE/s400/9.+The+Dancing+Pig.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Dancing Pig</i> (1907), screening as part of "Magic and Mirth"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> I was
probably 28.<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> The reason I ask is one of the
things <a href="http://www.chicagofilmsociety.org/2017/02/01/david-shepard-a-lion-1940-2017/">I remember most about David</a> is his generosity towards anybody, even if
he’d never heard of you, even if you were just a kid --</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> Correct. <br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> He had done so much over the
course of his career --<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> Absolutely. He was like that.
Very generous, very open. The only thing he was interested in was to have those
films promoted and shown to as many people as possible. I think his wish—we’ve
had that discussion many times—was that someone would continue his activities,
but in a different way. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When he took over Blackhawk in 1986, it was only VHS and
remember—maybe you will not remember because you were not there—he made a deal
with Raymond Rohauer’s successors [Douris Corp] to make the first-ever release
of the Buster Keaton films on VHS. It had never happened before, because the films
were not available. Can you imagine this? It was just another time, and other
ways.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now Lobster is a company with 20 people working here in
Paris. We’re doing restorations, we’re producing new music tracks, we’re
producing feature films, we’re producing a lot of stuff. So finding us was like
finding the safety valve, a structure strong enough to continue at the same
level, even more. In the way that he was relying on Kino for a long time to be
the video publisher, and then he turned to Flicker Alley, Jeff Masino, which he
helped a lot just because he wanted to be sure that someone would continue
distributing the films he loved and the films he had restored. The best way we
have to pay tribute to him is continue to show films in theaters, release new
films on DVD, keep being David Shepard with the same generosity.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> That’s great.
Can you talk about any projects you were working on together at the time he
passed on? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> We were
working on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">L’Argent</i> from Marcel
L’Herbier, 1929. We were working on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">King
of Kings</i>, the Cecil B. DeMille from 1927. We have a new restoration coming
out at the end of the year from new elements with new symphonic music that was
composed and recorded by Robert Israel under David’s supervision. We have a few
other projects that cannot be named now—you know, we always have ten projects
in a row and then only one or two happen. Every time we would speak over the
phone, which would be two or three times a week, we would sign up for another
project. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I must say at this moment we are very busy with the Niles
Essanay Film Museum, with Ben, [David’s] son, and Don, his brother, and Jon
Mirsalis, the very famous collector, trying to organize what he left behind him
and his assets and the future of his activities. That’s what we’re working on
at the moment. David was investing so much energy in continuing the life of
those films. For a few more weeks, we are investing our energy to continue
David.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1zFAln_PYvhAH_pRUmIE1oklZMvza9Rk7dPzdyGCeQPdouppCf2Izj-I8FtSrOLFSF8p92XxvT7IjrlNNBd8hpFkTwzb6FftP4wcnIYGrB2LPj6aggOU42rvivZgsQXmE9U8CjM87GgM/s1600/David+Shepard.1999.Manoah+Bowman.+Courtesy+of+Jeffrey+Vance.WEB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="720" height="443" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1zFAln_PYvhAH_pRUmIE1oklZMvza9Rk7dPzdyGCeQPdouppCf2Izj-I8FtSrOLFSF8p92XxvT7IjrlNNBd8hpFkTwzb6FftP4wcnIYGrB2LPj6aggOU42rvivZgsQXmE9U8CjM87GgM/s640/David+Shepard.1999.Manoah+Bowman.+Courtesy+of+Jeffrey+Vance.WEB.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><small>David Shepard. Photo by Manoah Bowman, courtesy of Jeffrey Vance</small></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> He couldn’t have a better home
or caretaker for that collection.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> When you
love, you don’t count. And I loved this guy—just the way, obviously, you did.
He was generous and open and so nice.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> I would see
him at a film convention and he was always interested in what I was up to,
though compared to him I was up to nothing. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> [Laughs]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> And he would
have this even-keeled, nonchalant way of saying things. I was at Cinefest with
him, in a bar at 10pm. He said, “So, in my suitcase, I have a lobby card from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Phantom of the Opera</i> from 1925. I
think I’ll go to [poster and photo dealer] Morris Everett and see if it’s worth
anything,” as if it was nothing, as he was just around so much of this all the
time, he had seen everything. <a href="http://www.chicagofilmsociety.org/2012/01/30/forty-years-of-film-preservation-a-conversation-with-david-shepard/">He had seen so much and wanted so much to share it with everyone.</a> And that’s the spirit that you hope and expect the world of
film collectors and film archives to share, but of course, as you know and I
know, not everyone is so generous. He stood out for a reason.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> More and more
people are becoming generous. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because of the Internet,
because of those conventions and film festivals. It’s not the Law of the West,
as it was before, people competing to have this and that. You know, when you go
on eBay, you realize there’s always mountains of junk in 16mm to be sold. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My feeling is that David was not interested in being someone
important. He thought, films first. That’s one of the things today when you
have a new restoration, it’s always ‘That Company Presents,’ ‘That Man
Presents,’ ‘Restored by This Man.’ You would never have that with David, he
would never do that. He wouldn’t bother to have his name on something he spent
five years on. So that was him. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I remember when we were doing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Trip to the Moon</i>, we had sponsors, of course, and they wanted to have
their name above the title—and most of all, their name bigger than our name at
Lobster because we were legitimate in that field and they were only money
providers. I told them, “Look, don’t try to be on top of the picture because,
no matter what, in five years, no one will remember you, no one will remember
Lobster, no one will remember David Shepard. Everyone will remember <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Trip to the Moon</i> and Georges Méliès<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, </i>and that’s all that counts.” If you’re
struggling for a few weeks of eternity, that’s not long enough. And remember:
films first!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSawOzZummT54Ms5axHutFcEZZ1_-ILX-z_ry-r3rT_IBoqnofW40wcQc-0edV-O_PtMwcZLhxOyCaM3N79DzXdloG2Cocd4pjuLFSo8AG76C5sdZau6oP9l_VQj7IXheVkMBQ3c2nznI/s1600/aff_l_argent-01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1483" data-original-width="1142" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSawOzZummT54Ms5axHutFcEZZ1_-ILX-z_ry-r3rT_IBoqnofW40wcQc-0edV-O_PtMwcZLhxOyCaM3N79DzXdloG2Cocd4pjuLFSo8AG76C5sdZau6oP9l_VQj7IXheVkMBQ3c2nznI/s400/aff_l_argent-01.jpg" width="307" /></a></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>No Limit: Film Collecting in the 21st
Century</u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> You said
you’re working on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">L’Argent</i>, you’re
working on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">King of Kings</i>. Are you
still actively scouring for films and --</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> Of course.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW: --</b> and
collections --</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Of course!</i> [Laughs] Of course. Actually,
the last big discovery was yesterday. I can hardly believe it happened. I don’t
have the film yet. Someone said they had it and ... OK, a week. In a week I’ll
know if it really exists or he’s just teasing me. But my guess is it does exist
and it’ll be a sensation—at least in France, maybe not in the US, because it’s
less known in the US. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But yes, we’ve found recently –what have we found? We came
across about 250 cans of nitrate, among them the silent serial by J.P. McGowan called
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Chinatown Mystery </i>[1928], which
does not survive anywhere else. And what have we found? We found five or six [redacted]
films, but you’re not supposed to print that or know that. What else have we
found? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
[Redacted digression about super-secret film finds]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> I know how
that sense of the hunt goes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> And the
disappointment, too. When we bought <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">King
of Kings</i> with David, we were supposed to receive 800 cans of material.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> Are we back
on the record, by the way?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> When David
and the former owners opened the vault, the 800 cans of material weren’t there.
We have no clue where those cans are, not a single idea. We even thought of
hiring a private dick but finally decided to give up because we had enough material
to reconstruct the film: but 800 cans have been stolen by someone or destroyed
by someone or misplaced by someone. 800 cans of film! That’s a lot.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> What would
that even be? A bunch of prints? Trims and outs?<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> Prints, dupe negs, fine grains.
There’s no fine grain off the camera negative. It is very strange. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc4tdr_W6v4JTNHB8v95AWMxDQjsqvyHHDD2ds-y_CmOIjq9N8LMZBSl_WgugpeQ8hp0Ma3dkdbC8BGtNSClo6M58arnGkRF9LLwG-1AqO3s6SWedsAegiZagjVkh_aCH8reomUNnvNc0/s1600/FIAF-Manifesto-2015-Red.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="694" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc4tdr_W6v4JTNHB8v95AWMxDQjsqvyHHDD2ds-y_CmOIjq9N8LMZBSl_WgugpeQ8hp0Ma3dkdbC8BGtNSClo6M58arnGkRF9LLwG-1AqO3s6SWedsAegiZagjVkh_aCH8reomUNnvNc0/s400/FIAF-Manifesto-2015-Red.jpg" width="287" /></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> Do you
remember a few years ago when FIAF [the International Federation of Film Archives] had
a motto that was just “<a href="http://www.fiafnet.org/pages/Community/FIAF-Manifesto.html">Don’t Throw Film Away</a>”?<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> Of course.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> This was
right when the digital transition was starting and I think they correctly assumed
that there would be archives who thought, “OK, we scanned this, we can just get
rid of it now.” And yet, in public, we’re talking about how you have to save
every foot of film, every can, every scrap. But the fact of the matter is, you
get into these titles and it’s redundant material left and right, and reels of
dupe neg --<br />
<br />
<b>SB: </b>Yes. <br />
<br />
<b>KW:</b> -- reels of this, reels of that -- </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> Absolutely.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> Reels of
16mm. As someone who wants to save it, how do you contend with the fact that
you can’t, that you can’t take every scrap, and you don’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">need</i> to take every scrap?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> Yeah, that’s
correct. That’s a big issue. In a perfect world, with no money or space limit,
we must keep everything. But (and whatever I say will be held against me
sometimes) my guess is sometimes when you have the original source that is
complete and that has been preserved on newer material, and all the alternate
versions, then the secondary and lower generation duplicates may be disposed of,
or at least put in a remote place where they will die their [natural] death. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because you’re right, it costs a fortune to keep films, and
the more films we find, the less room we’ll have for the next films we’ll find
or will have to store. For example, in the French archives, there is a lot of
material that needs to be deposited but there is actually no room. So probably
if we remove some duplicates in this French archive, it will make some room for
new films to be stored. Meanwhile, the other unpreserved films are badly stored
and they’re decomposing. So basically they would deserve the place that those unnecessary
films are taking. But here again, people will say, “We should keep everything.”
I understand that also. You know my film, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/movies/16henry.html"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Clouzot’s Inferno</i></a>?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> Yeah.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf3fiEfl0gHbRmYGucHGg026GNa8fiNOmONI5wxswnmIx3z1tk-YYcpBVn6_fgkERAyMiH5Tkw9nWUwFpTE-6CF71LG72ysoEG8-KUq7B4cQd85K1iNiwwc2Ye4itp53aMZOGGdei0rmo/s1600/Inferno.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="313" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf3fiEfl0gHbRmYGucHGg026GNa8fiNOmONI5wxswnmIx3z1tk-YYcpBVn6_fgkERAyMiH5Tkw9nWUwFpTE-6CF71LG72ysoEG8-KUq7B4cQd85K1iNiwwc2Ye4itp53aMZOGGdei0rmo/s320/Inferno.jpg" width="225" /></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> If someone
had junked the outtakes of the film or the dailies of the film -- </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> You would
have no film.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> -- I would
have no film. So there are things that we must keep. At this moment, in France,
everything that was in film labs, deposited in the three or four major film
labs, is kept. It may not be kept in [optimal conditions]: cold, dry, [with] humidity
control, but at least it’s here.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> Labs are so
funny. We had so many labs shutting down over the past ten years. MovieLab, a
ton of labs around L.A., around San Francisco. It’s always this funny thing
where the lab says, “Oh, this element has been here for thirty years and if
you’re the filmmaker and you want it back, you have to pay us thirty years of
storage fees. And if you don’t have that, we’ll just throw it in the dumpster.”
And then archives just come and take it out of the dumpster. So it’s always
this funny dance --</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> You have that in
America also, do you?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> Oh yeah. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You want your original camera negative back? We’ve
calculated how many months it was stored here.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“But if I don’t pay that, what happens?” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Oh, it’ll just be junked. No big deal.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> That should
be illegal. Actually dumping someone else’s property is not right. But at the
same time, I understand there has been energy and money spend to keep these
elements safe long enough, and this certainly deserves recognition.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> French
intellectual property law and copyright is different than American -- </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> Fortunately.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> -- but how do
you deal with situations where you come upon a lab collection and you want to
do the right thing, but the trail to the original filmmaker is cold, and that’s
on you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> The fact that
we have in an archive, the negatives that were found in a film lab doesn’t
meant that we own the films. We have the material elements, but not the
author’s rights, so we cannot use it. For the films that seem to be the most
important, we will chase the owners or the authors and sign deals with them and
eventually show the films. It’s a condition that has to be fulfilled to have
the film if you want to show it. Restore the film, but also be sure that the
legal chain of copyright is complete.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM7X7DQEOCHNmgvpZ8uTxS60iDqudvi7TWgG8Jk0_i0xFbHe6TT_VWDisxlmImNwaJ1joAo853vAJ-u_TVWs-MhX2PY8zfhHbOTYdb8PP1XxPuhnudEkRnBuBaPPCf-XViPQINHzFXF6g/s1600/Lost+World.1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1261" data-original-width="1600" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM7X7DQEOCHNmgvpZ8uTxS60iDqudvi7TWgG8Jk0_i0xFbHe6TT_VWDisxlmImNwaJ1joAo853vAJ-u_TVWs-MhX2PY8zfhHbOTYdb8PP1XxPuhnudEkRnBuBaPPCf-XViPQINHzFXF6g/s400/Lost+World.1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Dumping someone else's property is not right." </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
As an accessory point, you have to grab the films and keep
them. We had this a few years ago; we bought the assets of an old film lab
called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vitfer</i>, six or seven thousand
cans. And the next thing I did was I called the French CNC Archive, which is
the most important [national] archive and say “There’s this lab that has not
existed for the last twenty years. I bought all that existed in an old house
and it’s all their printing material. Please take them!” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And you know what? The CNC Archive said, “Fifteen years ago
we went to another house and we took half of the Vitfer assets and realized
that many images were there but not the sound, or sound and no image. Probably
in what you found is the missing part, the other half.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So it is absolutely crucial that the archives are here. And
I’m very happy that those two babies—image and sound—can be met together and of
course. The archives will take care of storing it, cleaning it, changing the
cans, putting labels, putting them in the computer. Remember, it’s a public
service. Lobster is a private company—we have no money or energy or people to
do this job. Lobster is about 120,000 cans of film. Just to handle that, we
still have three people. It’s totally crazy. Without the Archives, we would
never be able to deal with this mountain of film.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">KW:</b> Is that nitrate,
safety, a mix?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SB:</b> We have it
all. 17.5, 22mm, 21mm, 28, anything you could think of. 15mm. We have all that.
There’s no limit. When we find nitrate and it seems of interest, we get it, and
we never junk. But we put our films in archives—now obviously, you know why.
Just as David did. David had this very strong relationship with both Library of
Congress and the Academy. Before that, he had a long relationship with UCLA
Film & Television Archive. I think the time of conflict between archives
and collectors is probably over. Collectors realize they depend on the archives
to be the safe keepers of their wealth. And archives realize that there is not
much competition from collectors now. They are aging people—except you and I,
and mostly men—and they can be very useful. We must work together.<br />
<br />
Actually, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival is the
perfect example of this. Watch <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lost
World</i>. Watch how many official archives have been involved in this
preservation. No one is claiming the glory of restoring the film and so on. If
one of us had not been here, then the result wouldn’t be what it is today. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu5RuMFCVNimdmo_TsX8xKeiZNc2Xs_c9BG_BbiGrVPgn5xx9KYzLEBKHrMxKnf8dMg8gdwqjKqU-0JEg58iwUM-hMbbYtrwQPug8r1-D5JZcUO0UpkyKGPSKIWZiTUeE7Uup4ynGf2kc/s1600/Lost+World.14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1217" data-original-width="1600" height="486" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu5RuMFCVNimdmo_TsX8xKeiZNc2Xs_c9BG_BbiGrVPgn5xx9KYzLEBKHrMxKnf8dMg8gdwqjKqU-0JEg58iwUM-hMbbYtrwQPug8r1-D5JZcUO0UpkyKGPSKIWZiTUeE7Uup4ynGf2kc/s640/Lost+World.14.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>About the author of this post</b><br />
<a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/author/kyle/" target="_blank">Kyle Westphal</a> is a programmer at the <a href="http://www.chicagofilmsociety.org/" target="_blank">Chicago Film Society</a>,
which he founded with Becca Hall and Julian Antos in 2011. Under the
auspices of CFS, he oversaw the photochemical preservation of the
independent musical <i>Corn's-A-Poppin'</i>; he is currently working on preserving the avant-garde films of Fred Camper. He is a graduate of the <a href="https://eastman.org/selznickschool/" target="_blank">L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation</a> and was a past recipient of the <a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/about/preservation" target="_blank">San Francisco Silent Film Festival Fellowship</a>. Westphal has also worked at the Pacific Film Archive and the George Eastman Museum.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-6358004743559596172017-05-18T12:11:00.000-07:002017-05-19T13:40:14.170-07:00Watching Lois Weber: A Beginner's Guide<div class="p1">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>By Kyle Westphal</i></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWbnsPOcVLu3l2tC4T9EMubWSJPx5MjUpsg6PwGcYhp6CUDPx37gdeJ09hKv1SsWYaBGtQ2d1Io-bHteOGGOwv8o2siHy5BMb8vohB3PVUeJooXINzqgAE4uTe1K6ZbpQ6xRHVlocjXnY/s1600/Hypocrites+5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWbnsPOcVLu3l2tC4T9EMubWSJPx5MjUpsg6PwGcYhp6CUDPx37gdeJ09hKv1SsWYaBGtQ2d1Io-bHteOGGOwv8o2siHy5BMb8vohB3PVUeJooXINzqgAE4uTe1K6ZbpQ6xRHVlocjXnY/s400/Hypocrites+5.png" width="400" /></a></div>
The first biography of Lois Weber— Anthony Slide's
effort from 1996, published fifty-seven years after her death—was
subtitled "The Woman Who Lost Her Way in History." Two decades later,
I'm not sure that she's found it again yet. </div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
One
of the key filmmakers of the silent era, with work that is consistently
powerful and skillfully crafted, Weber remains criminally neglected
outside of academic circles. Much of Weber's eclipse can be attributed
to Hollywood sexism, but the industry's self-regard also plays an
important role: Weber's multi-faceted talent was an implicit rebuke to
the highly regimented, (gendered) hierarchy that emerged as the studio
system consolidated itself in 1917 and afterwards. (Not coincidentally,
Weber split off and formed her own independent production company
concurrent with this industry shift.) The scope of Weber's threat to
that system is visible in a contemporary publicity piece, quoted by
Slide: </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Weber writes her own
photoplays, puts them in story form, chooses and contracts her own
players, operates a Bell-Howell camera on many of her own scenes, and
plans her own lighting effects. Sometimes she shoots with a still
camera, plunges occasionally into chemicals in her developing
laboratory, and writes her own titles, inserts, and prologues. Weber
knows how to operate a film-printing machine, is her own film cutter,
splicer and editor; plans her own publicity and advertising campaigns
for her finished pictures. Weber is her own business manager and signs
all checks. </i></blockquote>
<div class="p1">
</div>
<div class="p1">
Weber's
strongest work stretches from 1912 to 1916, the period of the early
feature, when narrative codes, spatial unities, and temporal rhythms
were all being tested and twisted with each new release. Though Weber
can be credited with a host of technical innovations (including the
early and very effective use of a split-screen in <i>Suspense</i>
[1913]), her work is not primarily a showcase for the subtle brand of
stylistic mastery that can be seen in the work of contemporaries like
William C. de Mille and Maurice Tourneur. In contrast, Weber's cinema is
often sledge-hammer literal, as when "The Naked Truth" is portrayed by a
nude nymph in <i>Hypocrites</i> (1915) or a stubbly hand labeled 'POVERTY' reaches out for heroine Mary MacLaren during a nightmare in <a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/shoes"><span class="s1"><i>Shoes</i></span></a>
(1916). In the social problem films that constitute the critical core
of Weber's extant feature output, the filmmaker's political agenda is
declared loudly and often, if not always coherently.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOoArEue1DHf4yBNhsBq9fBy3jFztz7COzZfiFIgikTWRuoUBfzm-ftREoCgu2iWHRLunAw9jwcee7RF4nlYYt8T1T2VDoVNVUlht3hHr1ffJvXJ7KIgbB8ZXt_C2Im9xRln4qxUd5i6o/s1600/shoes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOoArEue1DHf4yBNhsBq9fBy3jFztz7COzZfiFIgikTWRuoUBfzm-ftREoCgu2iWHRLunAw9jwcee7RF4nlYYt8T1T2VDoVNVUlht3hHr1ffJvXJ7KIgbB8ZXt_C2Im9xRln4qxUd5i6o/s640/shoes.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Despite
being one of the most prolific, publicly visible, and commercially
successful film directors of the silent era, Weber and her work were all
but ignored by the first generations of film historians. Benjamin
Hampton's <i>A History of the Movies</i> from 1931, a straightforward
business history of the film industry, makes no mention of Weber at all,
in spite of the substantial profits her efforts reaped for the
Universal Film Mfg. Company (forerunner of the modern Universal
Pictures).<br />
<br />
Tragically, these early chroniclers, who
experienced the silent era first-hand and saw scores of films that would
be lost to future generations, contributed nearly nothing to our
understanding of Weber's work. Instead, they preview the complaints that
would be used to denigrate Weber's filmmaking for years to come. Paul
Rotha's <i>The Film Til Now</i>, first published in 1930, mentions Weber
only once (and lists her as "Louis Weber" in its index), dismissing her
simply as "another woman director, who made that excessively dull
movie, <i>The Sensation Seekers</i>." Lewis Jacobs's influential 1939 survey, <i>The Rise of the American Film</i>, mentions Weber only once in passing as a director "notable for her birth-control propaganda films (<i>Hypocrites</i>, <i>Where Are My Children?</i>, <i>Idle Wives</i>)." (Contra Jacobs, <i>Hypocrites</i>
has nothing to do with birth control.) And this blackout reflects the
efforts of two politically-engaged historians who devoted much space to
the evolution of social issues on screen. If they withheld serious
consideration of Weber's career, what would less sympathetic critics
say, if anything?<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSOIu2p78B-Z1LIgTNsrkmbgNSyyXRfSXojdZADWovTbNDmOHt64gCybQaf5FcrCmx8XRj8AeOb7NT1y2awLF8yEGEFH9cR_MNzGR1OLI_8A6eaTNCv3x303vIDv5ZlsRFaTT4w1YST88/s1600/Dumb+Girl+of+Portici.Production.1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSOIu2p78B-Z1LIgTNsrkmbgNSyyXRfSXojdZADWovTbNDmOHt64gCybQaf5FcrCmx8XRj8AeOb7NT1y2awLF8yEGEFH9cR_MNzGR1OLI_8A6eaTNCv3x303vIDv5ZlsRFaTT4w1YST88/s400/Dumb+Girl+of+Portici.Production.1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Dumb Girl of Portici (1916) - Screening June 2</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When a new generation of critics and
cinephiles began re-evaluating the canon in the 1960s and '70s, they
frequently did so along auteurist lines. It's no coincidence that at the
exact moment when Weber's films could have found a fresh audience,
campus film societies and museum exhibitors were instead flush with a
particularly apolitical brand of auteurism, one which programmatically
elevated the occasionally numbskullish 'personal' vision of Don Siegel
and Samuel Fuller over the politically earnest preening of Stanley
Kramer and George Stevens. There are sound reasons to prefer sleek and
visceral film noirs and Westerns over pious message movies, of course,
but this critical preference curdled into something different: automatic
suspicion of any movie with a message. And there's no ignoring the
social dimension of Weber's films, no writing it off or minimizing
it—these are melodramas that aspire, with evangelical fervor, to change
someone else's life.<br />
<br />
In fairness to earlier critics,
many of Weber's films were quite difficult see until relatively recently
and still others remain lost. <i>Hypocrites</i> was preserved from the AFI/UCLA Collection at the Library of Congress in 1977 and <a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/the-blot-1921"><span class="s1"><i>The Blot</i></span></a><i> </i>(1921)
circulated in 16mm in the 1970s, but the renaissance of Weber
reconstructions and restorations had to wait until the 21st century. <i>Where Are My Children? </i>(1916) and <i>What's Worth While? </i>(1921)
were reconstructed by the Library of Congress in 2000 and 2004,
respectively, with the latter still missing its first reel. Two of the
seven reels that once comprised <a href="https://www.filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/screening-room/idle-wives-1914"><span class="s1"><i>Idle Wives</i></span></a><i> </i>(1916)
survive, with the second repatriated from New Zealand in 2010. EYE
Filmmuseum and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival restored <i>Shoes</i>
in 2011; a <a href="https://milestonefilms.com/products/shoes-by-lois-weber">further restoration</a>, using the recently recovered original
continuity, was released by Milestone Films last year, alongside the
LoC's <a href="https://milestonefilms.com/products/the-dumb-girl-of-portici-by-lois-weber">new reconstruction</a> of <i><a href="http://prod3.agileticketing.net/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=276002">The Dumb Girl of Portici</a> </i>(1916), which SFSFF will screen this year. The "excessively dull" <i>Sensation Seekers </i>(1927) has recently been restored by Universal, and greeted its public for the first time in ninety years <a href="https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/3065?locale=en"><span class="s1">last week at MoMA</span></a>, so we can now judge Rotha's aversion for ourselves. Weber's final feature, the Hawaiian talkie <i>White Heat</i> (1934), appears to survive, too, though the only modern critic who's reviewed it is the <a href="http://www.tvguide.com/movies/white-heat/review/122786/"><span class="s1">anonymous scribe from <i>TV Guide</i></span></a><i> </i>(!)<br />
<br />
Many tantalizing Weber features remain lost, including her Prohibition-themed <i>Hop, the Devil's Brew </i>(1916), the anti-capital punishment feature <i>The People vs. John Doe </i>(1916), and Margaret Sanger roman à clef <i>The Hand That Rocks the Cradle </i>(1917).
Still, there's now a critical mass of surviving Weber features to
evaluate, which raises thorny questions about exactly how to categorize
her work.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3wsv9e2geAmTxX1Cfl4DdrIVekzQ6OTVbwATquh3DLXC0RfTm7SSMy4qZ0BmNuE00ZiRCtjJtvXY0hnWmm874C8CCi2KmZsxQHMVmF3WZxwY18Ddf3bhoeuGdXEc_4RdTx-04h9_VQhw/s1600/Dumb+Girl+of+Portici.Production.3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3wsv9e2geAmTxX1Cfl4DdrIVekzQ6OTVbwATquh3DLXC0RfTm7SSMy4qZ0BmNuE00ZiRCtjJtvXY0hnWmm874C8CCi2KmZsxQHMVmF3WZxwY18Ddf3bhoeuGdXEc_4RdTx-04h9_VQhw/s400/Dumb+Girl+of+Portici.Production.3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Dumb Girl of Portici - Screening June 2</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There is a strong temptation to regard Lois
Weber as a "Progressive Filmmaker"—not only in the sense that her work
arose from and commented upon the struggles of the Progressive Era, but
also in that her socially-engaged moviemaking constitutes a crucial
lineage in the development of left-wing culture and political thought,
as if she would be simpatico with Rachel Maddow and Samantha Bee. This
impulse is not entirely misplaced, and to the extent it brings new
audiences to her films, it's laudable. In Weber's press interviews, she
continually rehearsed remarkably "woke" arguments that deconstructed the
gendered structure of the workplace, phrased in a way that wouldn't be
out of place on blogs such as <span id="goog_1932079807"></span><i><a href="http://feministing.com/">Feministing</a><span id="goog_1932079811"></span></i><i> </i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_1932079808"></span></a><span id="goog_1932079812"></span>or <a href="https://thebillfold.com/"><i>The Billfold</i></a>. Upon opening her own independent studio in 1917, Weber talked to the <i>Moving Picture World</i>
and felt the need to explain that her concern for comfortable working
conditions was frequently marginalized because it was typed as
'feminine':<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>We have taken a charming old
estate here in Hollywood and converted it into our workshop. We have
acres of ground, and shade trees and hedges and gardens, to say nothing
of a tennis court. That may sound sentimental and feminine to many; but I
am sure that we will make better pictures all the way round from having
an inspiring and delightful environment in which to work. </i></blockquote>
The Weber that modern progressives want can be found in <i>Shoes</i>,
an exquisite work of hard scrabble social realism that devotes so much
attention to materialist miserablism and real-time depiction of
household chores it eventually suggests nothing less than the <i>Jeanne Dielman</i> of its day. ("[T]here is such a thing as being too realistic," demurred the <i>Motion Picture News</i> trade journal.) The single-mindedness of Weber's portrayal of economic and physical deprivation in <i>Shoes</i>,
largely to the exclusion of subplots or comic relief, stands in stark
contrast to the assembly-line studio films that would follow in her
wake. And it's firmly rooted in a sense that the gendered structure of
society gives its heroine no honorable solution: let down by her lazy,
boozing father, Mary MacLaren is expected to support her parents and
siblings on meager earnings from the local Woolworth's. She cannot earn
enough to afford new shoes, but she cannot continue working her
genuinely strenuous "pink collar" retail job without them. Her ultimate
choice—selling her body to keep herself standing for another
day—represents society's structural failure, the cruelty of capitalism,
and the way it all seems to fall on women.<br />
<br />
Of course,
Weber's feminism is more complicated than that—it's tempered and mixed
with elements of evangelic religious devotion, loyalty to traditional
family structures and gender roles, and patrician anxiety around the
behavior of the lower classes.<br />
<br />
Most modern accounts of Weber's <i>Where Are My Children?</i>
focus on the film's seemingly contradictory political stances,
simultaneously pro-birth control and anti-abortion. But this shorthand
makes Weber's argument less legible by contorting a Progressive Era
relic to better fit the political economy of our present moment. She was
a feminist for her time, not ours—but even in 1916, Weber's notion of
"birth control" was conceived much more narrowly than Margaret Sanger's:
the debate in <i>Where Are My Children?</i> isn't about the public
dissemination of contraceptive methods and family planning advice, but
an explicit plea for eugenic order. One early digression, prompted by
the trial of a doctor who peddles birth control literature, advances a
vision of "ill-born" slum children stretching the social fabric to its
breaking point. No birth control method is examined directly in <i>Where Are My Children?</i>, but forced sterilization lingers just beyond the frame.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRMdu2pGGS4cYVVbh0HKoAZY2fKnv-KjR5Kn220iDTUqf8QHX1v77yjm9gL7D0OYUJ1WNjO36XFXLVpIcZY2WJwSzrRHjYCZK79JC-iT71U-RErlpxAnf5YAHCDs_Y-iYSkpxgK4k25DI/s1600/WAMC+3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRMdu2pGGS4cYVVbh0HKoAZY2fKnv-KjR5Kn220iDTUqf8QHX1v77yjm9gL7D0OYUJ1WNjO36XFXLVpIcZY2WJwSzrRHjYCZK79JC-iT71U-RErlpxAnf5YAHCDs_Y-iYSkpxgK4k25DI/s400/WAMC+3.png" width="400" /></a></div>
The structural analysis is still there, but it's used to discredit the choices of individual women. The true terror in <i>Where Are My Children?</i>
is reserved for women who choose to abstain from motherhood, the
linchpin of the broader social order. While Tyrone Power's eugenicist
District Attorney hops the fence and wanders the park to admire other
people's children, his wife Helen Riaume nibbles chocolate and nuzzles
puppies, utterly content with her childless lifestyle. After a society
woman obtains an abortion, an intertitle informs us that "One of the
'unwanted' ones returns, and a social butterfly is again ready for house
parties." (Weber is often compared favorably to the hopelessly
Victorian D. W. Griffith these days, but this sentiment is not so far
removed from the infamous intertitle in <i>Intolerance</i> which posits that "Women who cease to attract men often turn to reform as a second choice.") When we learn towards the end of <i>Where Are My Children?</i>
that terminating a pregnancy permanently disqualifies a woman from
taking on the "diadem of motherhood," the seeming contradiction between
the pro-birth control/anti-abortion politics appears rather less
fractious. Anti-abortion activists raise this dubious assertion today,
of course, and <i>Where Are My Children? </i>fits squarely with their
program, down to its vision of a swaddling sea of unborn babes. Even the
title, it turns out, is not an expression of maternal concern, but an
assertion of paternal entitlement.<br />
<br />
My friend and Chicago Film Society colleague Cameron Worden has accurately summed up <i>Where Are My Children </i>as an "<a href="https://letterboxd.com/cameronworden/film/where-are-my-children/"><span class="s1">all-around 'bad object,'</span></a>"
one that "gives a lot of context to Lois Weber's career in cinematic
moralism," and "rejigger[s] any sort of 'progressive,' canon-busting
narrative built up around Weber's pioneering work." We can, of course,
appreciate the breadth and achievement of Weber's career—and the unique
challenges she posed to the emerging Hollywood establishment—without
endorsing her politics.<br />
<br />
Like Oscar Micheaux, Weber and
her genuinely pioneering career are built upon an uncomfortable
aesthetic of hectoring uplift, obscure but grossly overdetermined moral
binaries, and outrageous revelations of her characters' true souls.
