[PDF] Journal of Film Preservation - Free Download PDF (2024)

Download Journal of Film Preservation...

CAMILLE BLOT-WELLENS investigadora colaboradora en la Filmoteca Española (Madrid)

KATE MCLOUGHLIN Manager of Outreach Programs, ScreenSound Australia, audio-visual archivist (Canberra)

PAOLO CHERCHI USAI Senior Curator of the Motion Picture Department of the George Eastman House (Rochester)

KASANDRA O’CONNELL Head of the Irish Film Archive (Dublin)

STEFAN DROESSLER Director of the Filmmuseum Muenchner Stadtmuseum (München)

RUTGER PENNE Editor of the FIAF International FilmArchive Database and the P.I.P. (Brussels)

JORGE MARIO DURÁN Director Departamento de Cine (Bogotá)

GREGORIO ROCHA Writer, producer, director (New York)

RAY EDMONDSON Founder of SEAPAVAA, President of Archve Associates (Kambah)

GAIL RUBENSTEIN Assistant Editor of the FIAF International FilmArchive Database and the P.I.P. (Brussels)

DAVID FRANCIS Honorary Member of FIAF (Fairfax Station, NA, USA) MABLE HO Acquisition Manager of the Hong Kong Film Archive (Hong Kong) YOSHIRO IRIE National Film Center / National Museum of Modern Art (Tokyo)

ERIC LEROY Chercheur, Archives du film et du dépot légal du Centre national de la cinématographique (Bois d’Arcy)

ROGER SMITHER Keeper of the Film and Video Archive at the Imperial War Museum, Vice President of FIAF (London) RITO ALBERTO TORRES Technical Director Fundación Patrimonio Fílmico Colombiano Museo de Arte Moderno (Bogotá) IVÁN TRUJILLO BOLIO Director general de actividades cinematográficas de la UNAM, Presidente de FIAF (México) HILLEL TRYSTER Deputy Director and Researcher at the Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive (Jerusalem)

65 • FIAF 12/2002

SABINE LENK Director at the Film Museum (Duesseldorf)

ENCARNACÍ RUS AGUILAR investigadora colaboradora en la Filmoteca Española (Madrid)

12 / 2002

Revue de la Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film

ROBERTO ESCAMILLA Director de programación y acervo de la Cineteca Nuevo Leon (Monterrey)

Revista de la Federación Internacional de Archivos Fílmicos

JANET MCBAIN Curator at the Scottish Screen Archive (Glasgow)

Published by the International Federation of Film Archives

ANTTI ALANEN Head of Programming at the Finnish Film Archive (Helsinki)

Journal of Film Preservation

Dans ce numéro... In this issue... En este número...

Journal of Film Preservation

December / décembre / diciembre 2002

Get the cleaning power of a deep tank machine with the non-immersion film cleaner,

Prista

Cover: Lola Montes, Max Ophülo (1955)

FIAF Award / Prix FIAF / Premio FIAF The 2002 FIAF Award for Manoel de Oliveira Iván Trujillo

Prista is a fraction of the price of a deep tank machine and uses environmentally friendly Signal Hydronaphtha. Signal Hydronaphtha cleans without leaving a residue and is rated excellent as a cleaning solvent. Polyester, triacetate and nitrate film can be cleaned with confidence.

Reconstructing the German Version of Lola Montes Stefan Droessler Second Century Forum / Forum du Second Siècle / Forum del Segundo Siglo Challenges of Film Archiving in the 21st Century David Francis Historical Column / Chronique historique / Columna histórica La venganza de Pancho Villa. (The Vengeance of Pancho Villa) A lost and found border film. Gregorio C. Rocha

Quelques repères sur la Communauté asiatique dans le cinéma français Eric Leroy

Silent Japanese Films: What Was the Right Speed? Yoshiro Irie

Estudio e identificación de películas de los primeros años del cinematógrafo. La collección Sagarmínaga Encarni Rus, Camille Blot

Recuperación y restauración de nuestra Alma provinciana Rito Alberto Torres, Jorge Mario Durán

In Memoriam Maryann Gomes Janet McBain, Roger Smither

Bologna & Sacile Notes from Il Cinema Ritrovato 2002. Bologna, 29 June – 6 July Antti Alanen

Prista occupies a small footprint of .33 sq. meters/3.5 sq. feet. Readout displays of key mechanical functions are located at eye level.

Prista’s patent pending (RD64) cleaning system gently agitates the film to eliminate dust, lint and grease to produce film as clean, or cleaner, than your deep tank machine. Don’t take our word for it. Contact us and we will forward you independent laboratory test results.

Prista

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, 2002 Hillel Tryster

SLS San Lab Systems Inc.

San Lab Systems Inc. 8430 Aitken Road, Chilliwack, B.C., Canada V2R 3W8 Phone: 604-703-0513 Phone Toll Free North America:1-877-603-2041 Fax: 604-795-6136 E-mail: [emailprotected] www.sanlabsystems.com

Journal of Film Preservation 69

Training / Formation / Formación Rochester Reflections – The 10th FIAF Summer School, and Beyond Ray Edmondson

Journal of Film Preservation Half-yearly / Semi-annuel ISSN 1609-2694 Copyright FIAF 2002

FIAF and Affiliates / FIAF et affiliés / FIAF y afiliados P.I.P. turns 30! - Periodicals Indexing Project (1972-2002) Rutger Penne, Gail Rubenstein

FIAF Officers President / Président Iván Trujillo Bolio Secretary General / Secrétaire général Steven Ricci Treasurer / Trésorier Karl