Though Weber publicly aspired to be "the editorial page of the Universal
Company" and speak in "stentorian tones" capable of provoking "a ready
and cheerful response from the better element of the big general
public," her work more often resembles the political cartoons than the
carefully-argued op-eds—full of caricatures, cheap shots, crisp
dismissals, and potent contempt. Piety notwithstanding, her best films
are simply nuts.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8GjMkP1pbEBTopqdLLn2-w0gyZa8LflryCwqzrgoTAZW9DJ3NVSKykxl1zX-iA1-b2Ut0gkCbZGvtCvzeztWOnLl7Revg0myDZuyJYR4Vw2yPh8YW5abuqjUCq4bwfSyBSSFJfjhfP-A/s1600/Hypocrites+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8GjMkP1pbEBTopqdLLn2-w0gyZa8LflryCwqzrgoTAZW9DJ3NVSKykxl1zX-iA1-b2Ut0gkCbZGvtCvzeztWOnLl7Revg0myDZuyJYR4Vw2yPh8YW5abuqjUCq4bwfSyBSSFJfjhfP-A/s400/Hypocrites+1.png" width="400" /></a></div>
Consider her tremendous feature <i>Hypocrites</i>,
a religious parable that makes up for its skimpy scriptural specificity
with a free-whelming narrative carnival. Because most of the actors are
introduced and credited with dual roles, we might be led to think that
the film's two timelines will switch back and forth and comment upon one
another—a relative innovation for 1915. But no, what we have instead is
even stranger: a modern framing story about a community's hypocritical
indifference to its pastor's sermons, followed by hints of a parallel
story revolving around a 15th century ascetic. Yet the stories don't
cooperate: folks from one timeline wander freely into the other, with
the ancient ascetic lamenting the insufficient piety of his modern-dress
followers. Purely allegorical scenes intermingle with a continuing
story. When the climax arrives a reel early, Weber devotes the rest of
the film to demonstrations of modern-day hypocrisy, with the ascetic and
The Naked Truth visiting politicians and prominent families and
exposing the thin tissue of lies and complacency propping up their
lives. Again, Weber gets no points for subtlety—The Naked Truth,
literally a naked woman, holds up a literal mirror, which presents the
literal revealed truth—but her emphatic, impassioned, cockeyed sense of
quasi-narrative cinema lingers in the mind.<br />
<br />
Alas, it
was not to last. After Weber moved into independent production in 1917,
her focus began to drift. Her features of the 1920s are revelatory in
their own way, but comparatively tame. You can identify <i>What's Worth While?</i>
as late period Weber by its restraint: midway through the film,
Southern belle Claire Windsor wonders what her ancestors would have
thought of her working class cowboy beau Louis Calhern, but we're denied
the scene of cavorting, genteel specters that Weber would have
automatically provided five years prior. There's still a moral, but it's
less explicit. You can see the film's dilemma—do modern women really
want husbands to be their neutered equals or do they secretly prefer
hairy he-men?—coming a few reels in advance.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGYYUI2oQG5Yks9G8hnbT1wUjHR_N_AFf9IskiFg6LJwCdKm_d3SfpDY1X9d2NHXwsS7gkth9JRD7lK6P9w2ex4V8jQq_JAie8coKDWVkxxArPdHgfDl13cJDcfUBQ4RpKiZxdxDWG5y4/s1600/300px-Lois_Weber_Productions_ad_1921.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGYYUI2oQG5Yks9G8hnbT1wUjHR_N_AFf9IskiFg6LJwCdKm_d3SfpDY1X9d2NHXwsS7gkth9JRD7lK6P9w2ex4V8jQq_JAie8coKDWVkxxArPdHgfDl13cJDcfUBQ4RpKiZxdxDWG5y4/s320/300px-Lois_Weber_Productions_ad_1921.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>
Likewise, audiences familiar with <i>Where Are My Children? </i>and <i>Hypocrites</i> would be forgiven for assuming that <i>The Blot</i>
promises venereal disease or incest or some exploitation-worthy mortal
sin. Instead, the titular blot is the salary disparity between America's
business elite and its clergy and professoriate. Important, no doubt,
but hardly titillating.<br />
<br />
The issues raised by <i>The Blot </i>still
feel contemporary, like a heart-tugging campaign ad for Donald Trump,
or perhaps a treacly op-ed lamenting how the latte-sipping coastal
denizens don't understand the economic anxiety roiling the Oxycontin
belt. A family of hard-working white folks feels their membership in the
middle class slipping away. Will they be able to afford the mortgage
this month? Will their daughter enjoy the same privileges they had? The
immigrant family next door is doing better--suspiciously better--but
still lets their kids play in the mud. Elites suckle gourmond mushrooms
and sneer at regular folks. Kittens sneak into garbage pails across the
fence.<br />
<br />
I hesitate to call any film 'timeless,' but Weber's acute sociological diagnosis in <i>The Blot</i>
identifies strains of American anxiety that remain stubbornly
unresolved and periodically combustible. And yet this is an
astonishingly gentle film, a domestic drama that never leans on the
emotional urgency or moral tribulation that we would recognize as
melodrama. Every plot synopsis I've read overstates the centrality of <i>The Blot</i>'s romantic rivalries, which are handled in the most chivalrous and incidental manner imaginable.<br />
<br />
This
effort is much more naturalistic than evangelistic, tilted so far in
that direction that Weber's subtle formal strategies become nearly
subliminal. The subplots and digressions are handled so deftly that it's
easy to miss the deliberate compactness of the storytelling--and how
many incidents are occurring simultaneously--on a first viewing.
Produced after Weber had been sidelined from an increasingly
programmatic and sexist film industry, <i>The Blot </i>also develops a
quietly contrarian film grammar. Despite an abundance of photogenic
young people, close-ups are mostly reserved for details of deprivation:
the cracking leather of a chair, the fraying rug, the lid of a garbage
pail. It's here that Weber cultivates the deliberately anti-glamorous
aesthetic that constitutes her major legacy—a lonely strain of
commercial cinema that sells philosophy rather than fashion, ideas
rather than products.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Portions of this essay appeared previously on </i><a href="http://cinefile.info/"><span class="s1"><i>Cine-File Chicago</i></span></a><i>.</i><b></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>About the author of this post</b><br />
<a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/author/kyle/" target="_blank">Kyle Westphal</a> is a programmer at the <a href="http://www.chicagofilmsociety.org/" target="_blank">Chicago Film Society</a>,
which he founded with Becca Hall and Julian Antos in 2011. Under the
auspices of CFS, he oversaw the photochemical preservation of the
independent musical <i>Corn's-A-Poppin'</i>; he is currently working on preserving the avant-garde films of Fred Camper. He is a graduate of the <a href="https://eastman.org/selznickschool/" target="_blank">L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation</a> and was a past recipient of the <a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/about/preservation" target="_blank">San Francisco Silent Film Festival Fellowship</a>. Westphal has also worked at the Pacific Film Archive and the George Eastman Museum.<br />
<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-20688440453992057422017-05-13T14:25:00.001-07:002017-06-22T16:43:20.285-07:00Mutoscopes, Market Street Parlors and Moralistic Outrage<style type="text/css">
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<i>Just in time for George Willeman's upcoming SFSFF 2017 <a href="http://bit.ly/SFSFF22AmazingTales" target="_blank">Amazing Tales from the Archives</a>
presentation on Edison Kinetophones, Christine U'Ren has contributed a
multi-part series on the earliest movies. This is part two. Read part <a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2017/04/kinetoscopes-those-wicked-phonographs.html">one</a> first!</i><br />
<i> </i> <br />
Partly because of Kinetoscopes' high cost, other inventors began to sense opportunities in the motion-picture business. The Lumière Brothers, whose associates considered Edison's film prices "crazy," according to David Robinson, began working to develop their own machines and movies, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/history-of-the-motion-picture"><span class="s1">inspired by</span></a> a Kinetoscope exhibition in Paris (Edison had not patented the machine internationally, so the design could be liberally built upon in Europe). In late 1894, W.K.L. Dickson, perhaps disgruntled with his treatment at Edison's company (which he left a few months later), passed an idea for a new peep-show machine to Herman Norton Marvin and Herman Casler. Casler would perfect the device and patent it as the Mutoscope. Dickson, Marvin, Casler and a fourth, Elias Bernard Koopman, formed the American Mutoscope Company (AMC) in December 1895. It would eventually morph into the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biograph_Company"><span class="s1">Biograph</span></a> studio and create some of early cinema's most important films, as well as launch the movie careers of Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, D.W. Griffith, and others. But in 1895, the company was mainly concerned with beating Edison technology. The team built the Mutoscope camera by <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/edisons-kinetoscope-and-its-films-a-history-to-1896/oclc/36582146"><span class="s1">September 1895</span></a>; it would <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Emergence-Cinema-American-Screen-History/dp/0520085337"><span class="s1">remain</span></a> the company's sole camera for some time. The Mutoscope personal viewing machine became available in December, and was first promoted as a device that traveling salesmen could use to explain materials and large machines, as <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=rYcAAAAAMAAJ&dq=billy+bitzer+memoirs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiExLGGhsnSAhXnwlQKHf7rDqwQ6AEIQDAH"><span class="s1">remembered</span></a> by cameraman <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005658/"><span class="s1">Billy Bitzer</span></a>, who began his motion-picture career with the company.</div>
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Ziegfeld star Anna Held shows how to work the Mutoscope, 1899—</div>
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though her eyes are too far away from the peephole to get the best view. </div>
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Held also appeared in two Mutoscope films—</div>
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one close up, and one full-figure—showing the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0352173/?ref_=nm_flmg_slf_4"><span class="s1">same scene</span></a> </div>
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from one of her stage plays. In 1910, she would appear </div>
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in an Edison short called <i>The Comet</i>. At least two of </div>
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these films are in the Library of Congress, though they </div>
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are not available online. </div>
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As <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/edisons-kinetoscope-and-its-films-a-history-to-1896/oclc/36582146"><span class="s1">Ray Phillips</span></a> writes, the Mutoscope "captured the arcade business by doing everything the Kinetoscope did, only cheaper and better." The machine didn't use a reel of film, but a bundled cylinder of flip-card photos (also referred to as "a reel"). The durations of the movies were longer, the mechanics were simpler—using a hand-crank instead of an electric motor—and the reels lasted much better than the fragile Kinetoscope films. As we will see, Mutoscope reels from the 1920s can still be cranked and viewed today (as Phillips put it, "they never seem to wear out!"). The hand-crank, by which the viewer could control the speed of the film, made the machines pleasingly interactive. As Robinson notes, the design also didn't use any patented mechanisms owned by the famously litigious Edison. Kinetoscopes generally cost 5¢ to view; a number of contemporary sources say the charge to look into a Mutoscope was only 1¢. By February 1897, the Mutoscope reportedly dominated the arcade market, though the Kinetoscope was still prominent in news coverage.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The inner workings of a Mutoscope. Gordon Hendricks identifies this version as the earliest one made. The peephole viewer is at the upper right. A light shines down upon the circular reel of photos, which turns and flips each picture card to give the illusion of movement. The user controls the speed using a hand-crank. Ironically, Edison was given a tabletop Mutoscope as a souvenir of the dinner celebrating the formation of the Motion Picture Patents Co., in 1909 (per Phillips). [Image source: <a href="http://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/livingpicturesth00hopw_0054"><span class="s1"><i>Living pictures; their history, photoproduction and practical working. With a digest of British patents and annotated bibliography</i></span></a><span class="s1"><i>,</i></span><span class="s2"><i> </i></span><span class="s2">1899, accessed through <a href="http://archive.org/"><span class="s3">Archive.org</span></a></span><span class="s3">.</span><span class="s2"> The image is probably a reproduction of a drawing first publicized in </span></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Scientific American</i> magazine, April 17, 1897.]</span></div>
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San Francisco Kinetoscope/phonograph parlor owner Peter Bacigalupi, who remained an agent for Edison products even after his arcades were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, featured rival Mutoscopes in his shop, too: he <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990507.2.180.65&srpos=35&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22peter+bacigalupi%22-------1"><span class="s1">bragged</span></a> in 1899 that he was one of only two arcade owners in San Francisco to have them. "There are dozens of these machines in the place," a reporter <span class="s1"><a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990507.2.180.65&srpos=35&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22peter+bacigalupi%22-------1">wrote</a></span> of Bacigalupi's arcade at 1030 Market Street. "By turning a handle you witness a continuous moving living scene… The illusion is so cleverly managed that it is difficult to believe you are merely looking at a series of rapidly revolving cards, on each of which a photograph is printed."</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The reporter's description underlines how closely aligned phonographs and movie viewers were in the early days. In the noisy arcades popularly known as phonograph parlors, "…you can get almost anything you want in the way of music or views. The big concert phonograph shrieks its loudest at one end of the room, and draws in crowds from the street, for there is nothing to pay. But, once inside, the public parts with its nickels joyfully to get a look into the mutoscope." Market Street around Kearny appears to have been a center of movie-viewing and phonograph activity: in 1899 the <i>San Francisco Call</i> <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990331.2.186&srpos=3&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-bacigalupi+mutoscope-------1"><span class="s1">mentioned</span></a> four different peep-show/phonograph parlors in the area, including Bacigalupi's.</span></div>
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In Spring 1899, the <i>San Francisco Call</i> went on a vendetta against parlors with "phonographs, </div>
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'vitascopes,' 'mutoscopes,' 'artoscopes' and electrical appliances of many sorts." </div>
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[<a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990331.2.186&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-bacigalupi+mutoscope-------1">Image S<span class="s1">ource</span></a>: the <i>San Francisco Call,</i> March 31, 1899]</div>
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Mutoscopes, however, appear to have created even more moral panic than Kinetoscopes, if one can believe the anonymous reporter for the <i>San Francisco Call</i> who attacked phonograph parlors on <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990331.2.186&srpos=3&e=-------"><span class="s1">March 31, 1899</span></a> for "debauch[ing] the young" with "indecent sights and sounds" (which are left tantalizingly undescribed). Though other arcade owners are named in the paper, Bacigalupi is singled out as "the pioneer in phonographic filth…through him the other local retail sellers of this commodity receive their supplies." A follow-up article <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990401.2.114&srpos=29&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-"><span class="s1">the next day</span></a> continued to rage, this time attacking the police chief, and bringing then-Mayor Phelan into the fray ("This is the first time my attention has been called to it," the mayor said, apparently having missed the previous day's screaming headlines). The paper went on to denounce phonograph parlors and their proprietors every few days for a month.</div>
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Mutoscopes (bottom image; notice clamshell shape) and other peep-show devices corrupt the young, as rendered by <a href="http://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/112367-1973-poster-sunset-january-1904"><span class="s1">Adolph Methfessel</span></a>. Note that Bacigalupi's name is legible on the storefront window, as is Edison's, of course. Today these pictures, with very slight changes, could easily illustrate a positive article about wholesome arcades. [<a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990331.2.186&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-bacigalupi+mutoscope-------1">Image <span class="s1">Source</span></a>: the <i>San Francisco Call,</i> March 31, 1899.]</div>
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A pre-1899 clamshell-design Mutoscope in the collection of </div>
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San Francisco's <a href="http://museemechanique.org/">Musée Mécanique</a></div>
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The moralistic outrage is so over-the-top to modern readers that it's tempting to believe the entire episode was a publicity stunt. Just a few months earlier, the paper had seemed friendly toward Bacigalupi, running a PR announcement when Mutoscopes were <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18981106.2.142&srpos=1&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-mutoscope-------1"><span class="s1">first added</span></a> to the arcade. However, Bacigalupi and <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990421.2.88&srpos=34&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22peter+bacigalupi%22-------1"><span class="s1">three other</span></a> arcade proprietors were in fact <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990419.2.134&srpos=33&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22peter+bacigalupi%22-------1"><span class="s1">tried and convicted</span></a> of exhibiting indecent pictures, apparently as a direct result of the newspaper's complaints: Bacigalupi's arcade was <span class="s1"><a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990401.2.114&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22peter+bacigalupi%22-------1">raided</a></span> by police the day after the first article appeared. (A judge later <a href="https://archive.org/stream/annualreportofpa1900paci#page/86/mode/2up"><span class="s1">quietly dropped</span></a> the cases against the three other owners, according to a chagrined Frank Kane, the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Vice.)</div>
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The <i>San Francisco Call</i> gleefully documents the raids on phonograph parlors conducted by Frank Kane, the secretary of the Pacific Coast Society for the Suppression of Vice, which apparently had quasi-legal powers, though Kane was later <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC19010328.2.105&srpos=49&e=-------en--20--41--txt-txIN-%22frank+kane%22-------1"><span class="s1">reprimanded</span></a> for "breaking down doors without a warrant," and <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC19000721.2.135&srpos=45&e=-------en--20--41--txt-txIN-"><span class="s1">accused</span></a> by Judge Conlan of blackmailing saloon-keepers. Kane called Conlan "<a href="https://archive.org/stream/annualreportofpa1900paci#page/50/mode/2up"><span class="s1">An Unfair Judge</span></a>" and <a href="https://archive.org/stream/annualreportofpa1900paci#page/86/mode/2up"><span class="s1">claimed</span></a> that he had failed to carry out indecency sentences against arcade operators. [<a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990402.2.103&srpos=16&e=------189-en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-+phonograp">Image Source</a>: <i>SF Call</i>, April 2, 1899]</div>
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"Peter Bacigalupi and his immoral pictures were up before Judge Barry yesterday," the <i>Call</i> crowed on <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990408.2.74&srpos=31&e=------189-en--20-"><span class="s1">April 8, 1899</span></a>, although the images hadn't yet been legally assessed. (The pictures used as evidence in the trial were not Mutoscope or Kinetoscope films, but stereoptic photos.) There was some dispute over which expert witnesses could attest to the morality of the pictures, and finally a <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990409.2.164&srpos=32&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22peter+bacigalupi%22-------1"><span class="s1">set of clergymen</span></a> was brought in, replacing the proprietor of the Market Street "Art Saloon," who <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990408.2.74&srpos=31&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22peter+bacigalupi%22-------1"><span class="s1">had implied</span></a> that children might not be damaged by viewing artworks that included nude women. As reported in the <i>Call </i>on April 19, 1899, "The Judge said he believed that the pictures were suggestively immoral, and as to the plea that they were works of art, that was quite absurd." Bacigalupi was found guilty—but fined the minimum $10 (about $300 today), much less than the $150 his manager Robert Klenck was fined in 1894. According to the <i>Call</i>, he <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990401.2.114&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22peter+bacigalupi%22-------1"><span class="s1">could have</span></a> been fined $500 (about $14,600 today) and sentenced to six months in prison. Despite having been painted by the paper as a wildly rich profiteer, Bacigalupi had to borrow the money from friends to avoid being locked up.</div>
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The <i>Call</i> illustrates Peter Bacigalupi's trial for indecency. On the left, an </div>
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unflattering portrait of the defendant. At right, the officers of the court inspect </div>
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the "stero-photicon" viewer and the objectionable photos. </div>
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[<a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990408.2.74&srpos=31&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22peter+bacigalupi%22-------1"><span class="s1">Image Source</span></a>: the <i>San Francisco Call,</i> April 8, 1899.]</div>
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The judge <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990421.2.88&srpos=34&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22peter+bacigalupi%22-------1"><span class="s1">warned</span></a> all the defendants that if there were a second conviction, "the maximum penalty would be imposed." Bacigalupi apparently took this seriously, and also tried to patch things up with the <i>Call</i>, allowing a reporter into his warehouse <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990507.2.180.65&srpos=35&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22peter+bacigalupi%22-------1"><span class="s1">in early May</span></a><span class="s1">,</span> for a demonstration of how phonograph cylinders were made, and insisting, "I never attempt to run anything illegal…they fined me the other day because of some pictures which were being shown in my stero-photicons. The pictures came from Paris and have been shown all over the States, so I never dreamt there was anything wrong with them. But the court said they were improper. I have taken every one out and substituted views of the strictest moral character. You can see for yourself, if you come over to the parlor."<br />
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Newspaper illustrations of behind-the-scenes doings at Peter Bacigalupi's </div>
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warehouse/workshop. Notice how his portrait suddenly looks much more </div>
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respectable. [<a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990507.2.180.65&srpos=3"><span class="s1">Image Source</span></a>: the <i>San Francisco Call</i>, May 7, 1899]<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YE8r80Qyh-Y/WRIk_zS97YI/AAAAAAAABf0/YidnqBaoVgECJkX_42s8JDRrgCuxO0yQQCLcB/s1600/inside%2Bstero-photicon.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YE8r80Qyh-Y/WRIk_zS97YI/AAAAAAAABf0/YidnqBaoVgECJkX_42s8JDRrgCuxO0yQQCLcB/s400/inside%2Bstero-photicon.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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An inside view of a machine probably much like Peter Bacigalupi's "stero-photicon" (also known as a "Drop Picture Machine"). This one shows "Artist's Models" of the 1920's, who may or may not resemble the "improper" images "from Paris" that Bacigalupi was forced to retire in 1899. Judge for yourself at San Francisco's <a href="http://museemechanique.org/"><span class="s1">Musée Mécanique</span></a>. [Photo by the author.]</div>
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An 1895 street-map illustration showing the location of Bacigalupi's second "Edison Phonograph & Kinetoscope Arcade," in the ill-fated Baldwin Hotel building (bottom left). [<a href="http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~20160~580086:Market-N-side-Powell-?sort=pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date%2Cpub_list_no%2Cseries_no&qvq=w4s:/when%2F1895;q:san%2Bfrancisco;sort:pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date%2Cpub_list_no%2Cseries_no;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=48&trs=197"><span class="s1">Image source</span></a>: The David Rumsey Map Collection.]</div>
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The location of Bacigalupi's San Francisco Kinetoscope parlor changed quite a few times. Bacigalupi remembered in a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=1qEbAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA399&lpg=PA399&dq=peter+"><span class="s1">1916 interview</span></a> that the first parlor was in the <a href="http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/record=b1019570"><span class="s1">old Chronicle Building</span></a> on Market Street at Kearny, and this is supported by an <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18940816.1.10&srpos=1&e=------189-en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-%22Robert+Klenck%22-------1"><span class="s1">1894 newspaper story</span></a>. But an <a href="http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/workspace/handleMediaPlayer?lunaMediaId=RUMSEY~8~1~20160~580086"><span class="s1">illustrated 1895 city directory</span></a> shows the store had moved to Market and Powell, in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_Hotel_(San_Francisco)"><span class="s1">Baldwin Hotel</span></a> building. That structure burned down in 1898, <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E07E2D91F3DE433A25757C2A9679D94699ED7CF"><span class="s1">costing</span></a> silent <i>Sherlock Holmes</i> actor <span class="s1"><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/sherlock-holmes">William Gillette</a></span> some loss of property, including the original <i>SH</i> play script he had been writing,<i> </i>"the only copy of the dramatization in existence." (The <i>Los Angeles Herald</i> later <span class="s1"><a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH18981128.2.16&srpos=7&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-baldwin+hotel+fire-------1">reported</a>—on a page that also features a horrifying lynching story—</span>that the script was recovered from the debris.) The fire explains why, in 1899, the <i>San Francisco Call</i> listed the Bacigalupi parlor at a third address: 1030 Market Street. However, a <a href="http://archive.org/stream/edisonphonograph04moor#page/n65/mode/2up"><span class="s1">1906 Edison publication</span></a> places the arcade in the <a href="http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/record=b1020022"><span class="s1">Phelan Building</span></a>, also on Market. (Ironically, that building belonged to the father of the Mayor Phelan whom the <i>Call</i> urged to join their campaign against arcades.) A second arcade was located in the <a href="https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/c85m63mv/"><span class="s1">Bella Union Theatre</span></a> building, and Bacigalupi's wholesale and retail store was at 786-788 Mission Street, at 4<sup>th</sup> Street.</div>
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<i>Fun, One Cent</i>, etching by John Sloan, 1905, shows young girls viewing Mutoscopes. </div>
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Notice the distinctive clamshell design and salacious titles over some of the machines. </div>
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Were phonograph parlor proprietors unjustly persecuted? By today's standards, certainly: the raciest of the peep-show images are tame compared to pornography available online now. But Baciagalupi and others may have been disingenuous when they expressed surprise at being attacked. The Society for the Suppression of Vice <a href="https://archive.org/stream/annualreportofpa189899pac#page/42/mode/2up/"><span class="s1">reported</span></a> that a few of their officers disguised themselves as soldiers to trick a phonograph parlor operator into showing them "obscene records" that were apparently kept hidden, and produced for certain customers. Citizens around the nation worried. On November 28, 1899, a letter to the editor of W.R. Hearst's <i>New York Journal</i> complained, "Every day…I see in the windows of a so-called Artiscope or Mutoscope Company a group of boys, many of them under fourteen years of age, gloating over obscene pictures which two of them, by putting their heads together, can see for a penny." The letter was signed simply "A.H.," so it is difficult to verify, but the newspaper went on its own <a href="https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/cine/2003-v14-n1-n1/008959ar/"><span class="s1">campaign</span></a> against "<a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030180/1899-11-29/ed-1/?sp=4"><span class="s1">picture dives</span></a>" (perhaps inspired by the <i>Call</i>'s earlier crusade, and including a similarly <a href="https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/cine/2003-v14-n1-n1/008959ar/media/008959arf001n.png"><span class="s1">unflattering image</span></a> of a parlor owner) which led to a number of arcade closures. These triumphs appear to have been short-lived, as current historians report that the Mutoscope became more and more associated with "spicy" pictures as the twentieth century began. Historian Emmanuelle Toulet goes so far as to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Discoveries-Birth-Motion-Picture-Abrams/dp/0810928744"><span class="s1">write</span></a> that these kinds of movies made the company stand out, and that "slightly erotic films" were "one of the important genres in the first years of the motion picture." Billy Bitzer <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Billy-Bitzer-Autobiography-Griffiths-Cameraman/dp/0374112940"><span class="s1">referred to</span></a> the Mutoscope films made around 1903 as "the off-color pictures," though he admitted they weren't particularly shocking:</div>
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"It was really the puritanical American mind that made these pictures seem more pornographic than they were. Such pictures would be laughed at today, for the skirts were long and nudity was unknown. The nearest we got to the latter was a Mutoscope called 'The Birth of the Pearl,' showing a girl in white tights and bare arms crouching in an oversized oyster shell."<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">This Mutoscope film (from 1901 or 1903; sources differ) was shot by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_S._Armitage"><span class="s1">Frederick S. Armitage</span></a>.</span><br />
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Mutoscopes covered a wide range of subjects, however. "Every 'reel' contains about one thousand views," <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18981106.2.142&srpos=1&e=------189-en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-%22crowded+day+and+night+with+sightseers%22-------1"><span class="s1">wrote</span></a> the <i>San Francisco Call</i> on Nov. 8, 1898, describing Bacigalupi's new machines. "It portrays scenes from plays, animals in action, athletic games and sports, conflagrations, the falls of Niagara, moving ships, war scenes, naval engagements." Paul C. Spehr, former Assistant Chief of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division at the Library of Congress <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7QX7CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PR6&dq=beyond%20the%20screen%20spehr&pg=PR7%22%20%5Cl%20%22v=onepage&q=mutoscope&f=false"><span class="s1">wrote</span></a> that "reporting news…became the company's most important and rewarding function," and that during the Spanish-American war the company attempted to "upgrade" the Mutoscopes' programming. A few government agencies, such as the U.S. Post Office, even commissioned the American Mutoscope Company (AMC) to film documentaries of their work. Though it can be difficult to pin down exactly which films were only projected and which were shown in the peep-show machines, it's certain that each group included a variety of topics. (Download and view a 1902 catalogue of American Mutoscope and Biograph Company offerings <a href="https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/24582/"><span class="s1">here</span></a>.)</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">n 1903, the </span><a href="https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/welcome.htm" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span class="s1">USPS</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> commissioned a series of Mutoscope reels to illustrate their work. The poster and reels were displayed at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (aka the St. Louis World's Fair that Judy Garland </span><a href="http://www.thejudyroom.com/louis.html" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span class="s1">sang about</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">). [</span><a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1336061" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span class="s2">Image source</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">: The National Museum of American History.]</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Cancelling machine, U.S. Post Office</i>. The Mutoscope series apparently illustrated each piece of the postal process.</span></div>
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The Automatic Vaudeville arcade in New York city housed vast rows of Mutoscopes (circa 1904; photo courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York. See more images of the arcade <a href="http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYWE0JN2WN&SMLS=1&RW=1146&RH=1168"><span class="s1">here</span></a>).</div>
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Although it seems intuitive that projected films would quickly replace the arcade peep shows, the historical record tells a different story. Projectors were invented in 1895 (as Charles Musser <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Emergence-Cinema-American-Screen-History/dp/0520085337"><span class="s1">writes</span></a>, "independently and more or less simultaneously in four major industrialized countries: France, England, Germany, and the United States"). Edison's Vitascope (originally an independent machine--the <a href="http://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Phantoscope"><span class="s1">Phantoscope</span></a>--which was bought and renamed by the Edison company) was introduced publicly in April 1896. "By May 1897," Musser continues, "only one year later, several hundred projectors were in use across the country." AMC came late to the party, introducing their Biograph projector around September 1896, but the machine's <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=9lMAfjLi1LEC&lpg=PP1&dq=edison%20to%20the%20webcam&pg=PA25#v=onepage&q=biograph&f=true"><span class="s1">larger, clearer images</span></a> made it "<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7QX7CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PR6&dq=beyond"><span class="s1">a sensation</span></a>," and AMC "the most <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=g7AfAQAAIAAJ"><span class="s1">dangerous</span></a> rival of the Edison Company." According to Spehr, AMC had been formed with the intention of marketing their Mutoscope peep-show machine, but a flurry of interest in projection caused them to introduce the Biograph out of sequence with their original plan. But even after the Biograph's success, AMC kept rolling out peep-show devices. Clearly this was not considered a step backward; projectors and individual viewing machines existed simultaneously for years, just as they do now. "The Mutoscope is virtually the Biograph diminutized to the size of a cabinet photograph," <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18981106.2.142&srpos=1&"><span class="s1">reported</span></a> the <i>San Francisco Call</i> on Nov. 8, 1898. The reporter for the same paper who visited Bacigalupi's warehouse in May 1899 even <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990507.2.180.65&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22peter+bacigalupi%22-------1"><span class="s1">admired</span></a> how much the Mutoscope images resembled the Biograph projections: "By turning a handle you witness a continuous moving living scene, exactly the same as you see on the screen of the biograph." The <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=e54oAQAAMAAJ&dq=mutoscope&pg=PA196%22%20%5Cl%20%22v=onepage&q=mutoscope&f=false"><span class="s1">March 30, 1901</span></a> issue of <i>Scientific American</i> described it as "the little brother of the biograph," and didn't bother to explain the mechanism, on the grounds that everyone reading was already familiar with the popular machine. Musser writes that, in 1904-07--a decade after their introduction—peep-show parlors were still doing good business: "Arcades with phonographs, mutoscopes, and other film-showing devices (sometimes including a small room for projection at the rear or on the second floor) steadily gained in popularity." Bacigalupi's phonograph parlors in San Francisco were a going concern when they were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. (He later opened a new store on Fillmore Street, and eventually moved into player pianos, among other projects.)</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Peter Bacigalupi’s retail store was reduced to rubble in the 1906 San Francisco <br />
earthquake. [<a href="http://archive.org/stream/edisonphonograph04moor#page/n81/mode/2up/">Image source</a>: <i>The Edison Phonograph Monthly</i>, July 1906, <br />
accessed through Archive.org.]</td></tr>
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Though arcades remained popular for decades, the vast majority of Kinetoscope sales were over by the end of 1895, according to Phillips, and new production fell off; the Edison company was moving on to projection. Bacigalupi was still <a href="http://archive.org/stream/phonoscope13hunt#page/n385/mode/2up">advertising</a> the devices in October 1898, but, as Hendricks put it, "by the end of the century, after only six years of business, Kinetoscopes had all but passed from the American scene." In 1912, the company re-used the name for a new small projector, called the "<a href="http://uschefnerarchive.com/project/edisons-home-kinetoscope/">Home Kinetoscope</a>," which was marketed as an educational/entertainment device for families and churches, but the technology was quite different.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Santa Rosa <i>Press Democrat</i> ran this advertisement on Jan. 7, 1913. [<a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SRPD19130107.2.13.1&srpos=6&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-home+kinetoscope-------1">Image source</a>: California Digital Newspaper Collection.]</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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Edison was interested enough in the educational-movie concept to make a number of public statements about it, but the business wasn't doing that well in late 1914 when a disastrous fire destroyed a large part of Edison's laboratory--giving him what <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7QX7CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PR6&dq=amanda%20r.%20keeler%20beyond%20the%20screen&pg=PR6#v=onepage&q=amanda%20r.%20keeler%20beyond%20the%20screen&f=false">Amanda R. Keeler</a> believes was a face-saving excuse to terminate his film business.<br />
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Mutoscopes, on the other hand, continued to proliferate. But in 1899, AMC expanded its name to become the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, in honor of the growing importance of its projector. As the years moved on, longer, narrative films became the focus, and in 1909, the company rechristened itself simply Biograph, and sold off its peep-show division. The International Mutoscope Reel Company, as the new manufacturer was called, <a href="http://www.pinrepair.com/arcade/mutosc.htm">continued</a> to make the peep shows, of new, lighter designs rather than the original cast-iron, along with <a href="http://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/18939-photomatic-photographs-by-mutoscope-coll">other</a> arcade machines, until the early 1950s.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Boys surround a more streamlined "Kiddie Mutoscope," created by the International Mutoscope Reel Company, the successor to the original Mutoscope trademark. The company suggested Charlie Chaplin, Rin-Tin-Tin and Hoot Gibson as appropriate reels for children. [Image from <i>Mutoscope's Money-Makers</i>, a promotional booklet produced by the company, late 1920's.]</td></tr>
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Biograph, however, after many important contributions to early film, ran into difficulties and finally disbanded in 1915, not long after Edison's film division shut down. The heyday of the two pioneering studios was over.</div>
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End of part two...click to read <a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2017/06/mutoscopes-keep-on-flippin-in-san.html">part three</a>.</div>
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<i>Christine U'Ren is a <a href="http://www.christineu.com/">graphic designer</a> and longtime silent film enthusiast. She's had a book that features a large picture of Bacigalupi's arcade almost her whole life, and didn't realize it until she started writing this series of posts.</i><br />
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-43950046239778027312017-05-03T11:33:00.000-07:002017-05-03T12:02:58.076-07:00Corrupted Texts: Silent Cinema and the Intertitle<div class="p1">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Film archivist and programmer Kyle Westphal has mused for the SFSFF blog before—on <a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-sound-of-silence.html">music and silent-era film</a>, <a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2016/02/enlarged-history-of-magnascope.html">Magnascope</a>, and the <a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2016/05/feel-burn-dispatch-from-nitrate-picture.html">Nitrate Picture Show</a>, among other things—and now takes on the intertitle.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">"Titles are regarded as the blight of silent pictures, an insurmountable obstacle to full enjoyment by a modern audience," lamented Kevin Brownlow in <i>The Parade's Gone By </i>in 1968. </span></div>
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The situation has not much changed in the intervening decades. Query someone who's never seen a silent movie before, and the biggest presumed hurdle to engagement is almost always the presence of intertitles, a foreign pathogen attacking the orderly flow of the story. Follow up afterwards and "I was enjoying it so much that I almost forgot I was reading intertitles" is likewise offered as the highest praise. </div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">By accident or by design, many silent films that circulated in subsequent decades saw their intertitles minimized or eliminated entirely. Giorgio Moroder's infamous 1984 edition of <i>Metropolis</i>, for example, not only married Fritz Lang's images to the music of Pat Benatar and Adam Ant, but also significantly sped up the proceedings by cutting most of the intertitles and rendering the dialogue as subtitles running along the bottom of the screen as the action continued unabated. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Even during the silent era, intertitles were roundly seen as a stumbling block and occasionally abjured entirely, as in such title-free films as Joseph De Grasse's <i>The Old Swimmin' Hole </i>(1921), Arthur Robison's <i>Warning Shadows </i>(1923), and most famously, F. W. Murnau's <i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/the-last-laugh" target="_blank">The Last Laugh</a> </i>(1924). The latter was greeted as an aspirational challenge to the American film industry, a work of art so inimitable that its director had simply to be brought over from Germany to teach Hollywood the way forward. Even noted wordsmith and Algonquin Knight Robert Benchley sang the praises of <i>The Last Laugh </i>in <i>Life</i>, predicting that Murnau's example would upend not only movies but the legitimate stage as well: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Our whole system of dramatic valuations has gone to smash. This movie made the subsequent example of the theater's art [Walter Archer Frost's 1925 play <i>Cape Smoke</i>] seem cramped, tawdry, and old-fashioned. It made us feel that in a hundred years there will be nothing but movies, and that the spoken drama will then occupy the place that the Punch and Judy show now holds .... <i>The Last Laugh</i> embodies all that is easy and poignant in the unspoken word. (There is not a subtitle in <i>The Last Laugh</i>. Not one.) </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;">(One important tip for researchers and primary source hounds: during the silent era, intertitles were called by many names, including subtitles and captions. As those names have subsequently been appropriated for other purposes, it would be quite confusing to use them today, hence the relatively ahistorical 'intertitle' as a descriptively precise compromise.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">So the intertitle was an object of grudging tolerance in its own time, and a cause for preemptive apology in subsequent decades. Indeed, when I first began reading about silent films as a teenager, I quickly noticed that even the scholars who wrote the historical surveys seemed to abhor the intertitle and treat it as an anomaly, something to be noted and tossed aside as the medium advanced. Typical in this respect was Arthur Knight in <i>The Liveliest Art</i>, who celebrated Carl Th. Dreyer's <i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive-by-year/2010-special-event/voices-of-light-the-passion-of-joan-of-arc" target="_blank">The Passion of Joan of Arc</a></i> (1928) as the "summing up" of its era, while lamenting that it left viewers "disturbingly aware of the limitations of the silent film," chiefly the "intrusive" titles that "break the rhythm of the visuals, the emotional continuity of the scene." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Yet the intertitle is not some embarrassing relic, a narrative crutch rendered obsolete by the evolution of the form. I'd go so far as to say that the intertitle is the defining feature of silent cinema—more important than tinting or musical accompaniment or even the silence itself. On a practical level, many a mediocre flapper comedy or rural melodrama were saved by cleverly-worded intertitles or witty art titles, with cartoon and fine art illustrations funnier than anything in the film itself. I've sat through some silent films so generically forgettable that they slipped my mind as I was watching them, and the thin promise of a good intertitle was the only thing to which I could look forward. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Rather than crimping the wings of silent cinema, the intertitle gifts the medium a grander wingspan. The intertitle doesn't represent the absence of spoken dialogue so much as the presence of text as a graphic, rhythmic, and literary force. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Anyone who works with old movies in a professional capacity knows the routine: mingling at a party, meeting smart and well-read people who never contemplated that film restoration was even a thing, trying to find a way to make the particulars of silent cinema seem novel and relatable to non-specialists. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I had my best luck with a medievalist, who was probably filled with comparable social anxiety. As I began to explain the challenges of researching and restoring silent films—the intertitles were usually cut into each individual print, export versions freely discarded and shuffled the titles around, surviving negatives often present the film in tinting order and thus require a painstaking effort to reconstruct basic narrative continuity—she barely batted an eye. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"Yeah, that sounds a lot like what I do," she said. "When you're studying at medieval manuscripts, you're parsing transcription errors, glossing over missing pages, trying to arrive at the true version of a text that survives only in a vulgar translation. I get it—you work with corrupted texts." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Aha! The best vocabulary for describing the perils of film from a century ago already existed—just applied to forms considerably older. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Of course, the silent cinema was a corrupted text even when it was new, a succession of photographs interrupted by words that enlarged, clarified, and occasionally ruined the dramatic incidents. (Take a look at the early page-to-screen adaptations, like Edison's 1903 version of <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin</i> and you'll find something that resembles narrative cinema only if you squint: a succession of well-known scenes from the novel and its theatrical adaptation, scarcely connected to one another, the intertitles announcing the outcome of a climactic sequence before we see it played out.) It was a hybrid medium—one that combined the tactility of the daguerreotype, the spatial articulation of the stage melodrama, the verbal tics of purple prose. The intertitle foregrounded the heterogeneous quality of this unnatural amalgamation—it was the point where the arts intersected and broke down. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Even the most pedestrian silent film had to settle on a typographic style that complemented its story, which meant a reckoning with the expressive dimensions of typefaces, layout, line-spacing, and even kerning. The intertitle forced practitioners of a new art to play by the rules of a very old one. It was a more sustained and weightier engagement with graphic design than filmmakers would face after the arrival of spoken dialogue: many sound films recover from a generic or misconceived opening credits sequence, but few silent films can manage to limp along if the intertitles are treated as an afterthought. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Intertitles rarely strayed from the compositional examples set by newspaper headlines and playbill credits, so films that recognized the graphic potential of text itself remain notable. Consider the screen-filling torrent of text in Erich von Stroheim's <i>Queen Kelly </i>(1929), which uses every corner of the frame to suggest a verbal pile-on. Similarly, there's a moment in Rowland V. Lee's <i>Barbed Wire </i>(1927) when a prisoner of war sputters out news of a captured comrade in a naturalistic and novel manner; instead of all the dialogue appearing at once when the intertitle flashes on screen, each word tumbles out one after another, materializing in staccato rhythm as if being read from a stock ticker. It's an all-too-rare instance where the intertitle seeks to mimic the rhythm of human speech, finding a creative and clever work-around for the absence of spoken dialogue. It's an artistic constraint that fosters new expressive means. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Intertitles could be self-consciously arty, too, such as the famous moment in Murnau's <i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/sunrise-2011" target="_blank">Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans</a></i> (1927) when the temptress asks her paramour to murder his wife: "Couldn't she get drowned?" rendered in wavering, dripping text. But subtler choices could be even more effective, especially when played against the monotony of most intertitles. When most titles look and feel the same—a line or two of text, perfectly centered on screen—the slightest deviation can stand out. The unadorned intertitles of Dreyer's <i>Passion of Joan of Arc</i> largely play by the rules and present dialogue lifted directly from the manuscript of Joan's trial, square at the center. When she's finally brought to the stake, Joan cries out for "Jésus!" and the text appears in the bottom right corner of the screen. It's a small but consequential disruption, a pattern break that suggests an overheard whisper, a narrative rupture, an act of faith that transcends the boundaries of the historical record. Ultimately, the off-center title works as a grammatical breakdown, an artistic choice that we don't have the means to fully decode. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">The creative, graphically-engaged use of intertitles tends to mark the best films of the silent era, but the text itself matters, too, of course. Long before Twitter, the intertitle pushed writers towards an aphoristic wit, frequently well within 140 characters. In <i>The Parade's Gone By</i>, Kevin Brownlow marvels at how much information title writer Gerald Duffy managed to pack into a single card for Mary Pickford's <i>Through the Back Door </i>(1921), which managed to convey changes in locale and two characters' marital status using only seventeen words. The need for brevity brought out the best in title writers, who necessarily had to telescope ideas, compress time, and find the most effective way of saying more with less. </span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7PtJpygNRC4/WQkBvRQMp1I/AAAAAAAABcU/Al3LnNOcSCQ2ClyZOVgB7XkYMY2orlmuwCLcB/s1600/street%2Bangel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7PtJpygNRC4/WQkBvRQMp1I/AAAAAAAABcU/Al3LnNOcSCQ2ClyZOVgB7XkYMY2orlmuwCLcB/s400/street%2Bangel.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-size: small;">Of course, not every silent film acceded to less, and many filmmakers of the era can claim a literary style in their own right. The verbose, flowery intertitles of D.W. Griffith could not be confused for anyone else's, no less essential to his art than the last-minute rescue or the visage of Lillian Gish. Likewise the terse evangelical certitude of the William S. Hart titles or the refined aestheticism of Maurice Tourneur's and Rex Ingram's art titles. One intertitle in Frank Borzage's <i>Street Angel </i>(1928) describes "souls made great by love and adversity," a summation of Borzage's art so compact and perfect that many latter-day critics still quote it when trying to pin down the director's style and thematic concerns. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The literary dimension of the intertitle is not limited to the words themselves. Equally important is the role that intertitles play in the broader cinematic syntax. Intertitles in an inept silent film merely interrupt the action, but the most skillful examples act as finely calibrated punctuation—massaging the rhythm of a sequence, drawing out subtle points of emphasis, providing a clarifying end-stop. And in the late silent films coming out of Europe and the Soviet Union, the intertitle is a wholly legitimate component of montage, doing the work that images cannot. The intertitles serve as essential grammatical building blocks in Sergei Eisenstein's <i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/strike" target="_blank">Strike</a> </i>(1924) and <i><a href="http://bit.ly/SFSFF22Potemkin" target="_blank">Battleship Potemkin</a> </i>(1925), while Dziga Vertov's <i>Stride, Soviet! </i>(1926) is effectively a feature-length exhortation, a single run-on sentence where each new shot and title functions as another comma. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">While his contemporaries were lamenting the tyranny of the intertitle, the critic Richard Watts recognized exactly this rhythmic quality when reviewing <i>The Passion of Joan of Arc</i> for the <i>New York Herald Tribune</i> in March 1929: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Subtitles have frequently been damned, even by admirers of the silent cinema, as crude handicaps to the medium of pantomime and as almost a justification for spoken dialogue. In <i>The Passion of Joan of Arc</i>, though, they are an essential part of the work, acting as sort of chapter headings to the mighty pantomimic drama that is to follow them. Were the questions and answers of the trial put to you audibly, the entire mood and intent of the picture would be ruined viciously. The whole effect of the film demands that everything be visual and even the captions, which provide a necessary key to the moving sculpture of the drama, are not an intrusion but an integral part of a magnificent work of art. Here is the complete justification of the sub-title. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The justification came too late. The title of Watts's review: "Dying Art Offers a Masterpiece."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">• • • </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The intertitle also plays an outsized part in the restoration of silent cinema, as my earlier conversation with the medievalist suggests. It is both the easiest aspect to recreate and the most ephemeral and elusive. If an archive revisits an old restoration without new source material turning up in the intervening years, the odds are good that greater attention to titling (and tinting) is the chief motivation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">A simple but profound axiom of preservation: you can only restore what already exists. Digital techniques can stabilize images, remove scratches, and return color to faded film elements, but they cannot conjure up what's genuinely gone. If footage is missing from every extant copy of a film, no algorithm can restore it. Nor can an archivist fill in gaps by asking Clara Bow to shoot a few retakes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Just about the only aspect of a silent film that an archivist can recreate from scratch is the intertitle—though not without controversy. In absence of surviving titles, we can consult shooting scripts and continuities deposited at archives, the novel or play upon which a film is based, contemporary reviews, or less orthodox sources. The late David Shepard, for example, restored the titles for the 1922 version of <i>Oliver Twist</i> by screening the surviving print for its star Jackie Coogan, who allegedly recited the missing titles from memory. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">What's the proper way to embark upon recreation after the text has been identified? Should an archivist strive to emulate the typeface used by a specific studio in a specific year, cross-referenced with other surviving examples and recreated meticulously in Photoshop? Or should the archivist take the exact opposite approach, using an anachronistic font such as Times New Roman to mark his efforts as fundamentally conjectural and ahistorical? Beginning in the mid-1990s, several institutions began to stamp the bottom of each recreated title with the name of the archive and the year the title was recreated (e.g., "Filmoteca Española, 2004"), basically turning the archival print into an annotated, scholarly copy of a classic that could never be confused for a first edition. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">(An earlier generation of archivists would surely have found these competing scruples to be baffling and perhaps hilarious. Some of the earliest films preserved by James Card, the first film curator of the George Eastman Museum, made no pretense of historical accuracy, simply photographing new intertitles from type-written 3 x 5 index cards.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">No recreation will be perfect, but the mutability of the intertitle is essentially baked into the form. The intertitle was not an essential component of the work, but instead its most interchangeable. Silent film negatives often used "flash titles"—single-frame intertitles that could be extended during printing as a means of conserving footage in the negative. When an American film was sent to Europe, local distributors would replace the flash titles with their own local language translations; there was no need for ten meters of a stationary title that would just be replaced anyway. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Intertitle cards from the Cinémathèque française version of <i>Sherlock Holmes </i>(above)<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">So what is an archivist to do when an American film survives only in, say, a French copy? Do you keep the French intertitles (which are undoubtedly authentic, if perhaps a second order of authenticity) or use them as the baseline for a modern, conjectural recreation of the original American titles? (The Flicker Alley Blu-ray edition of SFSFF's restoration of the 1916 <i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/sherlock-holmes" target="_blank">Sherlock Holmes</a></i>, taken from a French copy from the Cinémathèque française, presents both options.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">But not all intertitles are so simple. We are truly fortunate that the art titles of Maurice Tourneur's <i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/the-blue-bird" target="_blank">The Bluebird</a></i> survive intact, as they are essentially irreplaceable. The same applies to some of Lois Weber's films, such as <i>What's Worth While? </i>and <i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/the-blot-1921" target="_blank">The Blot</a></i> (both 1921), which matte select intertitles to leave space at the sides for live action footage. In both cases, we're left at the mercy of what's extant. We must be grateful for what survives, no matter how corrupted.</span></div>
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<b>About the author of this post</b><br />
<a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/author/kyle/" target="_blank">Kyle Westphal</a> is a programmer at the <a href="http://www.chicagofilmsociety.org/" target="_blank">Chicago Film Society</a>, which he founded with Becca Hall and Julian Antos in 2011. Under the auspices of CFS, he oversaw the photochemical preservation of the independent musical <i>Corn's-A-Poppin'</i>; he is currently working on preserving the avant-garde films of Fred Camper. He is a graduate of the <a href="https://eastman.org/selznickschool/" target="_blank">L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation</a> and was a past recipient of the <a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/about/preservation" target="_blank">San Francisco Silent Film Festival Fellowship</a>. Westphal has also worked at the Pacific Film Archive and the George Eastman Museum.</div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-19010922608051716572017-04-27T13:41:00.000-07:002017-06-22T16:42:38.799-07:00Kinetoscopes, Kinetophones, and Those "Wicked Phonographs"<i>Just in time for George Willeman's upcoming SFSFF 2017 <a href="http://bit.ly/SFSFF22AmazingTales" target="_blank">Amazing Tales from the Archives</a> presentation on Edison Kinetophones, Christine U'Ren has contributed a multi-part series on the earliest movies. This is part one.</i><br />
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Does it seem like a new phenomenon that people are watching films on <a href="http://www.magid.com/node/267"><span class="s1">individual</span></a>, <a href="http://www.medianama.com/2016/01/223-video-content-statistics-vuclip/"><span class="s1">tiny</span></a> screens rather than in movie houses? In fact, the very first publicly available "movies"—if defined as series of photographic images that can be played in sequence to show motion—were not projected, but only viewable through Thomas Edison's Kinetoscopes, personal peep shows designed for individual use. The machines were first retailed in April 1894, and in less than a year could be found in major cities throughout the U.S., as well as Paris and London.</div>
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This 1895 version of the Kinetoscope—called the Kinetophone—</div>
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[Image source: Wikipedia]</div>
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The Edison team, likely led by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kennedy_Dickson"><span class="s1">W.K.L. Dickson</span></a>, created the Kinetoscope by building on many previous forms of "magic lantern" views and sequential image-making, such as Eadweard Muybridge's <a href="http://www.eadweardmuybridge.co.uk/muybridge_image_and_context/zoopraxography/"><span class="s1">Zoopraxiscope</span></a> and photographic studies of figures in motion, including the famous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Gardner_at_a_Gallop"><span class="s1">horse series</span></a> shot in Palo Alto. Another important influence was the work of French scientist <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/25/books/the-scientist-who-took-pictures.html"><span class="s1">Étienne-Jules Marey</span></a>. Edison's initial plan was to make visuals to accompany his <a href="https://www.loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictures-and-sound-recordings/articles-and-essays/history-of-edison-sound-recordings/history-"><span class="s1">phonographs</span></a>—but true synchronized sound films were still far in the future. Creating a soundless machine to show moving images was a difficult enough task, one that several inventors around the world were struggling with. An important factor in the Edison team's success was the invention of <a href="http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Celluloid"><span class="s1">celluloid film</span></a> around 1889, which was flexible and durable enough to be run quickly and repeatedly through a machine. (As <a href="https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9604/cinema.html"><span class="s1">David Robinson</span></a> points out, long strips of film would seem familiar and comfortable to Edison, who had invented improvements for the stock ticker and the telegraph.) Edison's team collaborated with the George Eastman photographic company to create film with <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=9lMAfjLi1LEC&lpg=PA11&ots=WNxFC78qGC&dq=edison%20eastman%20sprockets&pg=PA11#v=onepage&q&f=false"><span class="s1">regular sprocket holes</span></a> that stabilized the image during recording and playback.</div>
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This technical illustration shows the inner </div>
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workings of the Kinetoscope, with its <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/edisons-kinetoscope-and-its-films-a-history-to-1896/oclc/36582146"><span class="s1">42 feet</span></a> of looped film. </div>
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(Image source: Wikipedia.)</div>
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Kinetoscopes were too costly and cumbersome to be used in the home. Instead, they were sold to proprietors of amusement venues. San Francisco was the third city—after New York and Chicago—to host a Kinetoscope parlor, which opened in June 1894, and got five of the twenty-five machines <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18940819.2.60&srpos=101&e=------189-en--20--101-byDA-txt-txIN-indecent----1894---1"><span class="s1">then in existence</span></a>.</div>
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Edison films—shot on Edison's patented Kinetograph camera—began with simple subjects, such as a man sneezing, and later moved to brief showcases of popular entertainers, plays, and historical events. Edison soon had a booming business creating these short pieces, made in his very own New Jersey <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison's_Black_Maria"><span class="s1">film studio</span></a>, the first movie studio in the world. In that first year, 1894, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=IEUMWToGOtUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA78"><span class="s1">over 75</span></a> shorts were made. The first Kinetoscope films ran for only a few seconds, but later increased to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD28424FAA9414F49"><span class="s1">just over a minute</span></a>—compelling an otherwise unimpressed French critic to concede, "the Americans do it <i>big</i>" (as <a href="https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9604/cinema.html"><span class="s1">quoted by</span></a> David Robinson).</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Edison employee Fred Ott demonstrates a sneeze. This film, taken on January 7, 1894, was actually a second attempt, as W.K.L. Dickson <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/History_of_the_kinetograph_kinetoscope_a.html?id=EeHbAAAAMAAJ"><span class="s1">revealed</span></a> they had failed to get the proper sneeze a few days earlier, even after the application of snuff, ground tobacco, and "a generous portion of black pepper." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Billy-Bitzer"><span class="s2">Billy Bitzer</span></a> would like you to notice that this film is framed as a close-up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Sharpshooter and <i>Buffalo Bill's Wild West</i> show performer Annie Oakley smashes all of her targets in the Edison studio. This film was on the high price level in the Edison catalogue.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Although many of these brief snippets of time seem perfectly innocent today, early movies were viewed with suspicion. Almost as soon as Kinetoscopes arrived in San Francisco, they encountered strenuous opposition. On August 15, 1894, just two and a half months after the opening of the first San Francisco Kinetoscope parlor, located in the <a href="http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/record=b1019570"><span class="s1">old Chronicle building</span></a> at 644 Market Street, the manager, Robert Klenck, was <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18940816.1.10&srpos=1&e=------189-en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-%22Robert+Klenck%22-------1"><span class="s1">arrested</span></a>, along with fellow amusement-industry worker J. Forbes, "the owner of the phonograph at the ferry depot at the foot of Market." They were charged with "indecent public exhibition" and fined $150 (over $4,000* today). Neither could pay, so both were locked up. (Forbes attempted the <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18940830.1.10&srpos=104&e=------189-en--20--101-byDA-txt-txIN-indecent----1894---1"><span class="s1">novel defense</span></a> that his "<a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18940831.2.150&e=------189-en--20--101-byDA-txt-txIN-indecent----1894---1"><span class="s1">wicked phonograph</span></a>" had broken the law, not he, but was eventually forced to <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18940921.1.8&e=------189-en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-Forbes+phonograph----1894---1"><span class="s1">leave town</span></a>. He tried relocating to Alameda, only to encounter the <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18940915.1.9&e=------189-en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-Forbes+phonograph----1894---1"><span class="s1">same problems</span></a>. The paper did not continue coverage of Klenck's case, but it seems he was let go.)</span></div>
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The <i>San Francisco Call</i> covers Forbes' indecency case, August 30, 1894. [<a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18940830.1.10&srpos=104&e=------189-en--20--101-byDA-txt-txIN-indecent----1894---1"><span class="s1">Image source</span></a>.]</div>
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Although the <i>San Francisco Call</i> appears to have taken a distinct pleasure in reporting the legal troubles of amusement parlor workers, the Kinetoscope was defended by the paper's own (anonymous) gossip columnist <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18940819.2.60&e=------189-en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-kinetoscope-------1"><span class="s1">a few days after</span></a> Klenck's arrest: "Through the courtesy of the gentleman who is managing the exhibitions at 644 Market street I am able to state that the report circulated by a contemporary to the effect that the views are indecent is incorrect. In fact nothing could be more interesting than the moving photographs, as shown by these instruments."</div>
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Thomas Edison, too, objected to the negative characterization of the motion pictures, sending a letter via his phonograph agent: "We don't understand how there can be any objection to any of the subjects introduced in the Kinetoscope, as they are all taken here at the Laboratory, and we have always been careful not to take anything that would be in any way objectionable to the Authorities, although certain religious people might object…" (as quoted by <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=rd44AQAAIAAJ&q=gordon+hendricks+origin+of+film&dq=gordon+hendricks+origin+of+film&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjs7amwzarSAhXJwVQKHXsRB-wQ6AEIHzAB"><span class="s1">Gordon Hendricks</span></a>).</div>
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Thomas Edison and a later machine called the "Home Kinetoscope," a small projector, circa 1912. </div>
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He probably is not inspecting the film for indecency. [<a href="https://www.nps.gov/"><span class="s1">Image source</span></a>: National Park Service.]</div>
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Maddeningly, the reporters of the day rarely described the specific content that was ruled "indecent." In film historian <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=IEUMWToGOtUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA78#v=onepage&q&f=false"><span class="s1">Charles Musser</span></a><span class="s1">'s</span> opinion, "Sex and violence figured prominently in American motion pictures from the outset." This, however, depends on one's point of view. The dancer Annabelle's performance does not seem particularly sexualized in today's America, but in 1897 she was was <a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84024350/1897-01-10/ed-1/?sp=18&q=Annabelle%20whitford%20moore"><span class="s1">made to admit in court</span></a> "that her tights-encased limbs were liberally revealed" when she danced. A boxing match between humans would not disturb us, but during the Kinetoscope years, moral disputes about filming prizefights attracted the outrage of politicians and reform groups nationwide (for example, in <span class="s1"><a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92053934/1897-04-03/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1789&index=0&rows=20&words=kinetoscope+vice&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1924&proxtext=kinetoscope+vice&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1">Illinois</a></span> and <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86069873/1897-04-06/ed-1/seq-4/"><span class="s1">Kentucky</span></a>). On the other hand, <a href="https://youtu.be/6qre61opE_g?list=PLD28424FAA9414F49"><span class="s1"><i>The Boxing Cats</i></span></a> was <a href="http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3TM7BH8"><span class="s1">marketed</span></a> by Edison's company as "an interesting film for children," but seems cruel now, and few contemporary Americans would admit to enjoying the spectacle of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=FP9w48VwwVUC&lpg=PA9&ots=llOSusoxNT&dq=edison%20kinetoscope%20terriers%20rats&pg=PA9#v=onepage&q&f=false"><span class="s1">terriers killing rats</span></a>. A number of early films depended on racist or ethnic jokes that would not amuse today, nor would modern audiences necessarily approve of Edison's lending his technology to heavily promote cigarettes.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Annabelle Whitford Moore borrowed <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/c/current-loie.html"><span class="s1">Loïe Fuller's</span></a> style for her popular dances. She felt compelled to mention the "110 yards of stuff" used to make her "Borealis" costume when questioned in a court trial. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The only thing modern audiences might find unsettling about this 1894 boxing exhibition is Jim Corbett's skimpy outfit, which is far more revealing than Annabelle's, and makes an unwitting comment on clothing and gender roles in both the 1890s and today.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Edison performers shower the stage with cigarettes in this advertisement. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">In October 1894 the Pacific Coast Society for the Suppression of Vice, through Assistant Secretary Frank Gibson, <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18941027.2.62&e=-------en--20--41--txt-txIN-kinetoscope-------1"><span class="s1">proposed</span></a> that San Francisco supervisors regulate Kinetoscopes and Phonographs (along with "fallen women," whom the Society was, surprisingly, in favor of licensing). Either through forgetfulness or faulty reporting, Gibson ignored the recent arrest of Robert Klenck that the Society itself had ordered, and commented that "The Kinetoscope had not as yet sinned, but why wait until it does?" As expected, sinning occurred: on Sept. 18, 1902, the <i>San Francisco Call</i> <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC19020918.2.71&srpos=42&e=-------en--20--41--txt-txIN-kinetoscope-------1"><span class="s1">reported</span></a> that the proprietor of a Kinetoscope parlor "on Market street, near Eighth, was arrested last night and locked up" because "objectionable pictures were being exhibited." (The police also hauled seven of the machines to the police station as evidence.) As late as 1913, a proposed Kinetoscope "moving-picture show" on Sacramento Street in San Francisco was initially <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC19130816.2.172&srpos=43&e=-------en--20--41--txt-txIN-kinetoscope-------1"><span class="s1">denied</span></a> a permit on the grounds that it was within 200 feet of a school or church.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">As we see in the illustration below, Edison's marketing department must have anticipated controversy, because they took pains from the very beginning to show respectable, well-dressed patrons visiting Kinetoscope parlors.</span></div>
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An idealized illustration of a Kinetoscope parlor. The goal was to convince the public that viewing films was an activity suitable for the moneyed classes. Edison <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Peepshow-Palace-David-Robinson/dp/0231103395"><span class="s1">reportedly</span></a> had an actual bust of himself removed from the New York parlor as undignified. [Image source: <i>The Phonoscope</i> magazine, November 1896 (original image probably 1894), via <a href="http://archive.org/"><span class="s1">Archive.org</span></a>]</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">In spite of Societies for the Suppression of Vice, for a short period the Kinetoscope was immensely popular and profitable. The New York parlor sold tickets at 25¢ apiece at its opening, and the owners bragged (perhaps hyperbolically, in the opinion of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=rd44AQAAIAAJ&q=gordon+hendricks+origin+of+film&dq=gordon+hendricks+origin+of+film&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjs7amwzarSAhXJwVQKHXsRB-wQ6AEIHzAB"><span class="s1">Hendricks</span></a><span class="s1">)</span> that the first day's totals came to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Peepshow-Palace-David-Robinson/dp/0231103395"><span class="s1">$120</span></a>--about $3,300 in 2016 dollars*--or 480 tickets sold (each ticket allowed viewing of five machines—out of ten; the establishment was not large). Charles Musser <a href="http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3q2nb2gw;brand=ucpress"><span class="s1">writes</span></a>, "During one thirteen-day period in late June and early July [1894], the San Francisco parlor brought in $961.20 against $249.60 in expenses (including the month's rent of $175—roughly $5,000 in 2016)." The owner of that first San Francisco arcade, Peter Bacigalupi (presumed employer of the luckless Klenck), <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18941004.2.62.1&srpos=1&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-kinetoscope+bacigalupi+spring-------1"><span class="s1">advertised</span></a> that his Kinetoscope parlor in Los Angeles pulled in $25 per day in 1894 (about $700 in 2016 figures). Bacigalupi remembered in a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=1qEbAQAAMAAJ&lpg=PA399&ots=qatG_B7KoT&dq=peter%20bacigalupi&pg=PA399"><span class="s1">1916 interview</span></a> that patrons paid 10¢ to view a film in his arcade in San Francisco, but if true, that may have been only at first; an <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990507.2.180.65&srpos=35&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22peter+bacigalupi%22-------1"><span class="s1">1899</span></a> interview puts the price at a nickel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">To give some idea of the costs of running a parlor, an 1895 Edison catalogue, reprinted in Ray Phillips' <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/22728079?"><span class="s1">history</span></a> of the Kinetoscope, lists films at $10–15 each, about $300–400 in 2016 dollars. Films had to be changed to pull in new customers, and because popular ones wore out. The Kinetoscope itself cost $250, or $300 with batteries and two films: an outlay of nearly $9,000 in today's money. (Hendricks found indications that many machines actually sold for much less.) Edison's profit from sales of viewing machines, not including films, came out to <a href="http://edison.rutgers.edu/mopix/peephole.htm"><span class="s1">$75,000</span></a> (over $2 million in 2016).</span></div>
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The Kinetoscope machines at Bacigalupi's San Francisco arcade in <a href="https://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/25edison/25visual6.htm"><span class="s1">1895</span></a><span class="s1">,</span> in the Baldwin building. Each machine would have featured a different film. The machine furthest to the left may be a Kinetophone (equipped with unsynchronized sound), according to Gordon Hendricks. Bacigalupi, always up-to-date, ordered what may have been the first one on April 11, 1895, though the machine never really took off, and only 45 were ever sold.</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">End of part one...click to read <a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2017/05/mutoscopes-market-street-parlors-and.html">part two</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">*Dollar inflation calculated using <a href="http://www.westegg.com/inflation/">this app</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i><a href="http://christineu.com/">Christine U'Ren</a> is a graphic designer and longtime silent film enthusiast. Despite the ready availability of small screens, she strongly recommends that you see silent films on the big screen whenever you can. </i></span></div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-40151731686615240882016-12-20T20:21:00.000-08:002016-12-21T13:41:23.413-08:00A Few Silent-Film Illustrators<i>By Christine U'Ren</i><br />
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At the SFSFF in May 2016, did you wonder why on earth a mere title designer got a special credit in Douglas Fairbanks’s <i><a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/archive/when-the-clouds-roll-by" target="_blank">When the Clouds Roll By</a></i>? You’ll understand when you see some larger examples of <b>Henry Clive</b>’s work, like this gorgeous poster for 1922’s <i><a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/archive/beyond-the-rocks-1922" target="_blank">Beyond the Rocks</a></i>.<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vPzJUzErzBg/WFmLjPNr8dI/AAAAAAAABQ8/xLcjzYnJIeUiLtxkgIarN90_8VbroN4pgCLcB/s1600/beyond-the-rocks-movie-poster-1922-1020698274.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vPzJUzErzBg/WFmLjPNr8dI/AAAAAAAABQ8/xLcjzYnJIeUiLtxkgIarN90_8VbroN4pgCLcB/s640/beyond-the-rocks-movie-poster-1922-1020698274.jpg" width="409" /></a></div>
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Clive designed not only publicity posters but portraits, magazine covers, and even commercial products, such as this tin box featuring Pola Negri.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clive’s original oil portrait of Mary Brian, done for a 1920s magazine cover, may still be <a href="http://grapefruitmoongallery.com/13709" target="_blank">available for purchase</a>. </td></tr>
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Originally from Australia, Clive reportedly led a bit of a wild life but was still working as a published illustrator as late as the 1950s. An internet story that he appeared in <i>City Lights</i> appears to be apocryphal (that actor was Harry Clive), but Henry did log some film appearances in both silents and talkies, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0166975/?ref_=nmbio_bio_nm" target="_blank">according to</a> IMDB. </div>
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Read more about Henry Clive <a href="https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/movie-poster-of-the-week-william-desmond-taylors-the-green-temptation" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://grapefruitmoongallery.com/artists/henry-clive" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.americanartarchives.com/clive.htm" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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<b>Georges (aka George) Barbier</b> is best known as a French fashion illustrator, a regular in the <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazette_du_Bon_Ton" target="_blank">Gazette du Bon Ton</a></i> (a high-end fashion publication begun in 1912), wherein he rendered the daring new designs of the likes of Paul Poiret and Jeanne Paquin in fanciful scenes. But Barbier also created costume designs for such celebrated acts as the Ballets Russes and Josephine Baker, and worked with Natacha Rambova to design the gorgeous 18th-century inspired <a href="https://yooniqimages.com/images/detail/102194630/Creative/costume-design-by-georges-barbier-for-the-valentino-film-monsieur-beaucaire-1925" target="_blank">costumes</a> for the 1924 Rudolph Valentino vehicle, <i>Monsieur Beaucaire</i>. It is unclear how the tasks were divided between the two—Rambova is credited as art director and co-costume designer—but it is Barbier whose illustrations were publicized. I was unable to determine whether all of the Beaucaire drawings best known today were made before or after the costume construction. It is possible the original sketches were recreated for public distribution. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">The costume design for <i>Monsieur Beaucaire</i> was so striking, French magazine </span><i style="font-size: 12.8px;">L’Illustration</i><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> devoted a double-page spread to it, declaring that the film put “the graces of the 18th century on the screen.” [Feb. 21, 1925].</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bebe Daniels on the left; Barbier drawing on the right.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Doris Kenyon on the left; Barbier drawing on the right.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An uncredited actor on the left (highlighted for clarity); Barbier drawing on the right. </td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The fabric color may have shifted from the original design, but Valentino here seems to be wearing the outfit shown in Natacha Rambova’s illustration (right). This sketch was <a href="http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/rudolph-valentino-monsieur-beaucaire-1924-5374915-details.aspx" target="_blank">auctioned by Christie’s</a> auction house in 2010. Though Rambova is famous as a silent-film personality, her costume illustrations are little known.</td></tr>
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A comparison to Stan Laurel’s parody, <i>Monsieur Don’t Care</i>, shows what a huge contribution art direction and costume design can make to any film. The low-budget approach to costumes here (lacking even petticoats for women) gives Laurel’s film a far different feeling than the original.<br />
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Barbier’s look was one of the most iconic and influential of the Art Deco period. He branched into <a href="http://historicallymodernquilts.blogspot.com/2014/02/modern-print-monday-georges-barbier.html" target="_blank">textile patterns</a> and designed jewelry and graphics for the House of Cartier (including their very first <a href="http://www.jewelsdujour.com/2014/08/the-origins-of-cartiers-legendary-panthere-jewels/" target="_blank">panther</a>). Read more about Barbier’s life <a href="http://www.rom.on.ca/sites/default/files/imce/rediscovering_george_barbier.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>. See more works <a href="https://magalerieaparis.wordpress.com/category/george-barbier/" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://houseofretro.com/index.php/2013/03/19/george-barbier-the-master-of-art-deco/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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A video visit to an exhibition of Barbier’s work at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library in Toronto, Canada.</div>
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<b>Batiste Madalena</b>, a young art student in 1924, was commissioned by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eastman" target="_blank">George Eastman</a> to create custom, hand-painted publicity posters for his <a href="http://eastmantheatre.org/" target="_blank">Eastman Theater</a> in Rochester, NY. The sole stipulation was that the pieces had to be visible from the nearby trolley car stop. Working from studio photographs, Madalena designed simple, striking visuals—a series of different images for each film—that would be displayed around the theater. The commission lasted about four years, during which Madalena painted some 1,400 posters.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Madalena’s hand-painted poster for the 1926 crime drama, <i>The Black Bird</i> (directed by Tod Browning). [<a href="http://oldhollywood.tumblr.com/post/22557217930/poster-art-batiste-madalena-edition-via-up" target="_blank">Image source.</a>]</td></tr>
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Tragically, most of Madalena’s work was literally tossed into the street when the theater management changed hands. With amazing luck, Madalena happened to be in the area and was able to rescue a small percentage of the pieces, though “the best ones” were ruined, he later said. The work was rediscovered in the 1970s, and snapped up by film enthusiasts (including Gene Siskel, who told me at a poster conference in 1995 that he collected Madalena—and implied he wasn’t much interested in any other film poster artist). Exhibitions and a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Movie-Posters-Paintings-Batiste-Madalena/dp/0810923114" target="_blank">book</a> followed. Today major museum collections, such as <a href="http://www.moma.org/collection/artists/35204?" target="_blank">MoMA</a>, house some of these posters. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rounding out our Valentino theme is Batiste Madalena’s poster for <i>Monsieur Beaucaire</i>.</td></tr>
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See more of Madalena’s work <a href="http://www.hirschlandadler.com/exhibitions_1.html?id=2258&page=1" target="_blank">here</a>. Read his bio <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batiste_Madalena" target="_blank">here</a> (Madalena is often described as Italian, but moved to the United States when he was only 2 years old).</div>
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<i>Christine U'Ren is a <a href="http://www.christineu.com/" target="_blank">graphic designer</a> and longtime silent film enthusiast. She can’t understand why there are no biographies of Cedric Gibbons in print.</i></div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-82162380248146204472016-11-01T12:19:00.000-07:002016-11-01T15:27:07.902-07:00Women's Suffrage and the Movie People<i>Regular SFSFF blog contributor Christine U'Ren was inspired by the </i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/mothers-of-men-festival-2016" target="_blank">Mothers of Men</a><i> program at SFSFF 2016 to write a series of posts devoted to silent films and suffragettes. This is the final part.</i><br />
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"Now, I suppose you want to know my opinion of woman suffrage—all reporters ask that the first thing." </h2>
Mary Fuller, interview with Helen Batchelder Shute, <i>The Motion Picture Story Magazine</i>, February 1914<br />
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In Parts <a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2016/05/silent-films-and-suffragettes.html" target="_blank">One</a> and Two (<a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2016/08/suffragists-storm-screen.html" target="_blank">A</a> & <a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2016/09/suffragists-storm-screen-continued.html" target="_blank">B</a>) of this series, we looked at movie depictions of the woman-suffrage movement, and how the suffragists themselves used films to spread their message. But what did movie-industry people think of the political issues they were exploring onscreen? Modern biographies of silent-film personalities rarely discuss the suffrage question, but during the 1910s, fan-magazines often addressed it, mainly when interviewing female stars.<br />
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A clip from <i>The Motion Picture Story Magazine</i>, April 1914. </div>
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Just like today's celebrities, who aren't sure whether they're "feminists," silent film players were often wary of the "suffragette" label—even if they believed in women's rights. "I'm not exactly a suffragette," protested <a href="http://www.thanhouser.org/tcocd/Biography_Files/conent8k9.htm" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Jean Darnell</span></a> ("of the Thanhouser Company") to <i>The Motion Picture Story Magazine</i> in May 1913, "that is, I dont* believe in militancy or parading, but I am against taxation without representation—which is just what women are getting now."</div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://web.stanford.edu/~gdegroat/ferguson.htm" target="_blank">Elsie Ferguson</a></span> insisted that "she is an ardent suffragist, but not a militant, as she hates war and cruelty of all kinds. She often stops her car to protect some poor horse that is being beaten." [<a href="http://archive.org/stream/motionpicturemag14moti#page/n783/mode/2up" target="_blank"><span class="s1">December 1917</span>]</a> (Though it sounds melodramatic, this was no interview fluff: the SPCA was founded in reaction to the common mistreatment of horses, and Ferguson left part of her fortune to animal protection groups.)</div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nell_Brinkley" target="_blank">Nell Brinkley</a></span>'s drawing of Elsie Ferguson in <a href="https://www.ibdb.com/Production/View/8265" target="_blank"><span class="s1">a Broadway show</span></a> ran in the <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82016014/1916-04-01/ed-1/seq-16/" target="_blank"><i>The Topeka State Journal</i> [April 1, 1916]</a><i>. </i>Ferguson, who began on the stage, continued to do plays both during and after her time as a film star.</div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="http://www.classicimages.com/people/article_6d221edf-0530-5cf9-b639-b49b96bc3501.html" target="_blank">Edna Payne</a></span> ("of the Lubin Company") declared that she had "a decided aversion for the suffragette kind of manly woman." But she goes on: "'If we women are evoluting,' she laughed, 'then why not the womanliness of men?'" [<a href="http://archive.org/stream/motionpicturesto05moti#page/n1029/mode/2up" target="_blank"><span class="s1">May 1913</span></a>] </div>
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Edna Payne was well-known in the early silent cinema, but retired upon her marriage in 1916, before ever making a full-length feature [photo from <i>The Motion Picture Story Magazine</i>, May 1913]. <a href="http://www.classicimages.com/people/article_6d221edf-0530-5cf9-b639-b49b96bc3501.html" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Read more</span></a> about Payne</div>
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By contrast, <a href="https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-florence-lawrence/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Florence Lawrence</span></a>, one of the very first film stars (and a co-worker of Payne's), <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=3s04R_O9JVIC&lpg=PA247&ots=e3cj5Z8JaJ&dq=florence%20lawrence%20suffrage&pg=PA50%22%20%5Cl%20%22v=onepage&q=florence%20lawrence%20suffrage&f=false" target="_blank"><span class="s1">wasn't afraid</span></a> to call herself either a suffragette or a suffragist. "But she is a lady of spirit withal. My, yes! And a suffragist! An ardent suffragist! A banner-bearing, street-parading suffragist!" <a href="https://archive.org/stream/motionpicturesto06moti#page/n489/mode/1up/search/florence+lawrence" target="_blank"><span class="s1">gushed</span></a> a reporter, a bit mockingly, in October 1913. Lawrence, a strong horsewoman, rode "<a href="http://archive.org/stream/movingpicturewor16movi#page/58/mode/2up" target="_blank"><span class="s1">a high-spirited charger</span></a>" in the famous <a href="http://www.memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/aw01e/aw01e.html" target="_blank"><span class="s1">1913 march</span></a> in Washington, and was filmed there in <a href="https://thebioscope.net/2008/08/21/colourful-stories-no-13-kinemacolor-its-rise-and-fall/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Kinemacolor</span></a>. Lawrence may have had an eye toward bolstering women's legal status in business: she had formed her own production firm, the Victor Company, just one year before the march.</div>
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This portrait of Florence Lawrence appeared in <i>The Motion Picture Story Magazine</i> [October 1913]. <a href="https://archive.org/stream/motionpicturesto06moti#page/n489/mode/1up/search/florence+lawrence" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Read</span></a> the rest of the interview. <a href="https://archive.org/stream/PhotoplayMagazineJan.1915/Photoplay0115#page/n91/mode/2up" target="_blank">Read much more</a> about Lawrence and her early film career. </div>
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English actress Madge Kirby, although not a U.S. citizen, was so interested in the question that she polled other Hollywood actresses about their preferred 1916 presidential candidate, and <a href="http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19161031.2.203&srpos=11&dliv=none" target="_blank">made the results public</a>. Kirby broke barriers in other areas, too, <a href="http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19161125.2.551&srpos=1&dliv=none&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-%22Madge+Kirby%22+%22Ascot%22-------1#.V9y0_tqjQQ0.email" target="_blank">setting a speed record</a> for driving on the Ascot Speedway in Los Angeles.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Madge Kirby was threatened with arrest for speeding on a racecourse without a permit. [<i><a href="http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19161125.2.551&srpos=1&dliv=none&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-%22Madge+Kirby%22+%22Ascot%22-------1#.V9y0_tqjQQ0.email" target="_blank">Los Angeles Herald</a></i>, Nov. 25, 1916; thanks to William M. Drew for the alert.]</td></tr>
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But plenty of silent-film players were happy to disapprove of the whole business. "No, I dont want to vote. Why should I?" <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabel_Trunnelle"><span class="s1">Mabel Trunnelle</span></a> of the Edison studio stated [<a href="http://archive.org/stream/motionpicturesto07moti#page/n493/mode/2up" target="_blank"><span class="s1">April 1914</span></a>]. "I think my husband is perfectly capable of voting for both of us." <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0738082/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Ruth Roland</span></a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=rl4hAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22comrade%20ruth%22%20suffrage&pg=PT527#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank"><span class="s1">expressed similar views</span></a> to <i>Motion Picture Classic </i>in 1915<i>, </i>and <a href="http://www.things-and-other-stuff.com/movies/profiles/blanche-sweet.html" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Blanche Sweet</span></a> agreed, as an interviewer <a href="https://archive.org/stream/motionpicturemag111moti#page/n510/mode/1up" target="_blank"><span class="s1">wrote</span></a> in April 1916:</div>
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"'I suppose you are interested in woman suffrage?' I asked. "'Decidedly I am interested in it,' she said, with a bit of a flash in her blue eyes, 'but I cant say that I approve of it. Men have managed things pretty well so far—let them continue. I dont think a woman has any business in politics, except in so far as any woman can influence her husband's vote.'"</div>
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Though she played such a resourceful heroine in <i>The Lonedale Operator</i>, Blanche Sweet was at one point satisfied without real-life political power. She also appeared in the Anita Loos-penned comedy <i>A Cure for Suffragettes</i>. (<a href="https://archive.org/stream/motionpicturemag111moti#page/n510/mode/1up" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Read</span></a> the rest of Sweet's 1916 interview.)</div>
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I was surprised to read these words from the independent Sweet, but silent-film historian <a href="http://www.amazon.com/William-M.-Drew/e/B001K82HSE/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1" target="_blank"><span class="s1">William M. Drew</span></a>, who knew the actress well, pointed out to me in an email that Sweet "was not yet twenty" at the time of the interview, and "was thus still quite young and capable of changing her mind as she grew older—which she, in fact, did. I can give you later interviews (if post suffrage) in which Blanche expressed views which were definitely feminist.</div>
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"…as <a href="https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-pearl-white/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Pearl White </span></a>stated about herself, actresses, like everyone else, were quite capable of reversing an earlier opinion."</div>
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Edison's <span class="s1"><a href="http://www.silenthollywood.com/maryfuller.html" target="_blank">Mary Fuller</a></span> is proof of that. In 1912, she dismissed the idea of women's right to vote: "Oh, politics dont interest me much…that sort of thing isn't in my line. There's nothing artistic about it—except the lies they tell. I dont believe the majority of women are ready for suffrage yet—they are not broad-minded enough." [<i>The Motion Picture Story Magazine</i>, July 1912]</div>
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Less than two years later, Fuller's mind was changing: "Well, I haven't studied the subject enough to give a good opinion," she mused, in her February 1914 interview with the same magazine. "I am interested in it and think it is a big problem of the day, but haven't had time to go into it, except as it touches the finances. I think if women are competent to vote, and want to, they should be allowed to do it. I, too, would vote if I were given the privilege."</div>
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Mary Fuller, star of the first U.S. action serial, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Happened_to_Mary%3F" target="_blank"><span class="s1"><i>What Happened to Mary</i></span></a>, once was popular enough to be a serious rival to Mary Pickford. [Illustration from <i>The Motion Picture Story Magazine</i>, April 1913]</div>
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Some players were not so open to new ideas. As told by <i>The Moving Picture World</i> [Nov. 29, 1913], <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0116227/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Fritzi Brunette</span></a><span class="s1">,</span> "a furious anti-suffragette," got into "a heated argument" with some authentic suffragists on the set of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327041/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_94"><span class="s1"><i>The Militant</i></span></a> in 1913, and was "ready to tear their hair." The director, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0198523/"><span class="s1">Wm. Robert Daly</span></a>, had to persuade the suffragists—who had been difficult to get—not to walk off the set. In the movie, Brunette played a society woman who dabbles in militant suffrage—and she wasn't the only one seemingly affected by the onscreen extremism. An attempt to film a British-style suffragette riot in New York's Hell's Kitchen turned into <a href="https://archive.org/stream/movingpicturewor18newy#page/994/mode/1up/search/movie+riot" target="_blank"><span class="s1">an actual brawl</span></a> when crowds of rubberneckers mingled with the extras. Thinking that everyone was part of the company, paid "supers" dressed as English Bobbies "charged the curious onlookers and the latter, believing they were being seriously attacked, fought back…When peace was finally restored about thirty-five…onlookers, discovered they had unwittingly become motion picture actors; the camera, continually clicking, had photographed one of the most beautiful fights that was ever pulled off…"</div>
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Imp's marketing department missed a big opportunity to show an exciting street fight in their movie publicity [<i>The Moving Picture World</i>, Jan 17, 1914].</div>
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Prominent women in movies sometimes joined in propagandizing against the suffrage movement. Screenwriter Anita Loos's farce, <i>A Cure for Suffragettes</i> [1913], features women so involved in the cause that they forget their own children, who must be rescued by policemen (<a href="https://www.academia.edu/5987830/The_Loud_Silents_Origins_of_the_Social_Problem_Film" target="_blank"><span class="s1">as described by</span></a> Kay Sloan). Loos—despite being a successful writer and producer—made many public statements against feminism and reform movements in general, although it's not easy to tell how serious they were, as she was known for her humorous exaggerations. <i>Photoplay</i> <a href="http://archive.org/stream/photoplayvolume11112chic#page/1028/mode/2up" target="_blank"><span class="s1">reported</span></a> in July 1917 that Loos "believes that man is the little Kaiser of creation, and, despising suffrage, avers that domesticity is the only plane of female existence…"—this from a woman who, in the same article, admitted to making $100,000 per year as a writer. (Although, she promised, she would soon stop working and "be feminine and forgotten." This promise she did not keep.) Loos wrote many of the intertitles in D. W. Griffith's 1916 <i>Intolerance</i>, and one is guaranteed to polarize:</div>
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"When women cease to attract men, they often turn to reform as second choice." Although Mr. Drew, who has written extensively on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mr-Griffiths-House-Closed-Shutters/dp/1466215100?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc" target="_blank"><span class="s1">D.W. Griffith</span></a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/D-W-Griffiths-Intolerance-McFarland-Classics/dp/0786412097" target="_blank"><span class="s1"><i>Intolerance</i></span></a>, argues that the scene is not aimed at suffragists**—Griffith, he believes, was in favor of equal suffrage for women—it is true that some anti-suffragists insisted the Votes for Women movement was created solely by and for unattractive women, and Loos seems to have at least partly agreed. In 1919, less than a year before the passage of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" target="_blank"><span class="s1">the nineteenth amendment</span></a>, Loos wrote <i>Oh You Women!</i> which particularly satirized women in trousers. The film created some controversy in suffrage circles. According to the anti-suffrage journal, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=J9NBAQAAMAAJ&lpg=PA79&ots=ffML23nKOX&dq=%22anita%20loos%22%20suffrage&pg=PA79#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank"><span class="s1"><i>The Woman Patriot</i></span></a>, suffragists called the picture "anti-woman," but the journal insisted the film supported the "right" kind of woman: "The play pictures a vivid contrast between the exquisite femininity of a dressmaker heroine and the <i>Feminism</i> of two suffragettes…<span class="s2"> </span>The whole aim of the picture is to pay a tribute to 'regular female women' and to expose the absurdities of suffragette 'reforms.' [i.e., trouser-wearing.]</div>
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"Be sure to see it—and get your friends to see it. To a 'regular female woman' it will appeal as a masterpiece of anti-suffrage wit and humor. Nobody but a hide-bound suffragette in pinched shoes could possibly object to the picture."</div>
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<i>Photoplay</i> paraphrased Loos: "…a woman's first duty is to be loveable, her second to be loved, and…when she has made herself unlovely and unloveable she should be dead." It's hard to believe she meant this seriously, and she did sometimes make remarks that could be taken as feminist, but <a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19730130&id=-89OAAAAIBAJ&sjid=-wEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7194,4151667&hl=en" target="_blank"><span class="s1">in 1973</span></a> Loos was still complaining about young women with "long stringy hair and pony faces."</div>
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Julian Johnson summed up Anita Loos in the June 1918 issue of <i>Photoplay</i>. </div>
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In Germany, silent-film icon Asta Nielsen, wearing a voluminous blonde wig, played a militant British suffragette, "Nelly Panburne" (note the similarity of the name to "Pankhurst"), who becomes involved in a plot to murder a government official, something the real suffragettes never did. In the end [spoiler alert!], she renounces the cause in favor of love and marriage. <i>Die Suffragette</i> must have disappointed some female movie fans when it came out in 1913, although it was popular enough to play all over the world, and was famous for its gritty take on suffragette riots and imprisonments.</div>
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This two-page ad for <i>A Militant Suffragette</i> shows Nielsen's character smashing property, then, as a prisoner, being force-fed [<i>Moving Picture World</i>, Apr. 11, 1914].</div>
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In real life, Nielsen herself was so independent she had been raising a daughter alone, by choice, since 1901. Julie K. Allen <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/icons-of-danish-modernity-georg-brandes-and-asta-nielsen/oclc/852899005" target="_blank">writes</a>, "Nielsen exercised a degree of control over her work…that was extraordinary for a woman in the 1910s. She had a hand in the pre-and postproduction phases of all of the films she made, from choosing the screenplays…to splicing the negatives and helping to market the final product." Allen notes that Nielsen frequently played roles that "challenge[d]…class and gender restrictions." She founded her own film production company around 1916.
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So why didn't she make a straightforwardly pro-suffrage film? I have not yet discovered Nielsen's personal views about <i>Die Suffragette</i>; it is possible she was anti-suffrage. (Though her home country of Denmark gave women <a href="http://kvinfo.org/history/how-danish-women-got-vote" target="_blank">voting rights</a> in 1915.) It is also possible that it was simply too financially risky for a film aimed at an international audience to appear too supportive of militant protest. Yet by all accounts, the heroine is portrayed with compassion. As blogger Paul Joyce <a href="http://ithankyouarthur.blogspot.com/2012/08/asta-nielsen-shoulder-to-shoulder.html" target="_blank">summed it up</a>, "Nelly may revert to the family norm in the end, [but] she is not without courage and intelligence and she never loses our sympathy." Contemporary viewers may have seen through the conventional ending: <i>The Motion Picture News</i> reported that "a committee of local suffragists" in Omaha, Nebraska "enjoyed the film…and pronounced it entirely harmless as far as 'the cause' in Nebraska is concerned." Their approval evidently had a direct impact on a theater manager's decision to book it "throughout the state," where it became popular with both "antis" and "pros." [May 19, 1914]<br />
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Nielsen's then-husband Urban Gad directed <i>Die Suffragette</i> (color poster design by <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Deutsch-Dryden" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Ernst Deutsch-Dryden</span></a>), which had wide international popularity, and was one of the few films about the suffragist movement that was backed by a major ad campaign. Clockwise from upper left: ads from Germany, England, Brazil, Sweden. (See more at the <a href="http://importing-asta-nielsen.deutsches-filminstitut.de/index.php?site=database&starting_record=0" target="_blank">Asta Nielsen database</a>, where these three newspaper examples were found. Color poster from Wikimedia Commons.)</div>
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By contrast, some silent stars became very publicly involved in <i>promoting</i> the woman-suffrage movement. <a href="http://looking-for-mabel.webs.com/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Marilyn Slater</span></a> describes Mabel Normand as "a very ardent suffragette" who campaigned for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_Harriman" target="_blank"><span class="s1">the Socialist candidate</span></a> in the Los Angeles mayoral race in the spring of 1913, and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JNma11zsi6MC&lpg=PA421&ots=L-dPTo1Aa5&dq=hollywood%20left%20and%20right%20mabel%20normand&pg=PA19#v=onepage&q=mabel%20normand&f=false" target="_blank"><span class="s1">publicly announced</span></a> that she might consider a run for mayor herself. She also became good friends with two <a href="http://looking-for-mabel.webs.com/visitbysuffragettes.htm" target="_blank"><span class="s1">particularly fascinating</span></a> prominent suffragists. Read more about <a href="http://looking-for-mabel.webs.com/peaceday1916.htm" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Normand's progressive activism</span></a>.</div>
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Mabel Normand championed pacifist causes as well as woman suffrage. [<i>Motion Picture Magazine</i>, October 1914]</div>
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Could actor/director/writer/producer <a href="https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-lois-weber/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Lois Weber</span></a> have been inspired by Normand? In May 1913, Weber campaigned on a "suffrage ticket" for mayor of the newly forming Universal City, along with a slate of women candidates. A syndicated newspaper article <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn99063957/1913-06-13/ed-1/seq-5/#date1=1836&index=2&rows=20&words=Lois+suffrage+Weber&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1922&proxtext=%22lois+weber%22+suffrage&y=15&x=13&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1" target="_blank"><span class="s1">explained</span></a> how the women, who were outnumbered on the lot by males, strategized to win the election, each pledging to bring "at least one vote besides her own." <span class="s1"><a href="https://homesteadmuseum.wordpress.com/2016/07/10/museum-director-musings-princess-mona-darkfeather/" target="_blank">Mona Darkfeather</a></span>, who was advertised as a full-blooded Native American "princess" but was actually mostly of European ancestry (though some accounts say she was part Pueblo Indian), promised to "swing the Indian vote." Universal reportedly had over 200 Native Americans working for the company. (The syndicated article contains several "quotes" from Native Americans that must have been invented—e.g., "Heap good talk!"—and which make one question the validity of the entire story.)</div>
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This rendering of the 1913 Universal City "suffrage candidates" appeared in newspapers across the country. [<a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87062268/1913-05-18/ed-1/seq-8/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Image source</span></a>.]</div>
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Historian Hilary Hallett has <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=W8siL2WzQ5cC&lpg=PA78&dq=universal%20city%20election&pg=PA78#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank"><span class="s1">called</span></a> the Universal City mayoral race a "mock election," and it is true that Universal City was a small, unincorporated section of Los Angeles populated exclusively by employees of the film company. But the movie people seem to have taken the race seriously, and the results were reported by various newspapers and magazines. (Mark Garrett Cooper <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=uoigTR3hPzsC&lpg=PA51&dq=%22lois%20weber%22%20AND%20mayor&pg=PA51#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank"><span class="s1">writes</span></a> that it is impossible to know if the voting was rigged for publicity.) On June 28, 1913, <i>Motography</i> <a href="https://archive.org/stream/motography09elec#page/476/mode/2up" target="_blank"><span class="s1">wrote</span></a>, "The suffragettes were victorious in the election held at Universal City on May 20. The 'Votes for Women' party elected eight of their candidates as against five Democrats and one Progressive. There were no Republican candidates. The pre-election activities kept Universal City in a constant state of excitement for in [sic] so small a municipality…"</div>
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Margarita Fischer was elected "fire commissioner" of Universal City in 1913. [<a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87062268/1913-05-18/ed-1/seq-8/" target="_blank">Image source</a>.]</div>
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Weber was not elected, losing by just 4-15 votes (sources differ), but when the winner, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0447917/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Aubrey M. Kennedy</span></a>, retired one month later (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lois-Weber-Director-History-Contributions/dp/0313299455" target="_blank"><span class="s1">per</span></a> Anthony Slide), she succeeded to the office. Actress Laura Oakley was elected chief of police, and seems to have been reelected more than once, as her title is mentioned in film magazines as late as 1917. She presided over the official opening of the <a href="https://ladailymirror.com/2015/03/16/mary-mallory-hollywood-heights-second-universal-city-celebrates-its-centennial/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">"second" Universal City</span></a>, in 1915. One of her regular duties, <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085187/1915-04-10/ed-1/seq-7/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">as she herself put it</span></a>, was to weed out the prospective "actresses" who came onto the lot just to get close to a screen idol, such as J. Warren Kerrigan. But Oakley <a href="http://archive.org/stream/motionpicturenew121unse#page/n385/mode/1up" target="_blank"><span class="s1">was also</span></a> " a duly appointed deputy sheriff of Los Angeles county and a special police woman of the city of Los Angeles." [<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=mIP3SjWWUEgC&lpg=PA42&dq=%22laura%20oakley%22%20police&pg=PA42%22%20%5Cl%20%22v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Read more</span></a> about Oakley and Universal City.]</div>
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Karen Ward Mahar <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=8Y6IMGGiZfoC&lpg=PA188&dq=%22lois%20weber%22%20AND%20mayor&pg=PA188#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank"><span class="s1">writes</span></a> that Universal was creating "a land of make-believe…While there is evidence that Universal's female council took its duties seriously, Universal's 'suffragettes' were immediately co-opted by the publicity department. In February of 1914 comedy director Al Christie combined filmmaking and promotion for his newest release, <i>When the Girls Joined the Force</i>, by parading thirty female members of the Universal police force, each [in uniform], through the business district of Los Angeles." Still, the women's work seems to have had some effect. Cooper believes that the contest "established that actresses could win public office," and Hallett speculates that Universal City's (and California's) support of changing gender roles was the reason the studio opened "a day-care center and a school for workers' children" in 1915.</div>
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Mayor Lois Weber and chief of police Laura Oakley [<a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085187/1914-01-05/ed-1/seq-6/"><span class="s1">Image source</span></a>—click to read a bit more about life at Universal City].</div>
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Universal wasn't the first mainstream studio to associate itself with women's suffrage. The Mutual Film Corporation released a weekly serial in 1914 as a promotion: the family-friendly films following the New York adventures of <i>Our Mutual Girl </i>were provided free to exhibitors. According to contemporary accounts, more than one chapter of the serial supported the suffrage movement. In the seventh week the heroine, Margaret, played by Norma Phillips, comes upon a suffrage meeting in Times Square, and is introduced by her aunt to Harriot Stanton Blatch, Inez Milholland-Boissevain, and others. As <i>Reel Life</i>, Mutual's magazine, wrote, "The suffrage leaders explained the general principles for which they were fighting and Margaret soon became so interested that she insisted that she be taken to the headquarters of the Women's Political Union. Although Auntie had hesitated to introduce her niece to the suffragists for fear that Margaret's ambitions might be diverted from a social career, she willingly consented to contribute to 'the cause' when Margaret suggested that the money would be well expended." </div>
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Cannily, some of the advertisements for the seventh chapter of <i>Our Mutual Girl</i> emphasized the suffrage subplot, while <a href="http://archive.org/stream/picturen09moti#page/n539/mode/2up" target="_blank"><span class="s1">others</span></a> avoided it altogether. [<i>Reel Life</i>, Feb. 8, 1913]</div>
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In December of the same year, "Mrs. Helen Robinson, of Colorado, the only woman senator in the United States, made a short visit to New York last week. The Mutual Film Corporation learned of her presence, and, for the first time in her busy career, she was induced to appear in the moving pictures [in <i>Our Mutual Girl</i>] together with her friend, Mrs. Edith Jarmouth, another Colorado suffragist…" [<i>Motion Picture News</i>, Dec. 13, 1913] Advertisements for other chapters make clear the series' appeal to feminist viewers: among the many celebrities Margaret meets are illustrator May Wilson Preston, journalist Dorothy Dix, and "<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Katharine-Bement-Davis" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Katherine B. Davis</span></a>—famous Commissioner of Correction of New York—the woman directly in charge of the City Prison on Blackwell's Island." Margaret encounters a burglar, and <a href="http://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/reellife05unse_0112" target="_blank"><span class="s1">the advertisement</span></a> for that chapter reads, "Maybe you think that a young girl cannot think quickly. Or that she cannot handle a shotgun. If you do, see Chapter 39 of Our Mutual Girl serial. Margaret will teach you that it is not only men who can cope with a dangerous situation." <i>Motography</i> <a href="http://archive.org/stream/motography10elec#page/406/mode/2up/search/our+mutual+girl" target="_blank"><span class="s1">reported</span></a> that the series was "the personal idea of Mr. [Harry] Aitken, the Mutual's president" -- presumably the storyline reflected the studio's chosen image.</div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kskcAQAAIAAJ&q=%22our+mutual+girl%22&dq=%22our+mutual+girl%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAxbSK34bOAhXBpYMKHZFhCOU4FBDoAQg_MAc" target="_blank">According to</a></span> producer Roy Aitken (not a disinterested source), 1914's <i>Our Mutual Girl</i> was the film that got Douglas Fairbanks interested in the movies.</div>
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Did D.W. Griffith have a hand in <i>Our Mutual Girl</i>? Griffith's association with Mutual began at about the same time the series was begun, and in an <a href="http://archive.org/stream/motography10elec#page/476/mode/2up/search/our+mutual+girl" target="_blank"><span class="s1">interview</span></a> about the production, star Norma Phillips said, "…the other Sunday Mr. Griffith had us at the studio from eight until midnight." [<i>Motography</i>, Christmas 1913] <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/D_W_Griffith_his_life_and_work.html?id=8ApaAAAAMAAJ" target="_blank"><span class="s1">A 1972 biography</span></a> of Griffith claims the director helmed the first episode of the series, "to set the pattern," but the writers of the more recent multi-volume survey <i>The Griffith Project</i> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lt8mAQAAIAAJ&q=%22our+mutual+girl%22&dq=%22our+mutual+girl%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwim27ni3obOAhVL_IMKHR8zCSs4ChDoAQgfMAE" target="_blank"><span class="s1">believe</span></a> there is no evidence Griffith was involved in <i>Our Mutual Girl</i> (though they didn't address the Phillips interview). The same year, Griffith released <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_the_Sexes_(1914_film)" target="_blank"><span class="s1"><i>The Battle of the Sexes</i></span></a>, which was sometimes <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=8A5KAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22our%20mutual%20girl%22&pg=RA1-PR29#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank"><span class="s1">advertised with</span></a> <i>Our Mutual Girl</i>. The storyline of <i>Battle</i> fits into the period's suffrage debates, as the film deals with the double moral standard—and comes out squarely on the side of equality, according to contemporary plot summaries (the 1914 version of the film is mostly lost). </div>
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D.W. Griffith, seen here in 1916 wearing a "Vanilla parfait suit," supervised many pictures directed by others, in addition to his own directorial duties. [<i>Photoplay</i>, December 1916]</div>
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Suffragists themselves disagreed about Griffith's work: some, including Harriot Stanton Blatch and Carrie Chapman Catt, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=0lNHAwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=griffith%20100%20anniversary%20birth%20of%20a%20nation&pg=PA426#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank"><span class="s1">reportedly</span></a> protested against his 1914 blockbuster <i>The Birth of a Nation</i>, while Inez Milholland <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=AVoEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA116&dq=inez%20milholland%20birth%20of%20a%20nation&pg=PA116#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank"><span class="s1">editorialized</span></a> against censorship (despite her dislike of the film). After 1916's <i>Intolerance</i> came out, however, "the Woman's Party of Cook County in Chicago asked Griffith to devote his next great production to the cause of votes for women." William M. Drew wrote in an email. "They maintained that such a film 'would carry the suffrage cause to victory on a high wave of public sentiment. Mr. Griffith should be able by virtue of his wonderful art, to build a play which would be a milestone for complete suffrage.' (<i>Cook County Herald</i>," January 26, 1917)" Mr. Drew believes <i>Way Down East</i> may have been Griffith's eventual answer to that challenge. Unfortunately, Griffith did not directly discuss the woman-suffrage question with journalists, who tended to ask him only about film techniques, but a number of film writers, such as Peter Bogdanovich, have found feminist messages in his work (though others beg to differ).</div>
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In contrast to the reserved Griffith, <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/~gdegroat/PF/home.htm" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Pauline Frederick</span></a> campaigned openly for years for equal suffrage, <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84022472/1909-11-30/ed-1/seq-9/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">helping arrange</span></a> a benefit night on Broadway in 1909, and speaking out in interviews. She astutely <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87062268/1913-05-09/ed-1/seq-4/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">pointed out</span></a> that actors in general had trouble voting because of their constant travel, and proposed they be given certificates to allow them to vote outside of their districts—an idea now fulfilled through absentee ballots.</div>
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Pauline Frederick's outspoken comments about suffrage didn't slow her rising acclaim as a film actress. [Photo and headline from <i>The Pittsburgh Gazette Times</i>, May 30, 1915; article kindly provided by William M. Drew.]</div>
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In 1915, as Mr. Drew explained to me, "Pauline's first film, <i>The Eternal City</i>, transformed her almost overnight from a popular stage favorite to one of the leading stars of the silent screen," and she relayed some of her thoughts on suffrage to a newspaper at the same time. Frederick described attending a fashionable tea, and hearing a "self-satisfied" woman declare, "Suffrage? Of course I don't want it! My husband provides everything I need. I am perfectly satisfied."</div>
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Frederick realized "there was something frightfully selfish in the sentiment…which, after all is at the bottom of all the anti-suffrage agitation, namely, 'that when I have what I want, I don't care whether others have anything or not.' Of course, [wealthy society women] do not need it, but think of the army of other women, the army of workers and the women who have no one to rely upon and who, on the contrary, often have to support others. They are the women who need suffrage." [<i>The Pittsburgh Gazette Times</i>, May 30, 1915]</div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="http://marypickford.org/" target="_blank">Mary Pickford</a></span>, who had helped support her widowed mother and siblings since she was eight, knew something about the need for self-reliance. Although Pickford was not as public as Normand or Frederick about her support for the cause, biographer Eileen Whitfield <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Pickford-Woman-Who-Made-Hollywood/dp/0813191793" target="_blank"><span class="s1">has written</span></a> that Pickford was in favor of equal suffrage, as one would expect from a woman who co-founded a major production studio. Her films, which often featured energetic, action-oriented heroines, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=zlc9AQAAMAAJ&dq=mary%20pickford%20suffrage&pg=RA3-PA49%22%20%5Cl%20%22v=snippet&q=mary%20pickford&f=false" target="_blank"><span class="s1">were shown</span></a> at suffrage events. Pickford had herself photographed gleefully reading a suffragette newspaper.</div>
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I have not found any specific info about how and when the photo was made, other than Whitfield's assertion that it was intended "to advocate women's rights." I did track down the original <a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=IMJZBBnUFLgC&dat=19130103&printsec=frontpage&hl=en" target="_blank"><span class="s1">1913 <i>Votes for Women</i> newspaper</span></a> Pickford is reading. <i>Votes for Women</i> was <a href="http://suffragettes.nls.uk/sources/source-48" target="_blank"><span class="s1">a publication</span></a> of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) of England (the group led by the Pankhursts, i.e., the militants, although the paper's editorial board were not uniformly in favor of violence). Since the paper was published only in Britain, it's interesting to speculate how Pickford got a copy. She herself wouldn't visit Europe until 1920, so it must have been mailed or brought to her. Pickford <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030193/1921-08-27/ed-1/seq-3/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">told a newspaper interviewer</span></a> that she planned to vote in the fall of 1921, after it became legal.</div>
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A <span class="s1"><a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85034248/1916-05-06/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1836&index=0&rows=20&words=Mary+Pickford+suffrage&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1922&proxtext=%22mary+pickford%22+suffrage&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1" target="_blank">Louisiana newspaper</a></span> printed this simple declaration. [<i>Donaldsonville Chief</i>, May 6, 1916]</div>
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The most spectacular pro-suffrage publicity stunt came from, of course, the daredevil Pearl White, star of the action serial <i>The Perils of Pauline</i>, and a heroine to women everywhere (Mary Pickford was just one of her many fans). Mr. Drew, author of a forthcoming biography on White, alerted me to a <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024055/1916-05-27/ed-1/seq-3/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">1916 newspaper article</span></a> describing how she climbed a skyscraper and "let herself down an electric sign twenty-two stories above Broadway," while "dressed in the part of a sign painter in overalls and cap on which 'Votes For Women' gleamed across the visor."</div>
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"I was one of those who found suffragettes funny," White confesses in the article, but she was won over by the courage of the women who marched for voting rights and were undeterred by the cold and discomfort. "I like to see women who dare to do things. There are hundreds of women working for their living, and most of them don't dare say what they think. But those suffragettes, they've got their courage right with them, all the time."</div>
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White was well-informed about what suffrage meant: "I pay taxes…Why shouldn't I say something about what is to be done with my tax money? …In my profession a woman star earns more than a man, yet I have nothing to say about the income tax law nor about any other law. Why shouldn't I vote? Women are doing every kind of work men do, and over in Europe they are suffering as much as men suffer. If war should come to America they would suffer here. I want to vote for president of this country, for I know who I think ought to govern us. But I shan't have anything to say about the president. I'll have to abide by the decision of men, who may not care half as much as I care."</div>
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While Pearl White was hovering above the metropolis on a skyscraper, former Mutual/Thanhouser actress <a href="http://www.thanhouser.org/tcocd/Biography_Files/_rx6dz.htm" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Fan Bourke</span></a> was making the personal political at a small theater on the ground. "Miss Fan Bourke, who will be remembered by Mutual fans as a particularly attractive member of the Thanhouser stock company, has changed her vocation," <a href="https://archive.org/stream/reellife1914191600mutu#page/n437/mode/1up" target="_blank"><span class="s1">wrote</span></a> Mutual's magazine <i>Reel Life</i> [Jan. 8, 1916]. "She is now running a 'votes for women' motion picture theater, the Princess, in New Rochelle, N. Y.…" Bourke managed the theater as a neighborhood concern with a focus on films suitable for families. With pianist "Miss <a href="http://www.thanhouser.org/tcocd/Biography_Files/conga2it2.htm" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Julia Miller</span></a>, also a former Thanhouser actress," Bourke hosted special events and gave personal appearances—local patrons enjoyed comparing the onscreen Miss Bourke with the real-life version.</div>
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"The interest of suffragists was won by the theatre at election time. Miss Bourke had the lobby of her theatre hung in suffrage colors and banners.</div>
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"…in two months' time she has worked the Princess up from a house about to be closed to one in which the 500 seats are filled every evening."</div>
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Fan Bourke may have screened this film from her old studio, Thanhouser, as it has been described as "an excellent plea for woman suffrage." <a href="http://www.thanhouser.org/images/actresses.htm"><span class="s1">See</span></a> a gallery of Thanhouser actresses. [Image source: <i>Reel Life,</i> Jan. 8, 1916. <a href="http://archive.org/stream/movingpicturewor27newy#page/442/mode/2up" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Quote</span></a>: <i>The Moving Picture World</i>, Jan. 15, 1916. <a href="http://www.thanhouser.org/Research/Eric%20Dewberry%20-%20Depictions%20of%20Suffragists%20in%20Thanhouser%20Films.pdf" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Read more</span></a> about this film.]</div>
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Many movie-industry women would continue to fight for civil rights after the vote was won. But even actresses who opposed suffrage arguably helped advance the idea of women's equality, merely by working in such a public profession. Seeing women play judges and politicians onscreen undoubtedly helped everyday audiences accept the idea of women's civic participation in real life.</div>
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Mary Pickford continued to campaign for women's rights long after the vote was won. Here she is promoting <a href="https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0509/protest.html" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Equal Rights Amendment</span></a> seals, in 1938. [Image source: <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/mnwp000046/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Library of Congress</span></a>. Photo by Louise Pote.]</div>
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*Note: magazines of the early cinema often left apostrophes out of certain contractions; I have used the original punctuation.</div>
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**<i>The Griffith Project</i> (Vol. 9, p. 148) includes a cryptic telegram sent by scenarist Frank E. Woods to Griffith that mentions a sequence involving suffragists in <i>Intolerance</i>. If such a scene ever existed, it does not appear in surviving prints.</div>
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Special thanks to <a href="http://looking-for-mabel.webs.com/marilyn.htm" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Marilyn Slater</span></a> and extra-special thanks to William M. Drew, who kindly provided extensive information on Blanche Sweet, Pauline Frederick, D.W. Griffith, and Pearl White. Look for Drew's upcoming biography: <i>The Woman Who Dared: The Life and Times of Pearl White, Queen of the Serials</i>. His latest published book is <a href="http://william-m-drew.webs.com/newbookondwgriffith.htm" target="_blank"><span class="s1"><i>Mr. Griffith's House with Closed Shutters: The Long-Buried Secret That Turned Lawrence Into D. W.</i></span></a></div>
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(Note: these writers do not necessarily endorse every opinion expressed in this essay.)</div>
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Most period images used on this page were accessed through <a href="http://archive.org/" target="_blank">Archive.org</a>.</div>
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<i>Christine U'Ren is a <a href="http://www.christineu.com/" target="_blank">graphic designer</a></i><i> and longtime silent film enthusiast. She has already gotten into two online fights over Anita Loos's polarizing intertitle.</i></div>
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</style>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-39561684110200443002016-09-19T14:15:00.000-07:002016-09-27T08:07:32.644-07:00Suffragists Storm the Screen, continued...<div class="p1">
<i>Regular SFSFF blog contributor Christine U'Ren was inspired by the </i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/mothers-of-men-festival-2016" target="_blank">Mothers of Men</a><i> program at SFSFF 2016</i><i> to write a series of posts devoted to silent films and suffragettes. This is the continuation of part 2. For part 1, go <a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2016/05/silent-films-and-suffragettes.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and for the first section of part 2, go <a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2016/08/suffragists-storm-screen.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</i><br />
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<b>KINETOPHONES</b></div>
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In its January 11, 1913, issue, <i>Moving Picture News</i> reported, "Mrs. O.H.P. Belmont, one of the most prominent leaders of the Suffrage movement, is considering an offer from the Thomas A. Edison concern to deliver a six-minute speech for the Kinetaphone [sic]."</div>
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The Kinetophone was an early sound-cylinder system for movies, first created around 1894, for viewing inside individual cabinets. In 1912-13, Edison offered a new, projected version of the technology. Synchronization between picture and sound cylinder "was achieved by connecting the projector at one end of the theater and the phonograph at the other end with a long pulley," <a href="https://www.loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictures-and-sound-recordings/articles-and-essays/early-edison-experiments-with-sight-and-sound/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">according to</span></a> the Library of Congress. Due to patent and training issues, Kinetophones didn't become widely used, but one surviving example shows that the sound could be synchronized rather well.</div>
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In April 1913, a Kinetophone movie featuring speeches by several suffragist leaders was shown at the Colonial Theatre in New York. What happened next is a bit of a mystery. <i>The New York Tribune</i> <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1913-04-10/ed-1/seq-6/"><span class="s1">gleefully reported</span></a> that the women, including "Mrs. John Rogers" (presumably <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Nourse_Rogers" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Edith Nourse Rogers</span></a>, who later became a long-serving Congresswoman) and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Dennett" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Mary Ware Dennett</span></a>, <a href="http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch00682" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Harriet Laidlaw</span></a>, and <span class="s1"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Maule_Bjorkman" target="_blank">Frances Maule Bjorkman</a>—</span>the three authors of the <i>Votes for Women</i> screenplay—hated their own appearance on the screen so much they demanded to have the film suppressed. <i>Moving Picture News</i> reprinted the article, and it has been quoted by film historians as fact. But many of the statements attributed to the suffragists read as burlesques.</div>
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"'Was it I—I—in that picture last night?' [Mrs. Frances Maule Bjorkman] demanded. 'Why, it made me look fifty years old, and all askew. Telegraph to Edison and have the record or whatever it is smashed!'"<br />
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The reporter, writing as if he or she were on the spot at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_American_Woman_Suffrage_Association" target="_blank"><span class="s1">NAWSA</span></a> headquarters, claimed that "other protests came thick and fast, by telephone, letter and in person. Mrs. James Lees [sic] Laidlaw…sent word to invoke the law if necessary to have that menace to the success of their cause removed at once."</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AZ8THAkPlBE/V-BEeS5toxI/AAAAAAAABIA/U0JyhIjUO_wwTCxeVfsWnusgx7Y9XmdBACLcB/s1600/frightsandfrumpsNYTribuneApr101913.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AZ8THAkPlBE/V-BEeS5toxI/AAAAAAAABIA/U0JyhIjUO_wwTCxeVfsWnusgx7Y9XmdBACLcB/s400/frightsandfrumpsNYTribuneApr101913.jpg" width="376" /></a></td></tr>
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The <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1913-04-10/ed-1/seq-6/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">same page</span></a> of <i>The New York Tribune</i> [April 10, 1913] in which these snarky headlines appeared includes other sardonic articles about suffrage activities [accessed through the Library of Congress].</div>
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But most of the women mentioned in the story had already seen themselves onscreen in <i>Votes for Women </i>the previous year, and probably would not have been shocked to see their images looking "about twenty feet tall." Even if there was something particularly awful about the Kinetophone film, in my opinion the <i>Tribune</i> reporter was not purely quoting actual comments, but having fun with the idea of suffragists—who had fought for years against women being judged solely for their looks—being vain enough to threaten to call police about an unflattering film.</div>
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The article does not discuss how well the new synchronization system performed. For whatever reasons, both Kinetophones and the films taken of the suffrage leaders by Edison disappeared. "Anybody who wants to see and hear a suffrage meeting will have to go to a real one now. They won't get it in a moving picture show," the <i>Tribune</i> reporter concluded.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LevdDNwCmV0/V-BEe3OQv0I/AAAAAAAABIU/lPDKMIJqv5sOBGha9zcKIkxJbewiOUlVgCEw/s1600/movingpictureworldApr261913kinetaphoneadCropWeb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LevdDNwCmV0/V-BEe3OQv0I/AAAAAAAABIU/lPDKMIJqv5sOBGha9zcKIkxJbewiOUlVgCEw/s640/movingpictureworldApr261913kinetaphoneadCropWeb.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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This full-page advertisement (detail shown) appeared in <i>Moving Picture World</i> magazine [April 26, 1913 -- accessed through <a href="http://archive.org/">Archive.org</a>].</div>
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<b>EIGHTY MILLION WOMEN WANT--? </b></div>
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If any suffragists were leery of appearing on the screen after hearing this story, the feeling didn't last long. On November 22, 1913, a second film sponsored by the Women's Political Union (WPU) was released, featuring real-life celebrities Harriot Stanton Blatch, leader of the WPU, and Emmeline Pankhurst, the famous British suffragette. ("Mrs. Pankhurst…did as well as might be expected of a woman of her age," commented <i>Motion Picture News</i> [Nov. 15, 1913] in an early review. "Mrs. Blatch seemed to pose a little.")</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mM8NIEZI8ag/V-BEemWrxuI/AAAAAAAABIk/CG9nrKSoc6sO0ZtyIMZjZgzzJDuEmA-_gCEw/s1600/motographyNov291913eightymillionMrsPankhurstpic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mM8NIEZI8ag/V-BEemWrxuI/AAAAAAAABIk/CG9nrKSoc6sO0ZtyIMZjZgzzJDuEmA-_gCEw/s400/motographyNov291913eightymillionMrsPankhurstpic.jpg" width="398" /></a></div>
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Emmeline Pankhurst seemed camera-conscious, according to <i>Motion Picture News</i>. Still of curtain speech from <i>Motography</i> [Nov. 29, 1913]; still with unnamed actor from <span class="s1"><i>Moving Picture World</i> [Nov. 8, 1913 – both images accessed through <a href="http://archive.org/">Archive.org</a>]</span>. </div>
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<i>Eighty Million Women Want--?</i> was written by Florence Maule Cooley, but Kevin Brownlow discovered that the scenario was by B. P. Schulberg, who would go on to become a powerful producer in the 1920s. Critics had several theories about the curious title, which alluded to <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12226/12226-h/12226-h.htm" target="_blank"><span class="s1">a 1910 book</span></a> about women's place in society by a well-known <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheta_Childe_Dorr" target="_blank"><span class="s1">journalist and suffragist</span></a>. (<i>Motography</i> magazine suggested that "The question mark…[signifies] the women's chance for … the ballot. This puts the whole thing, question mark and all, up to the men and, because the film arrived late on the day of its [premiere] showing, many of the men answered it by murmuring to themselves or to somebody else 'a previous engagement—I really can't wait,' and disappeared in the direction of the nearest restaurant." <i>The Moving Picture World</i> commented, "The average man has enough trouble trying to solve what one woman wants.")</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fsTxevA3GgA/V-BEesz79vI/AAAAAAAABIk/NtDYSM3V7Tom21SaVrEt0rZCrHdH53uQwCEw/s1600/movingpicturewor18newy_0948eightyAd2cropWeb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fsTxevA3GgA/V-BEesz79vI/AAAAAAAABIk/NtDYSM3V7Tom21SaVrEt0rZCrHdH53uQwCEw/s640/movingpicturewor18newy_0948eightyAd2cropWeb.jpg" width="234" /></a></td></tr>
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This ad aimed at exhibitors appeared in the trade magazine <i>Moving Picture World</i> </div>
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[<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Nov. 22, 1913 -- accessed through </span><a href="http://archive.org/" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Archive.org</a><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">].</span></div>
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<i>Motion Picture News</i> was relieved that "…the play itself is not an advertisement of the votes-for-women movement. The plot is fresh and interesting and the photography is good. The cast is very clever and deserves commendation." <i>Motography</i> [Nov. 29, 1913] concurred that "it was an agreeable surprise, in being not a eulogy of and a plea for suffrage, specifically, but a really and truly story with a young lawyer in love with a pretty girl."</div>
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"Altogether, the film is four reels of interesting action and should swell the coffers of the Unique Film Company."</div>
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The Colonial Theatre mentioned in this ad was not the site of the Kinetoscope disaster in New York, but a theater in Keokuk, Iowa. [<i>The Daily Gate City</i>, January 15, 1914—accessed through Library of Congress.]</div>
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As was typical of the times, the reviewers did not mention what Kay Sloan believes were suggestions of racism: "Scenes of the political boss's office included a black henchman, outfitted in top hat, tails, and cane, who pompously puffed on his cigar," she writes. "The implication was clear: a black man held political power while white women were denied the vote." Kevin Brownlow <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Mask-Innocence-Kevin-Brownlow/dp/0394577477" target="_blank"><span class="s1">has noted</span></a> that the character did not appear in the original script.</div>
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<i>Motography</i>'s prediction about the film's success was correct: just a few months after its release, on Feb. 14, 1914, <i>Motion Picture News</i> reported that the Unique Film Company was moving to larger offices, "owing to the increase of its business," and the suffrage film was mentioned as the company's claim to fame.</div>
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<b>YOUR GIRL AND MINE </b></div>
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Not to be outdone by the WPU, in 1914 NAWSA began work on two separate film projects, as Sloan <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Loud-Silents-Origins-Problem/dp/0252015444?tag=duckduckgo-ffsb-20" target="_blank"><span class="s1">has detailed</span></a>. The New York branch publicly offered $50 for the best screenplay, but abandoned their venture when they discovered that a New Jersey NAWSA leader, Ruth Hanna McCormick, had nearly finished producing <i>Your Girl and Mine: A Woman Suffrage Play</i>. That film was released Oct. 14, 1914, produced by McCormick and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Nicholas_Selig" target="_blank"><span class="s1">William Selig</span></a>, with distribution handled by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Film_Company" target="_blank"><span class="s1">World Film Corp</span></a>. (Brownlow <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/19691/behind-the-mask-of-innocence-by-kevin-brownlow/9780307829702" target="_blank"><span class="s1">remarks</span></a> that Selig assigned a director, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0912844/?ref_=tt_ov_dr" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Giles Warren</span></a>, and then took off for Europe, "thus demonstrating how little the studio heads had to do with actual production.") The film's release was rushed, in hopes of swaying voters in November; several states had women's suffrage proposals on their ballots.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZYle45EClE8/V-BEeFlwY2I/AAAAAAAABIk/pO0IrEBnv-UQ0DatfzantCDEiXN6v3dWgCEw/s1600/YourGirlandMineCartoonAdcropWashTimesJan311915.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZYle45EClE8/V-BEeFlwY2I/AAAAAAAABIk/pO0IrEBnv-UQ0DatfzantCDEiXN6v3dWgCEw/s640/YourGirlandMineCartoonAdcropWashTimesJan311915.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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This cartoon of the players appeared in an advertisement published in <i>The Washington Times</i>, Jan. 31, 1915. From left to right (in foreground): Ruth Grove as Beatrice, Olive Wyndham as the heroine, Charlotte Stevens as Helen, Grace Darmond as "Equal Suffrage," John Charles as the villainous husband, Margaret Collier as "Justice." The faces in the frames are less identifiable, but they are probably Clara Smith as Aunt Jane and Katherine Kaelred as lawyer Eleanor Holbrook. [Accessed through the Library of Congress.]</div>
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Another important contributor to the project was screenwriter <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0929808/?ref_=ttfc_fc_wr1" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Gilson Willets</span></a>, the scenarist for the then-new and popular action serial, <i>The Adventures of Kathlyn</i>, which had many female fans. Shelley Stamp <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Movie_struck_Girls.html?id=xEMQD2FrussC" target="_blank"><span class="s1">quotes</span></a> the many contemporary reviewers who were impressed by the action-packed plot of <i>Your Girl and Mine</i>, and theorizes that the producers deliberately sought to appeal to thrill-loving audiences. As McCormick told James McQuade of <i>The Moving Picture World</i> (Nov. 7, 1914), "The aim, first of all, was to produce a photoplay that would appeal to every man and woman, regardless of whether they knew anything about the suffrage movement, or cared anything about it."</div>
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The film featured suffragist leader Anna Howard Shaw, "who was grabbed on her way West" to appear. "She…became very popular with the other actors, in spite of the fact that she did her level best to make suffragists of them all," giving extemporaneous speeches during rehearsals of the onscreen suffrage rally, reporter Eleanor Booth Simmons <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1914-10-25/ed-1/seq-25/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">wrote</span></a>. Several actors were personally selected by McCormick, who added prestige to the picture by casting stage stars such as Olive Wyndham and Katherine Kaelred. John Charles, who <a href="http://willbradley.com/work/film/bitter-fruit-aka-the-black-lagoon/john-charles-the-villain-of-the-movies/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">made a career of playing heavies</span></a>, took the role of the monstrous husband, but "Mrs. McCormick wouldn't let Mr. Willets put in a stereotyped villain. She convinced him that it would be more effective to have Ben an attractive, rather lovable fellow…in the first act, and have him degenerate gradually…" Nevertheless, some reviewers and <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn99021999/1915-03-10/ed-1/seq-4" target="_blank"><span class="s1">even a few other suffragists</span></a> thought the men in the picture were implausibly evil.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z_CwcQwiYe8/V-BJvbpge_I/AAAAAAAABI0/CD50OwazVn0zmY2LY5lRSh9RZncoTWP-wCLcB/s1600/YourGirlandMineSymbolicFigureOvalCrop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z_CwcQwiYe8/V-BJvbpge_I/AAAAAAAABI0/CD50OwazVn0zmY2LY5lRSh9RZncoTWP-wCLcB/s640/YourGirlandMineSymbolicFigureOvalCrop.jpg" width="408" /></a></td></tr>
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A still from <i>Your Girl and Mine</i> evokes the real-life experience of suffragists who were jailed for protesting. [<i>The New York Tribune</i>, Oct. 25, 1914—accessed through the Library of Congress.]</div>
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<i>Your Girl and Mine</i> used as plot elements some of the real legal injustices in US law in 1914. The heroine's husband spends her money and wills custody of their children to his cruel father, and she is unable to protect them. The <i>Chicago Tribune</i> [<a href="http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1914/10/15/page/8/article/suffrage-movie-proves-a-success-its-title-your-girl-and-mine" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Oct. 15, 1914</span></a>] noted that the film listed specific legal statutes to support the story, but some were unconvinced. <i>The New York Tribune</i> [Dec. 21, 1914] published <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1914-12-21/ed-1/seq-8/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">a lengthy letter</span></a> by a man who insisted (<a href="http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awlaw3/property_law.html" target="_blank"><span class="s1">inaccurately</span></a>) that "the property of a wife cannot be seized for her husband's debts in any state." One Boston anti-suffrage newspaper, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=0S5JAQAAMAAJ&lpg=RA2-PA13&ots=QSNJcrl3Qk&dq=" target="_blank"><span class="s1"><i>The Remonstrance Against Woman Suffrage</i></span></a> [July 1915], also complained that the film cherry-picked and combined laws from various regions, and argued that states where women had the vote, such as Colorado, Washington, and Utah, were actually less protective of children than "male-suffrage states."</div>
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"Unable to point to Massachusetts laws which are unjust to women, [suffragists] have exhibited all over the state a sensational film, 'Your Girl and Mine,' which scrapes together and luridly portrays objectionable laws in some of the more backward states," the writer fumed, failing to realize that it <a href="https://archive.org/stream/ost-history-history_of_woman_suffrage_1900_1920/History_of_Woman_Suffrage_1900_1920#page/n307/mode/2up" target="_blank"><span class="s1">was in fact suffragists</span></a> who pushed through a bill in Massachusetts in 1902 that allowed women equal guardianship of their children.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JOyi2WBAOxU/V-BKfu9w6lI/AAAAAAAABI4/caRfgcjnklkOkrwzlzFQBTSKjxtf10QewCLcB/s1600/CharlotteStevensScreenshot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JOyi2WBAOxU/V-BKfu9w6lI/AAAAAAAABI4/caRfgcjnklkOkrwzlzFQBTSKjxtf10QewCLcB/s640/CharlotteStevensScreenshot.jpg" width="504" /></a></td></tr>
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The issue of child custody played an important part in the equal-suffrage argument of <i>Your Girl and Mine</i>. Charlotte Stevens played the heroine's older daughter, and went on to appear in films throughout the 1920's. [Image source: <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1915-06-11/ed-1/seq-24/" target="_blank"><span class="s1"><i>The Day Book</i></span></a>, Chicago, IL, June 11, 1915—accessed through the Library of Congress.]</div>
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It has been reported that <i>Your Girl and Mine</i> was shelved before its full commercial release, due to problems with the distributor, but Mary Mallory uncovered public screenings across the country (detailed in her <a href="https://ladailymirror.com/2015/10/19/mary-mallory-hollywood-heights-your-girl-and-mine-promotes-womens-suffrage/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">informative essay</span></a>). In spite of the wide publicity and generally good reviews, the film didn't do well enough to encourage NAWSA to produce a second feature, and didn't stop five out of seven states from defeating equal-suffrage bills in 1914. As far as we know, <i>Your Girl and Mine</i> was the last of the officially sanctioned suffrage-association productions for the big screen.</div>
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Compare a real suffragist meeting (top) with the movie version (bottom). [Images accessed through the Library of Congress (top, Miller NAWSA Suffrage Scrapbooks, 1909-1910) and <a href="http://archive.org/">Archive.org</a> (bottom, <i>Moving Picture World</i>, Nov. 7, 1914)]</div>
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Did the films by suffrage groups change the movie industry? Some companies went back to their old ways: Éclair Film Company, which had produced <i>Suffrage and the Man</i> with the WPU in 1912, produced a short drama "with an anti-suffrage twang" just one year later. (<i>Moving Picture World</i> described the plot of <i>Our Daughter</i> aka <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286695/" target="_blank"><span class="s1"><i>His Daughter</i></span></a>: "Julia Stuart gives a presentation of an absorbed suffragette mother who neglects her daughter.") But other commercial productions supporting the idea of equal suffrage followed: they include Thanhouser's <i>The Woman in Politics</i> [1916] and the recently restored <a href="http://mothersfilm.com/" target="_blank"><span class="s1"><i>Mothers of Men</i></span></a> [1917; remade 1921], which just played at SFSFF21.</div>
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First National studios ran a "straw ballot" in 5,000 movie theaters to try to gauge the political opinions of 27 million new voters. (<i>Exhibitors Herald</i>, Sept. 18, 1920—accessed through <a href="http://archive.org/" target="_blank">Archive.org</a>.) See the results <a href="https://archive.org/stream/exhibitorsherald11exhi_1#page/n701/mode/2up" target="_blank"><span class="s1">here</span></a>. </div>
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Social reformists of the silent era had big plans for the use of moving pictures as educational tools. Not everything they foresaw came to pass—projects intended for wide commercial release are still typically made for entertainment rather than instruction (but social critics can still focus on films' <i>subtextual</i> messages). Kevin Brownlow has written that "problem pictures" proliferated in the very early twentieth century, but dropped off "once the era of reform [roughly 1901–1917] was over." The country's focus turned to WWI, and various suffragists used both their contributions to and their protests against the conflict to support their arguments for equal suffrage. The campaign was finally won in 1920 with the full ratification of the 19<sup>th</sup> amendment—and moving pictures <a href="http://archive.org/stream/movpicwor471movi#page/n115/mode/2up/search/how+to+vote" target="_blank"><span class="s1">were created</span></a> to teach women how to use a polling place.</div>
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<i>Photoplay</i> celebrated Mary Pickford's newly granted right [Nov. 1920—accessed through <a href="http://archive.org/" target="_blank">Archive.org</a>].</div>
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But some predictions about films and society came true: in an <a href="https://archive.org/stream/movingpicturenew04unse#page/n843/mode/2up/search/alma" target="_blank"><span class="s1">interview</span></a> with <i>Moving Picture News </i>[Aug 12, 1911],<span class="s2"> </span>suffragist and opera singer <a href="https://archive.org/details/musicasahumanne00powegoog" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Alma Webster-Powell</span></a> declared "I would use [moving pictures] in every educational institution if I had my way…[from] kindergarten…right on up through the different grades of the schools—it is the only way to teach children, for what a child sees in a picture it remembers."</div>
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Political activists today are more likely to self-produce documentaries or short pieces for YouTube than to partner with film studios for big-screen features. Still, the idea of moving pictures as rhetorical platforms can have a major effect on American society: the far-reaching <span class="s1"><i>Citizens United</i></span> decision involved an opinionated political film.</div>
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<b>FOR FURTHER READING</b></div>
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<span class="s3">Print: </span></div>
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<li>Kay Sloan, <a href="http://kaysloan.com/the-loud-silents-origins-of-the-social-problem-film" target="_blank"><span class="s4"><i>The Loud Silents: Origins of the Social Problem Film</i></span></a></li>
<li>Shelley Stamp, <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6851.html" target="_blank"><span class="s4"><i>Movie-Struck Girls: Women and Motion Picture Culture after the Nickelodeon</i></span></a></li>
<li>Kevin Brownlow, <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1990-12-23/books/bk-9681_1_kevin-brownlow" target="_blank"><span class="s4"><i>Behind the Mask of Innocence: Films of Social Conscience in the Silent Era</i></span></a></li>
<li>Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr., <a href="http://www.americangraphicpress.com/index.html" target="_blank"><span class="s4"><i>Winning The Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement</i></span></a></li>
<li>Karen Ward Mahar, <span class="s4"><i><a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/women-filmmakers-early-hollywood" target="_blank">Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood</a></i></span></li>
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<span class="s3">Online: </span></div>
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<li>Mary Mallory, <span class="s4"><a href="https://ladailymirror.com/2015/10/19/mary-mallory-hollywood-heights-your-girl-and-mine-promotes-womens-suffrage/" target="_blank">'Your Girl and Mine' Promotes Women's Suffrage</a> and</span> <a href="https://ladailymirror.com/2016/05/23/mary-mallory-hollywood-heights-mothers-of-men-promotes-womens-causes/" target="_blank"><span class="s4">'Mothers of Men' Promotes Women's Causes</span></a></li>
<li>Eleanor Booth Simmons, <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1914-10-25/ed-1/seq-25/" target="_blank"><span class="s1"><i>Suffrage Enlists a New Ally – Melodrama</i></span></a><i> </i>(Oct. 25, 1914 article about <i>Your Girl and Mine, </i>including production information and a lengthy plot outline)</li>
<li><span class="s1"><a href="http://mothersfilm.com/" target="_blank">Mothers of Men</a>, </span>website devoted to the restoration of the film</li>
<li><a href="https://www.loc.gov/collections/?q=suffrage&fa=subject%3Awomen%27s+history&st=gallery" target="_blank">The Library of Congress collection of women's suffrage documents and photos</a></li>
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<i>Christine U'Ren is a <a href="http://www.christineu.com/" target="_blank"><span class="s4">graphic designer</span></a> and longtime silent film enthusiast. The last she checked, her absentee ballot for the June 2016 primary still had not been counted.</i></div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-83803908262574306102016-08-30T10:52:00.000-07:002016-08-30T13:45:45.118-07:00The Suffragists Storm the Screen<i>Regular SFSFF blog contributor Christine U'Ren was inspired by the </i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/mothers-of-men-festival-2016" target="_blank">Mothers of Men</a><i> program at SFSFF 2016</i><i> to write a series of posts devoted to silent films and suffragettes. This is part 2. For part 1, go <a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2016/05/silent-films-and-suffragettes.html" target="_blank">here</a></i><i>.</i><br />
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On July 29, 1911, <i>Moving Picture News</i> reported, "The suffragettes in this city recently...[decided] that motion picture films should be made showing the suffrage cause in the best light," as this was "the best way in which thousands of people might be instructed who otherwise never would hear of the suffrage cause."<br />
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The American suffrage movement was already familiar with the value of visual spectacle, having staged parades, pageants, plays, <a href="https://archive.org/stream/movingpicturenew05unse#page/n207/mode/1up" target="_blank">vaudeville presentations</a>, and slideshows. (Kay Sloan <a href="http://kaysloan.com/the-loud-silents-origins-of-the-social-problem-film/" target="_blank">states</a> that “California had been won largely due to the use of lively pageants and plays.”) The suffragists soon carried their moving-picture plans into action.<br />
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<b>SUFFRAGE AND THE MAN</b><br />
Technically, the first suffragist-made film out of the gate was <i>Suffrage and the Man</i>, produced by the American branch of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclair_(company)" target="_blank">Éclair Film Company</a>, “with the aid and under the supervision of” the Women’s Political Union (WPU) and released on June 6, 1912. (The WPU was focused on working women, as opposed to the larger National American Woman Suffrage Association [NAWSA], which some suffragists felt was too aligned with the wealthy.) A feature on the film in the May 25, 1912 issue of trade magazine <i>Moving Picture News</i>, possibly an advertorial provided by Éclair, credited “Miss Dorothy Steele” with “the idea of making use of the moving picture to champion the cause” (one <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045396/1912-06-30/ed-1/seq-44/" target="_blank">contemporary review</a> implies she was the writer) and mentioned that several members of the WPU appeared in the now-lost film.<br />
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<span class="s1">Stills from <i>Suffrage and the Man</i> [1912]. (image source: <i>Moving Picture News</i>, May 25, 1912)</span></div>
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<i>Suffrage and the Man</i> was a one-reel romantic comedy about a young man who is troubled by his fiancée's support of voting rights for women, but eventually learns to appreciate "the modern, educated, helpful woman," as Éclair put it. As Shelley Stamp <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=xEMQD2FrussC&pg=PA178&lpg=PA178&dq="><span class="s1">writes</span></a>, "Like the fatalistic comedies it sought to rebut"—some of which are described in <a href="http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2016/05/silent-films-and-suffragettes.html" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Part One</span> </a>of this series—<i>Suffrage and the Man</i> imagines a society after women have received full citizenship. But in this case men benefit from the arrangements." However, not all aspects of the film may have been so benevolent. Kay Sloan believes the movie makes "racist allusions to black male voters" because it mentions that "butlers and bootblacks" could vote although women could not. Sloan is quoting a review from the June 8, 1912 issue of <i>The Moving Picture World</i> (maddeningly blurred <a href="https://archive.org/stream/movpicwor12movi#page/962/mode/2up" target="_blank"><span class="s1">here</span></a>). As at least <a href="https://youtu.be/iRuEtk617mE" target="_blank"><span class="s1">one</span></a> silent comedy short features a white shoeshine man, and a number of silent pictures cast white actors as butlers, possibly the line was not meant to appeal to white audiences' racism. (It certainly seems intended to appeal to class prejudices, even though the film was produced by an organization that boasted <a href="https://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/rightsforwomen/Blatch.html" target="_blank"><span class="s1">20,000</span></a> working-class members.) But it is true that many prominent white suffragists were happy to exclude non-white activists. Even the anti-suffrage short, <i>A Lively Affair</i>, released just one month after <i>Suffrage and the Man,</i> shows an African-American maid completely ignored by white suffragists who gather at the house where she works.</div>
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A trade advertisement for <i>Suffrage and the Man</i>. (image source: <i>Moving Picture News</i>, May 25, 1912)</div>
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<i>The Moving Picture World</i> seems to have had a fairly positive reaction to <i>Suffrage and the Man,</i> and Karen Ward Mahar, in her book, <i>Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood</i>, calls it "well-received." But New York critic Vanderheyden Fyles, in a sardonic review <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045396/1912-06-30/ed-1/seq-44/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">reprinted</span></a> as far away as Salt Lake City, found the film's plot contrived and laughed at the ending, in which "the contrite man who opposed girls so wickedly" was magnanimously forgiven by his fiancée, and they went "hand in hand, to vote together." [June 30, 1912]</div>
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<b>VOTES FOR WOMEN </b></div>
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On June 26, 1912, just 20 days after the release of <i>Suffrage and the Man</i>, the two-reel drama <i>Votes for Women</i> was released. Kevin Brownlow <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Mask-Innocence-Kevin-Brownlow/dp/0394577477" target="_blank"><span class="s1">calls it</span></a> "the first important suffrage film." It was directed by Hal Reid (father of tragic movie idol <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Reid" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Wallace Reid</span></a>), who would go on to write the screenplay for <a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/mothers-of-men-festival-2016" target="_blank"><span class="s1"><i>Mothers of Men</i></span></a> (screened at SFSFF21 on June 3, 2016), and featured many real-life suffrage leaders. "Among those who appear in the pictures are Dr. Anna Shaw...and Miss Jane Addams [respectively, the national president and vice-president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)], both of whom made the trip from Chicago to New York, expressly to appear..." reads an article in <i>The Moving Picture World</i> [June 1, 1912]. The film was a co-production between NAWSA and the Reliance Film Company.<br />
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Image source: <i>The Moving Picture World</i>, June 1, 1912 (top) and May 18, 1912 (bottom), accessed through <a href="http://archive.org/">Archive.org</a>.</div>
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The <i>Moving Picture World</i> writer gave Reliance credit for beginning the partnership with NAWSA, and complained that the magazine had suggested furthering the suffrage cause with films "more than a year ago."</div>
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"Probably it took a year for the idea to percolate, and for the leaders of the suffragist cause to realize that the moving picture could be made one of their greatest allies."</div>
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This ad for <i>Votes for Women</i> appeared in the <i>Los Angeles Herald</i> on June 27, 1912, and emphasized the appearance of famous suffrage leaders in the film.</div>
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Kay Sloan reports that "it required a good deal of persuasion" to win NAWSA to Reliance's side, since the film company had already produced an anti-suffrage comedy (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0358382/combined" target="_blank"><span class="s1"><i>Bedelia and the Suffragette</i></span></a>: "Bedelia gets a position with the Suffragette family, and finds to her astonishment that the men in the family do the housework, while the mistress goes to the office and earns the daily bread"), and Addams in particular had previously disapproved of motion pictures—before she discovered their usefulness as educational tools at <a href="http://www.hullhousemuseum.org/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Hull House</span></a> in Chicago.</div>
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These stills from <i>Votes for Women</i> appeared in <i>Moving Picture News</i> [May 18, 1912], accessed through <a href="http://archive.org/">Archive.org</a>.</div>
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"The scenario for this photoplay was written by Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, Mrs. James Lee Laidlaw, and Mrs. Frances Maule Bjorkman, and the entire production was made under the supervision of the National Women's Suffrage Association," reported <i>Moving Picture News</i> [May 18, 1912]. "By this it will be readily understood that it is not a burlesque on the Suffrage question. It exploits the favorite theories of the Suffragists—their reasons for demanding the ballot, etc."</div>
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By May 1912, there had been so many "burlesques on the Suffrage question" that it was believed necessary to point out that a film entitled <i>Votes for Women</i> was actually serious. The plot of <i>Votes for Women</i>, as in <i>Suffrage and the Man</i>, was built around an engaged couple—as Kay Sloan notes, the suffragists had to show that "woman suffrage and romance could coexist." Shelley Stamp comments that "the suffrage dramas…stage a stirring crusade for the vote but cloak demands for political equality with reassurances that traditional notions of womanhood will endure with full citizenship, and that heterosexual relations will not be destabilized." Given the intense hysteria with which filmmakers often portrayed suffragists, it is not surprising that suffrage leaders felt obliged to counter the negative images onscreen. Without the precedents of the anti-suffrage comedies, the official suffrage dramas would probably have been very different films.</div>
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<i>Votes for Women</i> was a great success for the movement. Sloan reports that "the film was in such demand that within two years of mass distribution, its two reels had worn out."</div>
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<i>Votes for Women</i> was shown all over the USA. This "Amusements" ad (left) appeared in the Oct. 7, 1912 issue of the <i>Bismarck Tribune</i> (North Dakota), while the "Votes for Women" announcement (right) ran in <i>The Washington Herald</i> (DC), July 16, 1912. The <i>Herald</i> story shows how the picture was used to recruit women to the cause: all women wearing suffragist insignia were admitted to the screening for free. The jokey comment (center) from <i>The Topeka Daily State Journal</i> (KS) was printed on July 11, 1912.</div>
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<span class="s1">(To be continued.)</span></div>
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<i>Christine U'Ren is a </i><a href="http://www.christineu.com/" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank"><span class="s1">graphic designer</span></a><i> and longtime silent film enthusiast. She is mentally casting local actors in her imaginary restaging of </i><a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89003811635" target="_blank"><span class="s1">How the Vote Was Won</span></a><i>, the British play that helped convince Americans to support women's voting rights.</i></div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-8685269532687507432016-05-31T17:26:00.001-07:002016-05-31T17:26:36.178-07:00Focus on the Swedish Film Institute: A Conversation with Magnus Rosborn<i>Long-time attendees of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival should be familiar with the work of the </i><a href="http://www.filminstitutet.se/en/" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Swedish Film Institute </a><i>(SFI), which has been providing a feature film for each edition of the Festival since 2010. If you’ve enjoyed </i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/the-blizzard" target="_blank">The Blizzard</a><i>, </i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/the-outlaw-and-his-wife" target="_blank">The Outlaw and His Wife</a><i>, or </i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/the-girl-in-tails" target="_blank">The Girl in Tails</a><i>, then you have the SFI to thank. </i><br />
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<i>This year we’ll be presenting Alf Sjöberg and Axel Lindblom’s </i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/eventinfo/the-strongest-festival-2016" target="_blank">The Strongest</a><i> at noon on Saturday, June 4. To commemorate the occasion, our guest-blogger Kyle Westphal interviewed Magnus Rosborn, film archivist at the SFI. Both are graduates of the <a href="https://www.eastman.org/selznickschool/" target="_blank">L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation</a>. Their conversation has been slightly edited for clarity and length. </i><br />
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KW: What made you want to become a film archivist, and how did you go about it? What does your job at SFI entail on a daily basis?<br />
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MR: My interest for the film history started around the age of 20 when I began to visit the <a href="http://www.fhp.nu/Spegeln/Om-Spegeln/" target="_blank">Cinematheque screenings</a> in my home city, Malmö. I realized that I had to change my plans for the future and started to study film at the University of Lund. After one year I continued to the University of Copenhagen, where I took a special course focusing on film history from a material and archival perspective. Since I have always had a fascination with history and archeology, this seemed to be a natural step in my film studies. That’s also where I found out about the film archival program at the <a href="https://www.eastman.org/" target="_blank">George Eastman House</a> (today George Eastman Museum) in Rochester where I studied 2002-2003.<br />
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Now I have been working at the Swedish Film Institute for a bit more than 10 years. One of my two primary tasks as a film archivist is to identify and catalogue film materials from new collections or materials that have been stuck on the shelves for years (sometimes decades). Quite often the materials I identify turn out to be unique. This leads to my second primary task, which is to be in charge of different preservation projects. For instance, <i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/norrtullsligan" target="_blank">Norrtullsligan</a></i> (Per Lindberg, 1923), that screened in San Francisco in 2015, was one of my restoration projects.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Norrtullsligan</i></td></tr>
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KW: Most American viewers, if they're familiar with Swedish silent cinema at all, can probably just name two filmmakers: Mauritz Stiller and Victor Sjöström. Much other worthwhile work, like <i>Den starkaste</i> (“The Strongest”), is just invisible to us outside of festival screenings. What else survives from the silent period?<br />
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MR: As with many other countries, the majority of the Swedish silent cinema is lost. This is especially true concerning the early and mid-1910s. For example, only 4 out of the 30 films directed by Sjöström and released before 1917 have survived in [substantial] fragments or in versions close to the original length.<br />
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Luckily, the percentage of surviving titles is much higher for the films produced during the late 1910s and the 1920s. Among them you can find some really wonderful film gems both from the so-called “Golden Age” (1917-1924) and from the rather overlooked period of the years that followed.<br />
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KW: It’s embedded in the very idea of the “Golden Age”—it ends precisely when Sjöström and Stiller leave for Hollywood!<br />
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MR: Unfortunately, we have had both a history-writing and a screening practice in Sweden that has not just focused upon the films by Stiller and Sjöström, but also in some ways chosen to neglect films made by other directors. Therefore it was an important step when the curator of our archive, Jon Wengström, put together a program of Swedish films from the last half of the 1920s for the <a href="http://www.cinetecadelfriuli.org/gcm/ed_precedenti/edizione2013/edizione2013.html" target="_blank">Pordenone festival in 2013</a>, which included <i>Den starkaste</i>, among other interesting titles. My personal favorite from that time period is the Swedish-German crazy comedy <i>Flickorna Gyurkovics</i> (“A Sister of Six”, Ragnar Hyltén-Cavallius, 1926), which screened in <a href="http://www.cinetecadelfriuli.org/gcm/allegati/2015_GCM_catalogo.pdf" target="_blank">Pordenone in 2015</a>.<br />
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KW: What else should we seek out?<br />
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MR: The next important step in reevaluating the Swedish silent cinema would be to screen the films made by other directors during the same years, the so-called “Golden Age,” and in the same style as Stiller and Sjöström. There are several interesting and beautiful films such as John W. Brunius’s <i>Thora van Deken</i> (“A Mother’s Fight”, 1920), based on a novel by the Danish Nobel Prize winner Henrik Pontoppidan, and Ivan Hedqvist’s <i>Vallfarten till Kevlaar</i> (“The Pilgrimage to Kevlaar”, 1921), adapted from a poem by the German 19th-century writer Heinrich Heine, just to mention two undeservedly overlooked titles that need to be rediscovered by a modern audience.<br />
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KW: Let's talk about the preservation history of <i>Den starkaste</i>. What's the provenance of the original material and when was it preserved?<br />
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MR: It is often a bit uncomfortable for us who work at the archive today to talk about earlier preservations. Just as in some other countries we used to have a standard procedure in Sweden of destroying the nitrate elements after duplication. In addition to that, there was also a work practice from early 1970s to around 2000 to manipulate the aspect ratio of silent films from full frame to Academy ratio during the duplication. [W<i>hile the 1.33:1 full frame ratio is mathematically close to the 1.37:1 Academy ratio, the frame on the latter is considerably smaller because the additions of an optical soundtrack and thicker framelines have reduced the usable image area. – Ed.</i>] And furthermore it was very seldom that any color records were made of the nitrate’s tinting and/or toning information before destruction. Therefore it is of great importance today when new film elements of Swedish silent films are found around the world.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Den starkaste</i></td></tr>
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Unfortunately, <i>Den starkaste</i> is one of these films treated in the way described above. In 1982, the surviving nitrate print was duplicated to a black-and-white stock and downsized to an Academy ratio dupe negative from which the print that will be shown at the festival was struck. Afterwards the nitrate was destroyed and we have no information about what colors the nitrate print might have had.<br />
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KW: As you say, that’s a very typical situation for an archive with a long history—it’s certainly the case that similar things happened here. In the US, we have a mix of private, public, and quasi-public preservation institutions: there are film archives affiliated with studios, universities, art museums, film societies, government agencies, etc. Film preservation sounds much more centralized in Sweden. What responsibilities and challenges come with working in a national archive like the SFI?<br />
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MR: It is true that the situation is more centralized in Sweden. We at the Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute have the national mission to preserve Sweden's film heritage—that means all Swedish films, as well as foreign films that have been released in cinemas in Sweden. In reality, it is a bit more complicated since there are some other archives that hold material to theatrically-screened films, mainly the archives of Swedish Television and the National Library, but also some small regional archives. On the other hand, we do have some non-theatrical film materials in our collection, too, such as TV productions.<br />
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One good thing about having only one institution responsible for the preservation of our film heritage is that no films fall between the cracks. We cannot choose what films to preserve as some archives at museums can do. If a film has been screened in theatres and we are offered preservation materials on it, it becomes our responsibility to save it for future generations. So in our large preservations vaults, materials from Ingmar Bergman’s films are stored next to materials from less artistic films.<br />
But it is hard to compare the situation in a relatively small country such as Sweden with a large federal nation like the US. Would it even be possible to have one institution with a national responsibility to preserve all films that have been theatrically screened in the US?<br />
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KW: Not remotely, though the mandate of the Library of Congress comes closest. I think the biggest challenge for American archives in recent years has been the recognition that film history encompasses far more than films that have been released theatrically: there are industrial films, avant-garde films, educational films, and especially home movies. There’s no centralized way to even account for it—someone shoots an 8mm film in 1952, forgets about it, the estate is liquidated, someone finds the film at an antique store decades later, and suddenly that’s part of film history, too. As if preserving all of the theatrically-released films wasn’t enough work!<br />
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-77062572710228483142016-05-29T14:36:00.001-07:002016-05-29T16:18:25.703-07:00Silent Films and Suffragettes<i>The <a href="http://bit.ly/SFSFF21Tickets" target="_blank">21st annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival</a> runs June 2–5, 2016, at the Castro Theatre. On Friday, June 3, </i><a href="http://bit.ly/SFSFF21Mothers" target="_blank">Mothers of Men</a><i>, the newly restored 1917 suffrage film, will screen with the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra accompanying. Regular SFSFF blog contributor Christine U'Ren was inspired by the program to write this first in a series of posts devoted to silent films and suffragettes.</i><br />
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The fight over "woman suffrage" was a hugely popular topic in the early days of silent film. Dozens of short comedies satirized suffragism, showing wayward, sometimes violent women who unsuccessfully experiment with male roles and power, as in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1298777/"><span class="s1"><i>A Lively Affair</i></span></a> [1912].</div>
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1912's <i>A Lively Affair</i>, which can be viewed on <a href="http://www.filmpreservation.org/dvds-and-books/treasures-iii-social-issues-in-american-film"><span class="s1">an informative DVD</span></a> from the National Film Preservation Foundation, or more crudely on <a href="https://youtu.be/QbLXFMnp_kA"><span class="s1">YouTube</span></a>, features "mannish," trouser-wearing women who are portrayed as out of control.</div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839530/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl"><i>A Day in the Life of a Suffragette</i></a></span> [1908], <span class="s1"><i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5224010/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl" target="_blank">The Reformation of the Suffragettes</a></i></span> [1911], and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4211918/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl"><span class="s1"><i>Fighting Suffragettes</i></span></a> [1909] are just a few examples of the many stories along these same lines. These films, underneath the slapstick, express grave anxiety about a society that was changing. Sometimes the suffragettes' punishment was brutal. The synopsis for the UK's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1258799/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_20"><span class="s1"><i>Sweet Suffragettes</i></span></a> [1906] reads simply, "A suffragette makes a speech and is pelted with eggs." In Mack Sennett's 1914 short <a href="https://youtu.be/QQLo72T6Kcw"><span class="s1"><i>A Busy Day</i></span></a><span class="s1"><i> </i></span>(originally titled <i>A Militant Suffragette</i>), Charlie Chaplin plays an obnoxious female character who [spoiler alert!] is knocked into the sea and left to drown. The film in its current state contains no overt references to the suffrage movement, but film historians believe the character would have been recognized by movie audiences of the time. Perhaps Sennett & Co. took the advice given by <i>Moving Picture World </i>to an aspiring writer in July 1912: "Suffragette plays have been done dozens of times. That is probably why your script was returned…Pure satire would be apt to tire, but you can utilize the mannish woman for comedy and not satire and with success."<br />
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Ironically, 1914, the date of Chaplin's film, capped a grand run for the suffragists: from 1910–1914, Washington, California, Oregon, Arizona, Kansas, the Alaskan territory, Illinois, Nevada and Montana granted women at least partial voting rights, after years of rejecting the idea. But anyone viewing some examples of the onscreen backlash might be surprised that <i>any</i> state governments in the USA in the early twentieth century could agree to give votes to women.</div>
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Despite her dignified speechmaking, Flora Finch in 1913's <i>The Pickpocket</i> finds her screen husband John Bunny does not support her suffragist activities. (Photo and plot source: <a href="https://archive.org/stream/illustrat01ffwo"><span class="s1"><i>Illustrated Films Monthly</i></span></a>, Sept. 1913, which includes a short-story version of the scenario.) If you don't mind spoilers, read a reaction to the film on <a href="https://silentsplease.wordpress.com/2014/11/28/suffragettes-on-film/"><span class="s1">this blog</span></a> (packed with GIFs).</div>
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Yet, although there was so much hostility, many movies were ambiguous in their portrayal of the suffrage movement. In Pathé's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1726027/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl"><span class="s1"><i>Le Rêve d'une féministe</i></span></a> [1909] a young woman dreams of an impossible world in which sex roles are reversed, with female policemen and male nursemaids. The film most likely played this situation for comedy, but <i>Motion Picture World</i> picked up on subtextual criticism of certain male behaviors: "…we see the crowd of women at a café, where they are enjoying themselves and trying to be as masculine as possible. The male sex are conspicuous by their absence, for no sane man would dare intrude upon such a gathering. Seated among the other suffragettes, we recognize the heroine of this tale, when suddenly the scene changes and the dreamer awakens from her beautiful dream to find that her husband has just come in; the latter is so enraged because the dinner is not ready that he gives his frightened wife a sound beating."</div>
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In Kalem's <i>The Suffragette Sheriff</i> [1912] a husband's "old maid sister…an ardent suffragette" convinces his wife, played by company star <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0431484/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm"><span class="s1">Alice Joyce</span></a>, that she shouldn't be satisfied with staying at home. The wife promptly enters public life and is elected sheriff, which causes her to neglect her domestic duties. The husband tries to trick his wife into giving up her new job, and it appears that his plan will succeed, but the ending has a surprise twist (read a synopsis [with spoilers] <a href="https://archive.org/stream/moviwor13chal#page/n175/mode/1up" target="_blank"><span class="s1">here</span></a>). This film, although a comedy, may possibly have inspired some major plot elements of the 1917 drama <i>Mothers of Men</i>, which will be screened at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival on <a href="http://prod3.agileticketing.net/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=209947~d9133282-4896-49aa-be18-b053ee8cefc3&epguid=1822aae7-3fda-46c4-8940-081224f26742&"><span class="s1">June 3, 2016</span></a>. </div>
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The advertisement appeared in the July 1912 issue of <i>The Moving Picture World</i>. In a bit of cross-media marketing, the plot was rewritten as <span class="s1">a <a href="http://web.stanford.edu/~gdegroat/AJ/reviews/suffragettesheriff.htm" target="_blank">short story</a></span> for <i>The People's Popular Monthly</i>, September 1915. <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">(image source: </span><a href="https://archive.org/stream/moviwor13chal)" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span class="s2">https://archive.org/stream/moviwor13chal)</span></a></div>
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Sometimes both the suffragists and the anti-suffragists were lampooned: in Edison's <i>How They Got the Vote</i> [1913], a woman pulls off a feather boa to reveal a "Votes for Women" banner hidden underneath, causing the men in the room to cower in fear, as historian Kay Sloan <a href="http://kaysloan.com/the-loud-silents-origins-of-the-social-problem-film/"><span class="s1">describes it</span></a>. The film "managed to straddle the suffrage fence," Sloan writes, "presenting the stereotyped view of suffragists that had become popular at the box office while it reconciled the [onscreen] family with women's political equality." Reconciling onscreen characters with women's voting rights while dealing with stereotypes of the movement "was a pattern that later films made by the suffragists themselves would emulate," Sloan adds. Suffragists had to use great care in portraying supporters of their cause onscreen, but commercial filmmakers who made ambiguous suffrage comedies may simply have been hedging their bets, hoping not to alienate any members of their audiences…or fearing worse reactions. The May 17, 1913 issue of <i>The Moving Picture World</i> reported that two female moviegoers got into a physical fight over their opposing suffrage views.</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a8kvUNeKIWs/V0tbVPu3q9I/AAAAAAAABDA/6QKE3TTvyFMWL9jBG82TZg88QSMq6KvlACKgB/s1600/movpictworMay171913womenfightatsuffragettepictureCrop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a8kvUNeKIWs/V0tbVPu3q9I/AAAAAAAABDA/6QKE3TTvyFMWL9jBG82TZg88QSMq6KvlACKgB/s640/movpictworMay171913womenfightatsuffragettepictureCrop.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Edison's 1912 comedy, <i>A Suffragette in Spite of Himself</i>, could possibly be interpreted as a pro-suffrage film, but it maintains a noncommittal comedic tone throughout. Filmed in London, the scene of some of the most notorious Votes for Women protests, the story follows a strongly anti-suffrage man who, as the result of a practical joke, finds himself treated as a militant suffragette. The main figures of fun here are not the suffragettes, but those who passionately hate them. But historian Shelley Stamp [<i>ed: who will be introducing the June 3, 2016 SFSFF screening of Mothers of Men</i>] <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Movie_struck_Girls.html?id=xEMQD2FrussC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank"><span class="s1">points out</span></a> that the film "suggests that being a feminist in public is quite a different thing from being a man in public."</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3j1GPR0vW2M/V0tbT7MEC0I/AAAAAAAABDA/ckTBIHinXUwwLS3h3bAWZ6Ml8Ck_614OgCKgB/s1600/A_Suffragette_in_Spite_of_Himself2b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="475" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3j1GPR0vW2M/V0tbT7MEC0I/AAAAAAAABDA/ckTBIHinXUwwLS3h3bAWZ6Ml8Ck_614OgCKgB/s640/A_Suffragette_in_Spite_of_Himself2b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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In <i>A Suffragette in Spite of Himself</i>, the protagonist finds himself at the center of some alarming street encounters. A well-crafted comedy that luckily survived, the film is available on the National Film Preservation Foundation's <a href="http://www.filmpreservation.org/dvds-and-books/treasures-iii-social-issues-in-american-film"><span class="s1">informative DVD</span></a>, or on <a href="https://youtu.be/ZxOpJJLJIGA"><span class="s1">YouTube</span></a>.</div>
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Short comedies that were decisively on the side of women's voting rights are harder to find, though <i>Motography</i> <a href="https://ia800301.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/20/items/motography00test/motography00test_jp2.zip&file=motography00test_jp2/motography00test_1411.jp2&scale=4&rotate=0" target="_blank"><span class="s1">described</span></a> the scenario of one intriguing film: a manicurist tricks two anti-suffrage barbers, prevents them casting votes against a woman suffrage amendment, and collects $500 into the bargain. Thanhouser (under the name Falstaff Comedies) released <i>Minnie the Mean Manicurist</i> in 1915. (Probably one would have to see the lost film to determine whether the employee responsible for film titles was taking revenge on this movie's protagonist or suggesting that Thanhouser did not in fact consider her a heroine.) Powers Picture Plays' 1911 film, <i>How Women Win,</i> features a main character who just might become a convert to the suffrage cause, according to <i>The Moving Picture World</i>'s synopsis <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219345/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl" target="_blank"><span class="s1">quoted on IMDB</span></a> (different from the <a href="http://ia800502.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/9/items/moviwor08chal/moviwor08chal_jp2.zip&file=moviwor08chal_jp2/moviwor08chal_1530.jp2&scale=4&rotate=0" target="_blank"><span class="s1">briefer review</span></a> found on archive.org). Unfortunately, the film is lost, so we may never know the ending.</div>
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In many cases, it's anyone's guess whether these comedy filmmakers were sincerely for or against women's suffrage, or whether they merely tried to create what they thought their audiences preferred. (For a case study of one studio's evolving portrayals of suffragettes, read <a href="http://www.thanhouser.org/Research/Eric%20Dewberry%20-%20Depictions%20of%20Suffragists%20in%20Thanhouser%20Films.pdf"><span class="s1">this essay</span></a> by Eric Dewberry about the Thanhouser Studio.) It's hard to believe that the animator behind Mutual's <i>The Strong Arm Squad of the Future</i> [c. 1912], for example, wasn't bothered by the idea of women with political power. However, he or she may also have been merely fulfilling a boss' request. What's certain is that the topic could not be ignored by movie companies of the day.</div>
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This caricature of a grotesque suffragette in military costume comes from a brief animated sequence called <i>The Strong Arm Squad of the Future</i> [c. 1912]. Mysteriously, the film was originally incorporated into a newsreel episode of <i>The Mutual Weekly</i>, despite being fictional. (The clip can be seen on <a href="https://youtu.be/CJM5Pe2ocfc"><span class="s1">YouTube</span></a> or through a National Film Preservation Foundation <a href="http://www.filmpreservation.org/dvds-and-books/treasures-iii-social-issues-in-american-film"><span class="s1">DVD</span></a>.)</div>
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As well as inspiring fictional stories, suffragist activities became a popular subject for newsreel producers, as <a href="http://player.bfi.org.uk/collections/suffragettes-on-film/" target="_blank"><span class="s1">this roundup</span></a> of still-surviving clips from the British Film Institute attests (unfortunately, the videos cannot be played from US computers, but the pages include some informative text). The British suffrage movement, which was the most violent, garnered the most interest among filmmakers—even fictional scenarios made by studios in other countries, such as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0132536/"><span class="s1">Germany</span></a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0003162/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3" target="_blank"><span class="s1">Sweden</span></a> and the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0233893/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl"><span class="s1">USA</span></a>, were often set in England to capitalize on the colorful protestors, who embraced the term "suffragette."</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">These clips from 1915 show British suffrage leader Emmeline Pankhurst speaking to crowds, as well as an unnamed suffragette being led away by police. </span></div>
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Americans tended to prefer the more decorous label "suffragist," and their protests were quieter. This didn't stop movie companies from taking advantage of real-life suffrage activities: the same newsreel footage of a 1912 New York City suffrage parade, as Kay Sloan reports, wound up in both <i>Was He a Suffragette?</i>, an anti-suffrage comedy, and <i>Votes for Women</i>, a film created by The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) the same year. Stamp reports that 1911's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219345/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl" target="_blank"><span class="s1"><i>How Women Win</i></span></a>, possibly a pro-suffrage comedy, also incorporated shots of a real-life votes for women demonstration (<span class="s1"><a href="http://ia800502.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/9/items/moviwor08chal/moviwor08chal_jp2.zip&file=moviwor08chal_jp2/moviwor08chal_1530.jp2&scale=4&rotate=0" target="_blank">confirmed</a></span> by <i>The Moving Picture World</i>, July 1, 1911). Footage of a parade also <a href="http://www.thanhouser.org/Research/Eric%20Dewberry%20-%20Depictions%20of%20Suffragists%20in%20Thanhouser%20Films.pdf" target="_blank"><span class="s1">reportedly</span></a> appeared in Thanhouser Studio's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161459/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl" target="_blank"><span class="s1"><i>Courting Across the Court</i></span></a> [1911], another anti-suffrage short. (It is interesting to speculate which parade Thanhouser used. It may have been the first major suffrage parade, on May 29, 1910, but that seems a bit late for the timely and topical movie studios of the day, which didn't typically wait a year before using footage. The second NYC <a href="https://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2014/05/06/may-6-1911-nyc-suffrage-parade-largely-exceeds-expectations/"><span class="s1">parade</span></a> took place on May 6, 1911, which would indicate a very short production time between the taking of the newsreel footage and the release of the fictional film, on June 27 the same year.)<br />
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This ad for Thanhouser Studio's <i>Courting Across the Court</i>, an apparently lost film in which a young woman chooses domestic life over a career, appeared in a 1911 issue of the trade journal <i>The Moving Picture World</i>. The film is notable for incorporating actual footage of a real Votes for Women parade, albeit in an anti-suffrage context.</div>
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Newsreel companies scrambled to take footage of suffragist events: the March 29, 1913 issue of <i>Moving Picture News</i> reported that "some other photographers were angry" when they found that the manager of a particular New York theater had been given exclusive rights to shoot "the tableaux of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_suffrage_parade_of_1913"><span class="s1">suffragette parade</span></a>." In Kansas in 1914, even amateur photographers attended a suffrage parade, along with professionals from Pathé and the local Holt Feature Film Company, and "practiced on the suffragettes" (<i>The Moving Picture World,</i> May 30, 1914).<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">This newsreel footage shows a famous <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2013/03/100-years-ago-the-1913-womens-suffrage-parade/100465/"><span class="s1">1913 women's suffrage parade</span></a>, which began in New York City and ended in Washington, DC, timed to coincide with the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson.</span> </div>
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It wasn't long before the leaders of the women's suffrage movement began to wonder if they could take advantage of film technology for their own purposes, rather than having their onscreen images controlled by the entertainment industry.<br />
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<i>End of part 1...part 2 coming soon!</i><br />
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<i>Christine U'Ren is a </i><a href="http://www.christineu.com/" target="_blank"><span class="s1"><i>graphic designer</i></span></a><i> and longtime silent film enthusiast. She sometimes trips out on the fact that her grandmother spent most of her childhood in a country (the USA) where women were not considered equal enough to vote.</i><br />
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-60381320162253298622016-05-20T12:08:00.000-07:002016-05-20T12:09:46.990-07:00Feel the Burn: A Dispatch from the Nitrate Picture Show<br />
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<span class="s1"><i>We're cross-posting this essay by </i><a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/author/kyle/"><span class="s2"><i>Kyle Westphal</i></span></a><i> with the </i><span class="s2"><i><a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/2016/05/19/nps/" target="_blank">Northwest Chicago Film Society</a>.</i></span></span></div>
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Like most people who grew up in a town without a dedicated repertory cinema, I couldn't afford to be picky about movies or the way I watched them. I sought out titles that I read about and didn't much care how I encountered them for the first time. A first-run movie at the multiplex? Great. A dodgy VHS copy of <i>Hiroshima mon amour</i> (1959) borrowed from the library? Not a problem. <i>Cat People </i>(1942) airing in the 6 AM slot on Turner Classic Movies? Wonderful. <i>GoodFellas </i>(1990) on broadcast television, bleeped left and right and bloated to unimaginable length by commercial interruptions? A terrific movie, even so.</div>
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It wasn't until I began college that I met people who approached films a bit differently—people who braved multiple buses to travel across town to see a particular 16mm print or lamented that our city's sorry iteration of a traveling retrospective had omitted a 35mm print that had definitely been screened on another leg of the North American tour. (You know they're playing Chicago for dupes, right?) These were people who placed immense value in seeing a film in its original format, and felt closer to the work's essence on that basis. One friend even used format specificity as a cudgel; whenever he couldn't settle an argument on a film's merits, he would ask his interlocutor whether she had seen the title in question projected from 35mm, or only watched it on video. If she'd only done the latter, he would declare himself the winner—he'd seen the print, so his opinion was automatically, axiomatically more valid. </div>
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If you think the people described above sound like insufferable hipsters, like the cinephilic equivalent of lanky kids eager to declare "Ahem, I have that on vinyl," then I'd advise you to stay far, far away from Rochester and its now-annual <a href="http://eastman.org/nitrate-picture-show"><span class="s1">Nitrate Picture Show</span></a>, the <a href="https://www.eastman.org/"><span class="s1">George Eastman Museum</span></a>'s three-day celebration of a defunct, flammable film stock that civilians haven't encountered in seven decades. (Disclosure: I worked for the Eastman Museum from 2010 to 2012, before planning had begun for the inaugural edition of the Nitrate Picture Show in 2015.) Such a festival necessarily invites an escalation of the dynamic described above: "You've seen <i>Bicycle Thieves</i> in 35mm, eh? Well, I've seen it in <i>nitrate</i>." </div>
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For filmgoers of a certain age, nitrate is an evocative intoxicant, its name an incantation that conjures up living memories of inky blacks, glistening whites, and a greyscale of infinite latitude. <a href="http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2015/05/13/nitrate-days-and-nights/"><span class="s1">Nitrate aficionados</span></a> will recite their beloved stock's putative advantages over its safer successors: higher silver content that makes monochrome that much more lustrous, a very clear base that makes the image leap off the screen. Much of nitrate's mystique rests upon a brand of decidedly subjective, non-empirical aesthetic judgment—you simply have to see the Nitrate Look for yourself.<br />
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And make no mistake: the audience that gathered in Rochester was primed for that ecstatic experience. It was a specialized, self-selecting crowd, with a vocal interest in all things photochemical. Between shows, I overheard attendees discussing the <a href="https://us.impossible-project.com/pages/about-us"><span class="s1">Impossible Project</span></a> and its semi-successful effort to reverse-engineer instamatic Polaroid film. Cell phones were discreetly raised to record video of the <a href="https://www.eastman.org/dryden-theatre"><span class="s1">Dryden Theatre</span></a>'s <a href="https://eastman.org/dryden-theatre-renovation-series-curtain-stays"><span class="s1">curtain rising</span></a>. There was an audible gasp and scattered applause in the auditorium when it was announced that a short film would be screened in the short-lived <a href="http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=831"><span class="s1">1.19:1</span></a> <a href="http://www.sprocketschool.org/wiki/Aspect_ratios"><span class="s1">aspect ratio</span></a>. If anybody was ready for a nitrate epiphany, it was these pilgrims.</div>
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<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BE02C8YAD7t/" style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">These curtains take ages to rise, but their slow gathering-up sweetens the anticipation. #nitrateshow2016 #35mm #showmanship</a></div>
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A photo posted by SF Silent Film Festival (@sfsilentfilm) on <time datetime="2016-04-30T13:14:35+00:00" style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px;">Apr 30, 2016 at 6:14am PDT</time></div>
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There's another aspect of nitrate fandom that bears noting, one that has precious little to do with the actual experience of watching the films. Handling nitrate is one of the few genuinely badass activities your average film archivist performs on a regular basis, and so a cheeky death wish cult has arisen around everyone's favorite film stock. When the <a href="http://www.fiafnet.org/"><span class="s1">Federation of International Film Archives</span></a> published a <a href="http://offscreen.com/view/nitratefilm"><span class="s1">near-700-page tome</span></a> devoted to nitrate, they released it under the only possible title: <a href="http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=807586"><span class="s1"><i>This Film Is Dangerous</i></span></a>. It's the film archivist's equivalent to a genteel folk musician's insistence that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_machine_kills_fascists"><span class="s1">"This Machine Kills Fascists."</span></a><br />
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And so attendees of the Nitrate Picture Show were treated to winking, pre-show safety announcements modeled after an airline evacuation presentation. Pass-holders also received a commemorative shoulder bag that included a box of matches with the inscription, "Do not strike near nitrate." (No pyromaniacs interrupted the festival, though I suspect a good many of these charming souvenirs wound up confiscated by befuddled TSA staff at the Greater Rochester International Airport.) </div>
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Perhaps the mystique matters more than the films themselves. Like the <a href="http://www.telluridefilmfestival.org/show/program_guide"><span class="s1">Telluride Film Festival</span></a>, the Nitrate Picture Show withholds its line-up until opening day—a choice that nudges the audience towards an unapologetically materialist mindset. There's some implicit confidence in the festival's curatorial instincts (and unlike Telluride, God knows no one goes to Rochester for the skiing), but the larger proposition is pretty simple: come and see nitrate film, <i>any nitrate film</i>. All the usual festival attendance considerations drop away (Is the line-up good this year? Will I have another opportunity to see this film elsewhere?) and the prospective pass-holder need only decide whether the chance to experience nitrate is worth so much money and effort, sight unseen. In this year's edition, the cartoons—<a href="http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Fischinger/"><span class="s1">Oskar Fischinger</span></a>'s avant-garde classics <i>Allegretto </i>(1936)<i> </i>and <i>An Optical Poem </i>(1937), as well as <a href="https://absolutmedien.de/film/529/Julius+Pinschewer+%E2%80%93+Klassiker+des+Werbefilms"><span class="s1">Julius Pischewer</span></a>'s totally unheralded tribute to the Swiss rail system, <i>Cent ans de Chemins de fer suisses </i>(1946)—justified the festival all by themselves within fifteen minutes. </div>
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Once the festivities begin, the Nitrate Picture Show becomes more transparent than most of its peers. Many classics-oriented festivals are somewhat two-faced about print sources: a new restoration from a studio sponsor is loudly touted and prominently attributed, but prints borrowed from private collectors get the Don't Ask, Don't Tell treatment. For example, the collector-oriented <a href="http://syracusecinephile.com/"><span class="s1">Cinefest</span></a> confab, which held its <a href="http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/grand-finale-for-cinefest-20150324"><span class="s1">final edition</span></a> last year in Syracuse, always kept the source of its 16mm prints on the down low; the full list was known to four or five people, which meant that most prints were passed from the collectors to the projectionists through a middleman who had to wink, nod, and whisper his way through the lobby. </div>
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The Nitrate Picture Show program booklet doesn't just list the source of every print—it also includes its provenance and its latest shrinkage reading. (Nitrate film that has shrunken more than 1.0% is generally considered unsafe to project; remember that a film projector is a precision-engineered machine and consequently, even a modestly shrunken print could be a recipe for a film break, or perhaps a film fire, if its perforations don't align perfectly with the projector's sprockets.) The collections management data earns pride of place above the actual film description—and it's frequently the more involving. (Critic's quotes can be useful in punching up a film capsule, but I question whether <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-perspec-0414-things-20130414-story.html"><span class="s1">Mae Tinee</span></a>—who wasn't even a real person, but the <i>Chicago Tribune</i>'s generic byline for whichever poor newsroom sap wound up with movie-reviewing duty that week—is the most reliable champion of <i>Tales of Hoffmann</i>.<i>)</i></div>
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The hope of all this, I think, is to foster a fantastically engaged audience. This is a salutary development, and one that other festivals and repertory cinemas should strive to emulate. After all, practically all analog film projection now qualifies as a rare event. When presenting such a specialized offering to the general public, it's essential that the audience develop some basic understanding and recognition of the undertaking. Conscious consumers of the nitrate brand who are casually conversant in basic archival terminology are necessary for building up and sustaining the Nitrate Picture Show over the long term. </div>
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There are several passages in the Nitrate Picture Show program book that ask the audience to make that leap, to put on their slightly stained archivist hats and evaluate films in a way that runs contrary to their everyday experience. The most notable is generally applicable to all analog film presentations, not just nitrate: "On display is the visual texture and resonance of the prints themselves in all their splendor—and, yes, with the blemishes and flaws they accumulate over time. All of this is part of the nitrate experience." </div>
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In an exhibition landscape where most every repertory screening is <a href="http://www.filmcomment.com/blog/this-is-dcp-is-that-it/"><span class="s1">touted as the latest 2K or 4K restoration</span></a>, we need to give audiences the <a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/2011/11/16/the-sudden-death-and-life-of-film/"><span class="s1">terms to describe and appreciate an alternative</span></a>. Otherwise, we may as well consign every archive's decades-in-the-making collection of exhibition prints to the rubbish pile. There's a difference, of course, between honestly acknowledging the natural wear and tear that accumulates on a print and appropriating any scratchy, splicey, faded-to-pink print as an emblem of the authentic grindhouse experience. The audience deserves the vocabulary to recognize that difference.</div>
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So, is nitrate worth all the trouble, the expense, and the non-trivial risk? To judge by the size and enthusiasm of the audience at the Nitrate Picture Show, the answer is a resounding yes. Anything that motivates hundreds of people to go to the theater for a film screening should be commended. And the emotional component of making a trek to see nitrate shouldn't be discounted, either. One of the highlights of the Nitrate Picture Show was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSGm-7PtB6E"><span class="s1">George Willeman</span></a>'s introduction to <i>Tales of Hoffmann </i>(1951), wherein he confessed that he'd never had an opportunity to see nitrate projected before, even though he'd been handling nitrate on a daily basis at the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/avconservation/packard/"><span class="s1">Library of Congress</span></a> for more than three decades. Who can argue with that? </div>
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I've been privileged to project my fair share of nitrate prints, and I've seen a handful of others as an audience member at the Dryden and elsewhere. I saw my first nitrate print, <i>Night Unto Night </i>(1949), when I was a programming intern at UCLA Film & Television Archive in 2005 during a <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jul/17/entertainment/ca-cinefile17"><span class="s1">Don Siegel retrospective</span></a>. The fact that the Archive would be screening a nitrate print was noted on the calendar, but otherwise did not receive much fanfare. Internally, I was simply instructed to mark the show report with a prominent "N" amidst a cluster of stars to remind the projectionist that he'd be handling nitrate that afternoon. </div>
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The Dryden's programmer, Jurij Meden, alluded to a similarly nonchalant attitude when introducing <i>Bicycle Thieves</i> (1948) at the Nitrate Picture Show. Before this nitrate copy was deemed worthy of a pilgrimage, it was just another print in the collection—one that had once been publically screened at least fifteen times over a decade according to department records. How does a common object survive being elevated to such a pedestal? </div>
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Personally, <a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/2013/10/02/burned-out-the-nitrate-legacy/"><span class="s1">I've never found there to be an appreciable difference between nitrate and safety stock on screen</span></a>. Are some nitrate prints exceedingly beautiful? Yes, of course, but so too are many safety prints. The Eastman Museum holds a 35mm acetate print of <i>Possessed </i>(1931), printed direct from the original camera negative (OCN), that is as luminous as anything that was screened during the Nitrate Picture Show. It so happens that many nitrate prints were also printed direct from the OCN—and that proximity to the original source likely matters as much as the nitrate base itself. Most any copy competently manufactured directly from the OCN would be exceptional, even if it were printed on onion skin. </div>
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The prints of <i>Road House </i>(1948) and <i>Enamorada </i>(1946) screened at this year's Nitrate Picture Show were very good, but not necessarily better than the modern 35mm polyester copies of these titles that I had seen some years ago. This is as it should be: I'd rather live in a world where archivists and lab technicians can get very, very close to approximating the look of an original nitrate release print instead of one where everybody is constantly lamenting the unattainable perfection of past glories. It might even be instructive to present side-by-side comparisons in future editions of the Nitrate Picture Show; I suspect that the nitrate converts would retain their convictions, the skeptics would remain on the fence, but everyone would walk away even more engaged. </div>
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Applying lipstick before my blind date with nitrate. He'll be wearing black and white and sporting a very fine grain. <a href="https://twitter.com/nitrateshow">@nitrateshow</a></div>
— SF Silent Film Fest (@sfsilentfilm) <a href="https://twitter.com/sfsilentfilm/status/726852862567915521">May 1, 2016</a></blockquote>
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The Nitrate Picture Show's finale, the "Blind Date with Nitrate," surely silenced any doubters. The title wasn't revealed until the first frame hit the screen—in German, no less. It was a real conceptual holy grail: a silent film, projected from an 88-year-old nitrate print with unannounced piano accompaniment from Philip Carli. The title was Edwin Carewe's <a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/archive/ramona"><span class="s1"><i>Ramona</i> (1928)</span></a>, a film that was presumed lost until only a few years ago and remembered mostly for the staggering volume of sheet music it sold in its day. The Library of Congress restored this film from a <a href="http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/carewe1928hughmunroneely.htm"><span class="s1">repatriated Czech print</span></a> and toured their new 35mm print around in 2014. The restoration left something to be desired, but who could be picky given the obvious limitations of the surviving material? Who could have contemplated that another 35mm print—a German distribution copy seized from the Reichsfilmarchiv by the Soviets as a war trophy in 1945 and deposited at Gosfilmofond—had survived intact? </div>
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To be candid, I was audibly exasperated when <i>Ramona </i>came on screen. I had already seen the film in the LoC print and found it to be lovely but leaden—how could I sit through it again? But seeing <i>Ramona</i> in nitrate proved an altogether different experience. For one thing, the Gosfilmofond nitrate is tinted, while the LoC copy is black and white. The tinting scheme isn't anything complicated—blue for night, red for fire, amber for daytime interiors, etc.—but it carries the weight of authenticity. Most every silent film that we see in 2016 has had its colors reproduced or recreated in some fashion, whether through color internegative, color injection (flashing the negative), modern dye baths, or video tinting. All of these methods are more accurate and pleasing than a straight black-and-white copy, but they rarely capture the subtle, delicate palette that original audiences actually saw. The Gosfilmofond nitrate also looked perhaps a half-stop over-exposed, with no true blacks in sight; in combination with the pastel tints, the print possessed an ethereal quality that presented Carewe's pictorialism at its best advantage. The visual plan that had peeked through intermittently in the Czech print emerged in full force in the Gosfilmofond nitrate. It was simply a new movie—elegant, expertly staged, reverent towards its source material but never stiff. </div>
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Maybe this film <i>is</i> dangerous after all.</div>
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<span class="s1"><b>About the author of this post</b></span><span class="s2"> </span></div>
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<span class="s2"><a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/author/kyle/"><span class="s3">Kyle Westphal</span></a> is a programmer at the <a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/"><span class="s3">Northwest Chicago Film Society</span></a>, which he founded with Becca Hall and Julian Antos in 2011. Under the auspices of NWCFS, he oversaw the photochemical preservation of the independent musical <i>Corn's-A-Poppin'</i>; he is currently working on preserving the avant-garde films of Fred Camper. He is a graduate of the <a href="https://eastman.org/selznickschool/"><span class="s3">L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation</span></a> and was a past recipient of the <a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/about/preservation"><span class="s3">San Francisco Silent Film Festival Fellowship</span></a>. Westphal has also worked at the Pacific Film Archive and the George Eastman Museum.</span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-40077002971198161742016-04-11T15:23:00.000-07:002016-04-11T16:17:06.744-07:00The Sound of Silence<div style="text-align: right;">
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<i>C</i><i>inephile, film archivist, projectionist, and SFSFF g</i><i>uest blogger Kyle Westphal muses on music and silent-era film.</i><br />
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The first silent film that I ever saw was <i><a href="http://www.photoplay.co.uk/film_pages/phant.html" target="_blank">The Phantom of the Opera</a></i>, a common entry point that I experienced in a most uncommon way, when I was fifteen. It was screened from an undistinguished 16mm print, projected in the concrete-coated, makeshift auditorium of the <a href="http://www.calautomuseum.org/" target="_blank">Towe Auto Museum in Sacramento</a>. The audience congregated in bleachers that must have been salvaged from a local middle school gymnasium. The two-hour film included an abrupt intermission after Chaney’s famous unmasking sequence, as if anybody would want another bag of dollar popcorn after that grotesquery.<br />
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In retrospect, I see a plausible synchronicity between the strange venue and the people who would gather to enjoy that seemed something so culturally marginalized as a silent film. This drafty palace of Plymouths attracted a certain type of clientele—mechanically-inclined, nostalgic, and largely male. What better place to see another oily, obsolete machine brought back to life? The ambiance resembled a film collector’s basement screening room, only bigger and with more stanchions.<br />
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What I didn’t recognize at the time was that there was a third antique, too, one which probably attracted more folks to the show than the cars or the film projector: a Wurlitzer theater organ.<br />
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There are many reasons that audiences might attend a silent film screening today: the stars, the sets, the snapshot of society a century ago. But if I had to venture a guess, I’d say that the prospect of live musical accompaniment is the decisive part for most people. It’s a genuinely novel thing: where else can people marvel at the musical stamina and improvisational dexterity of a pianist or small chamber ensemble, without the stuffy scent of the concert hall, the abstract artistry of a jazz performance, the pious severity of the church pew? Silent film accompaniment is a lost art, one that calls upon its practitioners to be performers, musicologists, and dramatic interpreters all at once, as anyone who’s enjoyed the work of <a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/festivalevents/music-musicians/stephen-horne" target="_blank">Stephen Horne</a> or the <a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/festivalevents/music-musicians/the-matti-bye-ensemble" target="_blank">Matti Bye Ensemble</a> at SFSFF would immediately agree.<br />
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When you’re approaching silent film as a novice, you’re likely to hear a defensive refrain from the medium’s partisans: “Don’t worry—you know, silent films were never truly silent.” God forbid a bunch of weirdos get together and sit together in silence for two hours! Musical accompaniment is judged a commercial prerequisite for screening silent films in public or distributing them on home video. Few venues would dare eschew music, though those that do (like Anthology Film Archives or the Cinémathèque française under Henri Langlois) often elevate a decision born of financial necessity to a credo of unflinching aesthetic purity. <br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Zu946mTsRpc/VwgZChqKDvI/AAAAAAAAA50/KjKNdbzwlL8nLJHu1pF47qhtG7VMaF7Jg/s1600/19530834465_c2585bc821_k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Zu946mTsRpc/VwgZChqKDvI/AAAAAAAAA50/KjKNdbzwlL8nLJHu1pF47qhtG7VMaF7Jg/s400/19530834465_c2585bc821_k.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Earplay accompanying <i><a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/archive/avant-garde-paris" target="_blank">Emak-Bakia</a> </i>at SFSFF 2015, photo © Pamela Gentile</td></tr>
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I don’t follow the purity catechism and its vow of absolute silence, but I’m probably more sympathetic to it than most, due largely to my own experiences as a projectionist and archivist. I couldn’t begin to name all the silent films I’ve seen totally mute, and it’s something I’d recommend to any true devotee of the form. Don’t get me wrong: at the best screenings, the musical accompaniment opens up new avenues of understanding and empathy in the film, even if you’ve seen it half a dozen times before. The film hasn’t changed, but suddenly you’ve found a door where once there was only a wall.<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZSWdkSsXyms/VwgipR8dExI/AAAAAAAAA6M/H2_pehnKC8EUEaQdA1LYpwJdvx28JdYHQ/s1600/gish_the_wind.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZSWdkSsXyms/VwgipR8dExI/AAAAAAAAA6M/H2_pehnKC8EUEaQdA1LYpwJdvx28JdYHQ/s400/gish_the_wind.gif" width="400" /></a>That slipperiness—the perpetually unfinished nature of silent cinema—is what makes it mysterious and what makes it dangerous: it’s an affront and a challenge to our regular habits of approaching art. And that’s precisely what sometimes makes me cautious of musical accompaniment for silent films. A lively score can impose a false sense of harmony and shapeliness upon an unruly work, or glide over the bits that don’t quite work. I’ve seen Sjöström’s <i><a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/archive/the-wind-1928" target="_blank">The Wind</a></i> (1928) on three occasions, each time with different accompaniment, and I still marvel how subtle musical choices can either sharply emphasize or quietly suppress the moments of incongruous hick humor that regularly threaten to derail the film’s poetry. And sometimes the interpretative frame is simply transformative, even when it’s coming from a place of hostility. One friend recalls screening a 16mm print of Eisenstein’s <i>October</i> (1927) at his college film society, which had hired a student pianist who hadn’t seen the film prior; as the projection wore on, the pianist realized that he was accompanying “Communist propaganda” and promptly worked in “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and other patriotic chestnuts to allegedly deliciously dialectic effect.<br />
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For people who primarily encounter silent films as paying audience members, music is <i>de rigeur</i>. For professionals who work with silent film on a daily basis, it’s a rare and blessed intervention. Archivists will labor months or years on restoring a silent film without the benefit of music: winding through film elements again and again on the inspection bench, checking continuity on a flatbed viewer, evaluating an answer print in a screening room. The archivist has to guess how the film will play. You glimpse the film in flashes, and have to fill in the rest: the scope, the rhythm, the audience, and most certainly the music. When dealing with a unique print or a nitrate film element, the archivist’s interactions with the film are even more limited; given the inherent risks of screening such irreplaceable material, a preservation project might actually be proposed, funded, and carried out before a living person has actually watched the film!<br />
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Working under these circumstances means that an archivist will almost always have a different kind of relationship with a film than a critic or an audience member. The film itself is more spectral—even when it’s right in front of you, it feels unfixed and fragile, a ghost denied rest. The story becomes more obscure with each pass, especially when you reach twenty viewings or so. I can’t count the number of times I saw snatches from <i>Jazzmania</i> (1923) or <i><a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/archive/huckleberry-finn" target="_blank">Huckleberry Finn</a> </i>(1920) when I was working at the George Eastman Museum—and I also couldn’t tell you a thing about what happened in them.<br />
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You pass through several distinct emotional stages over the course of a long project, not unlike someone facing an adverse medical diagnosis. You move from “I’m so excited about this project” to “Why did we ever pick this film?” and from there onto “This film makes no sense. There must be a reel missing! Why didn’t we realize this before?” Eventually, though, it all comes together and you see the premiere engagement at a festival, where, if you’re lucky, the musical accompaniment reveals the film’s coherence—to your appreciative disbelief.<br />
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Scholars of silent film face comparable problems. For films with high historical importance but limited commercial potential, every research avenue boasts its own special indignity. Maybe you can find a bootleg DVD from the folks at Grapevine, with canned music on a loop. Inappropriate music will almost always detract from a film—and to a greater degree than well-appointed music will elevate it. (Finding yourself uncontrollably humming “Turkey in the Straw” is one of the field’s great occupational hazards.) You could also visit an archive for a research trip—but don’t expect to watch your films in a theater. You’ll be watching them silent on a television or a flatbed film viewer, probably in a research room with a strobing fluorescent light overhead. Just try putting yourself in the shoes of a contemporary viewer under those circumstances.<br />
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But the person who really needs to develop an iron constitution when watching films silently is the projectionist. Even when the exhibitor has hired a musician, you’re stuck behind in the projection booth behind sound-proof glass. You might be tempted to crack open the window to hear a few melodies, but then you’ll be subjecting the audience to projector noise—which is, to be fair, another absolutely distinct rhythm. The audience will always have a more complete experience than you will—even though you’re the one who must be firmly on the film’s wavelength to make the appropriate and sympathetic decisions about projection speed and framing.<br />
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Between classroom screenings, research viewings, and nights spent in the projection booth, I’ve probably seen more silent films without music than with it. It’s definitely a skill—you have to train yourself to follow along and not get too bogged down in the absence of sound. Silent films are truer to themselves when seen without music—not because they were ever intended to be seen in silence, but because any musical accompaniment is ultimately an interpretation, a mediation between us and the film. Music doesn’t falsify a silent film’s essence, but it does bend it, amplifying and imposing a particular way of viewing. To really study a silent film’s editing strategy, you need to see it silent, unless you want to spend time disentangling one tempo from another. Try it sometime at home, maybe with a film recently enjoyed at <a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/" target="_blank">SFSFF</a>; if nothing else, it will provide a renewed appreciation for the musicians—and the projectionist behind that soundproof glass.<br />
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<b>About the author of this post</b><br />
<a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/author/kyle/" target="_blank">Kyle Westphal</a> is a programmer at the <a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/" target="_blank">Northwest Chicago Film Society</a>, which he founded with Becca Hall and Julian Antos in 2011. Under the auspices of NWCFS, he oversaw the photochemical preservation of the independent musical <i>Corn's-A-Poppin'</i>; he is currently working on preserving the avant-garde films of Fred Camper. He is a graduate of the <a href="https://eastman.org/selznickschool/" target="_blank">L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation</a> and was a past recipient of the <a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/about/preservation" target="_blank">San Francisco Silent Film Festival Fellowship</a>. Westphal has also worked at the Pacific Film Archive and the George Eastman Museum.<br />
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2694666495983142669.post-33970945952398822392016-02-02T14:39:00.002-08:002016-02-02T15:31:27.487-08:00An Enlarged History of Magnascope<div class="p1">
<i>We're cross-posting this essay by </i><a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/author/kyle/" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Kyle Westphal</a><i> with the </i><a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/2016/02/02/magnascope/" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Northwest Chicago Film Society</a><i>, which is <a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/2016/01/28/old-ironsides/" target="_blank">showing</a> </i>Old Ironsides <i>on February 3rd, 2016, at Northeastern Illinois University.</i></div>
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<i>Old Ironsides</i>—the 1926 super-production, helmed by one of Paramount's most important directors, James Cruze—isn't much shown these days. It's never been released on DVD or Blu-ray, though it was briefly available on VHS in the late 1980s, when Paramount mined its silent library for a 75th anniversary promotion. If you've come across <i>Old Ironsides</i> at all, it's likely been as a footnote in a film history textbook, duly credited as the film that introduced Magnascope—a widescreen projection process developed by Lorenzo Del Riccio that is itself a footnote in the development of Cinerama and CinemaScope.</div>
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But should we dismiss Magnascope so quickly? Yes, we can draw an evolutionary line between Magnascope and the more durable widescreen processes. We can also readily glimpse the Magnascope concept in today's IMAX presentations. But Magnascope's true legacy is something else, situated between chintzy striving and earnest grandeur, between what filmmakers thought they were making and what projectionists made instead.</div>
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The process itself was relatively simple. For select scenes, the projectionist would use a short focal length 'Magnascope' lens to substantially enlarge the 1.33:1 image, cropping away some portion along the top and bottom of the frame. The Magnascope image would fill the theater's proscenium, using an enlarged screen that was about four times bigger than the regular one. (Even in picture palaces that sat thousands, screens were typically no wider than 20 or 22 feet before Magnascope.) Magnascope had no fixed aspect ratio—a theater would have shown the Magnascope scenes as wide as its proscenium would permit, probably somewhere around 1.63:1 to judge by contemporary sketches. While the projector switched to Magnascope, stagehands would slowly open up the screen masking, which gave the illusion of a gradually enlarging image.</div>
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Magnascope's initial rollout was shaky, though this was retroactively explained away as a deliberate 'soft open.' According to Paramount's Jesse Lasky, the Magnacope process was barely promoted, even though the studio had judged the effect impactful enough to reedit the picture:</div>
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<i>I coined the name 'Magnascope' on the spot </i>[after a demonstration using scenes from <i>Old Ironsides</i>]<i>, and eagerly authorized the necessary expenditure for a big screen in order to project the sea battle in overwhelming magnitude. We recut the picture to make the most of these scenes. Dr. Hugo Reisenfeld, arranger of the musical score and orchestra leader, stepped up the tempo and volume of the music as the picture suddenly grew gigantic before the startled eyes of the first-night audience. There hadn't been time to advertise the big-screen innovation before the premiere, and everyone was so taken by surprise that all stood up and cheered wildly. The </i>New York Times<i> broke precedent the next morning by running its review of the picture on the front page.</i></blockquote>
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Compared to what would come later, Magnascope was not an especially radical departure from contemporary exhibition practices. It did not require accommodating a new film gauge (as Fox's <a href="http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/70mm-feb1930.htm" target="_blank">70mm Grandeur</a> system would) or redesigned perforations and sprockets (the <a href="http://www.flashscan8.us/35mm-fox-print-for-cinemascope-image-specifications-and-history/" target="_blank">"Fox holes"</a> of early CinemaScope). It certainly demanded nothing on the scale of the Cinerama's military-level synchronization. There were no special Magnascope prints taking up shelf space at a film depot, just ordinary 35mm prints transformed into Magnascope spectacle by enterprising showmen. All existing booth equipment and projectors could still be used with Magnascope. The new lens was the main component. Harry Rubin, projection supervisor for Paramount's Publix Theatres Corp. and Magnascope's biggest booster, additionally suggested outfitting Magnascope projectors with a new intermittent and shorter shutter blades to maximize the amount of available light on screen.</div>
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Rubin was conspicuously modest about the format, likely hoping to reassure tight-fisted exhibitors that Magnascope was no great extravagance. Writing up the development in a 1928 issue of The Motion Picture Projectionist, Rubin demurred:</div>
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<i>It should be clearly understood that no claim is made that any new engineering principle is involved or that any radical mechanical advance has been made in the development of the Magnascope. It was, however, a striking and quite ingenious novelty, proved highly successful for entertainment purposes, and it attracted more attention than anything of a similar nature for many years...It involved no great initial expense in its development or any additional cost of operation. Improvements intended to secure similar effects are of course being used now; but with the equipment devised by us, entirely satisfactory results were secured on an economical basis. This is, of course, always desirable in working up novelties or experiments of this nature.</i></blockquote>
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It's easy to diminish the importance of Magnascope, not least because its primary cheerleader affected only a stage whisper. Magnascope was used occasionally, almost lackadaisically, to heighten the basest spectacles. It was not, in today's parlance, a disruptive technology; it was always meant as a supplement to conventional 35mm projection, not a replacement. And because it was used in a limited number of theaters in select markets, it was never the focus of a national advertising campaign. Unlike its widescreen successors, the Magnascope name was never emblazoned on a movie poster or emphasized in a studio pressbook.</div>
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The spotty advertising is, in fact, the major impediment to studying Magnascope. How many officially sanctioned Magnascope releases were there? A handful of Paramount titles from 1926-1927—<i>Old Ironsides</i>, <i><a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/archive/chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness-1928" target="_blank">Chang</a></i>, and <i><a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/archive/wings-1999" target="_blank">Wings</a></i>—are consistently cited as Magnascope films, but the record gets hazier after that. It's generally thought to have petered out after the short-lived vogue for genuine wide-film processes in 1930, and then returned in some fashion in the late 1940s, with <i>Portrait of Jennie</i> and a few other titles. Did the theaters just forget about this equipment and chalk it up to a failed experiment dreamt up in the front office?</div>
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No, and here's where Magnascope gets even more interesting. Although Magnascope began as an exhibition gimmick closely associated with one studio and its affiliated theater chain, the concept ultimately worked more like a loosely-controlled franchise operation. Once a venue acquired Magnascope (or Magnascope-esque) equipment, which was available from a variety of theatrical supply dealers, they had considerable leeway in using it as they saw fit. One boilerplate <a href="http://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/internationalpro12345finn_0019" target="_blank">overview of Magnascope</a> aimed at theater managers, which appeared in several trade publications variously attributed to Harry Rubin or F.H. Richardson, is illuminating:</div>
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<i>With the magnascope screen the manager should carefully select the weekly subjects or portions of his feature for such magnascope use. The opening of magnascope creates the illusion of gradual enlargement and, therefore, magnascope should never begin with a title—with this exception—when the draw curtains are opened on a magnascope screen as at the beginning of a subject. When going from small picture to magnascope an appropriate scene must be chosen which conveys spaciousness and secures the best results.</i></blockquote>
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It appears that Paramount loosened the leash sometime after <i>Wings</i>, according individual exhibitors a strong degree of autonomy in deploying Magnascope at their own aesthetic discretion.</div>
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This is an important corrective to our usual, top-down view of film history, forever striving to respect the intent of the director or the producer or the studio chief. When it comes to Magnascope, there is not a single, correct version of the film: What the original audience saw in Chicago differed from what their contemporaries saw in Atlanta. Magnascope was simply one variable element of the filmgoing experience, alongside the exhibitor's choice of musical accompaniment, projection speed, or the line-up of short subjects. It would be more convenient for us—as viewers, as fans, as scholars—to sanction one version of a given film, but we must also reckon with the fact that many variant experiences were equally valid to the film's original audience.</div>
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The historical record strongly validates this approach. The trade papers are full of anecdotes about individual venues trying some combination of feature film and exhibition gimmick, including Magnascope. The 19 December 1931 edition of the <i><a href="http://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/motionpictureher105unse_1207" target="_blank">Motion Picture Herald</a></i> carried a notice that E.E. Collins, manager of Houston's Metropolitan Theatre, had experimented with a Magnascope presentation of Eddie Cantor's <i>Palmy Days</i> that was</div>
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<i>received so enthusiastically by patrons that the idea was passed along and used by Publix houses in Dallas and San Antonio . . . .</i><br />
<i>In the 'Bend Down Sister' number song by Charlotte Greenwood, the [Magnascope] screen was used with a lavender gelatine tint in a frame in front of the lens, thus tinting the entire screen and giving it added production values. Later in the picture, when Eddie Cantor sang 'There's Nothing Too Good for My Baby,' the magnascope was again used but in addition to the lavender gelatine, a yellow or straw-colored gelatine was used on the F-7. In other words, the picture was shown on a magnascope size with a purple tint from the machine plus a straw tint from the F-7.</i><br />
<i>In line with Collins' statement that the use of the above greatly enhanced entertainment values of certain scenes, we are passing the idea along for others to try out and will be interested to learn if this also meets with successful reception at other theatres</i></blockquote>
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In the June 1932 issue of <i><a href="http://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/internationalpro12345finn_0230" target="_blank">International Projectionist</a></i>, the ever-cranky editorialists complained that "Magnascope (enlarged screen) is old stuff. Yet, this is the one projection 'stunt' that always draws the 'Ohs' and 'Ahs' from any audience." They went on to concede that two Broadway houses had discovered that <i>The Doomed Battalion</i> "is enhanced in entertainment value by about 25 per cent (in our estimation), through clever employment of Magnascope."</div>
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These 'enhancements' continued longer than some might suspect. In 1938, the <i><a href="http://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/motionpictureher130unse_0737" target="_blank">Motion Picture Herald</a></i> reported very positive reaction to a Magnascoped climax of <i>The Hurricane at the Rivoli</i>—and suggested that exhibitors try the same stunt for <i>In Old Chicago</i>'s fiery tumult as well.</div>
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Alas, there's no comprehensive repository of information about Magnascope—no corporate archive, no central ledger. Since Magnascope was very much at the discretion of individual exhibitors, documenting its real history requires us to muck around in the weeds. Anthony L'Abbate, preservation officer at the <a href="https://www.eastman.org/" target="_blank">George Eastman Museum</a>, should be familiar to readers of the Northwest Chicago Film Society's <a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/blog/" target="_blank">blog</a> from his work reconstructing the trajectory of the <a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/2013/09/03/the-true-story-of-tinted-talkies-an-interview-with-anthony-labbate/" target="_blank">tinted talkie</a>. His efforts to trace Magnascope follow the same methodology: searching through digitized newspaper archives to find theater ads touting the process in conjunction with the run of a given film or reviews that mention a specific sequence in a recent release receiving the Magnascope treatment. (In compiling this article, the <a href="http://lantern.mediahist.org/" target="_blank">Lantern</a> search platform has been equally valuable for culling through the many historical trade publications found at the Media History Digital Library.)</div>
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As with tinted talkies, it's difficult to compile a definitive list of Magnascope presentations—the effect was just special enough to receive notice one week and just commonplace enough to be old news the next. Still, L'Abbate's list now exceeds 40 titles, and includes some real surprises: musical numbers in <i>Glorifying the American Girl</i> (1929) were shown in Magnascope at the Paramount Theatre, as were three numbers from <i>The Show of Shows</i> (1929) at the Winter Garden; the caribou hunt in <i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/the-silent-enemy-1930" target="_blank">The Silent Enemy</a></i> (1930) at the Criterion; the entirety of <i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/hells-heroes-1930" target="_blank">Hell's Heroes</a></i> (1930) at the Colony; portions of musical numbers in <i>42nd Street</i> (1933) at the Strand; the titular charge in <i>The Charge of the Light Brigade</i> (1936) at the Paramount in Brooklyn.</div>
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And that's just New York. The battle sequences in <a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/all-quiet-on-the-western-front" target="_blank"><i>All Quiet on the Western Front</i> </a>(1930) received Magnascope treatment in Los Angeles and the red-tinted hell centerpiece of <i>Dante's Inferno</i> (1935) got Magnascoped in Philadelphia. The Mayfair in Asbury Park, New Jersey, experimented with a Disney cartoon, <i>Mickey's Garden</i> (1935), and found audiences so enamored that they announced all future Mickey Mouse cartoons would be shown in Magnascope, too. (Did Disney let them? Did Disney even know?)</div>
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And then, of course, there's the fact that not everyone who used the Magnascope concept credited it under that name. The Eastman Theatre in Rochester, New York, experimented with the same idea nearly two years before the <i>Old Ironsides</i> premiere, with the stampede sequence in <i>North of 36</i> presented on a 30' x 40' screen (a substantial increase over that house's standard 17' x 21' screen) in February 1925. The same theater screened enlarged versions of <i>The Thundering Herd</i> and <i><a href="http://silentfilm.org/archive/the-black-pirate" target="_blank">The Black Pirate</a></i> well before the <i>Old Ironsides</i> premiere.</div>
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The Eastman Theatre's projectionists, Lewis M. Townsend and Wm. W. Hennessy, set down these facts in the <i><a href="http://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/transactionsofso33soci_0357" target="_blank">Transactions of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers</a></i>, but not to settle a score. They outlined a number of other harebrained projection gimmicks they had developed and implored their peers to experiment likewise:</div>
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<i>We fully realize that some of the stunts have been crude and that engineers can probably think of many ways to improve upon them . . . . Motion pictures should be able to stand on their own feet without the addition of spectacular reviews, expensive vaudeville acts and what not—to draw a crowd. When theaters are compelled to resort to this it means there is not enough element of newness and entertainment in the pictures. If the picture is lacking in these things we strive to do something unusual to pep it up, and sometimes we succeed...</i><br />
<i>Let's not get in a rut. There are many good projectionists throughout the country. Give any of them something out of the ordinary to do, then back him up. He will put it over. Many more dollars will be reaped through the box office than will have to be paid him for the extra work or for the expense involved in a little additional equipment.</i></blockquote>
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Good advice—and perhaps even more relevant now, when projectionists are marginalized or considered expendable altogether. The age of Magnascope has only begun.</div>
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<i>The Northwest Chicago Film Society will screen </i>Old Ironsides<i> in 35mm on Wednesday, February 3, 2016. The presentation will include a recreation of the Magnascope process and live organ accompaniment from Jay Warren. Print courtesy of the Library of Congress. More information </i><a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/2016/01/28/old-ironsides/"><span class="s1"><i>here</i></span></a><i>.</i></div>
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Old Ironsides<i> stills courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art / Film Stills Archive. Magnascope images courtesy of the </i><a href="http://mediahistoryproject.org/"><span class="s1"><i>Media History Digital Library</i></span></a><i>.</i></div>
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<b>Further Reading</b></div>
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<ul>
<li>John Belton. <i>Widescreen Cinema</i>. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992. </li>
<li>Kevin Brownlow. <i>The War, the West, and the Wilderness</i>. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979.</li>
<li>Richard Koszarski. <i>An Evening's Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Picture, 1915 – 1928</i>. History of the American Cinema, Vol. 3. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990. </li>
<li>James L. Limbacher. <i>Four Aspects of the Film</i>. New York: Brussel & Brussel, 1968.</li>
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<b>About the author of this post</b><br />
<a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/author/kyle/" target="_blank">Kyle Westphal</a> is a programmer at the <a href="http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/" target="_blank">Northwest Chicago Film Society</a>, which he founded with Becca Hall and Julian Antos in 2011. Under the auspices of NWCFS, he oversaw the photochemical preservation of the independent musical <i>Corn's-A-Poppin'</i>; he is currently working on preserving the avant-garde films of Fred Camper. He is a graduate of the <a href="https://eastman.org/selznickschool/" target="_blank">L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation</a> and was a past recipient of the <a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/about/preservation" target="_blank">San Francisco Silent Film Festival Fellowship</a>. Westphal has also worked at the Pacific Film Archive and the George Eastman Museum.</div>
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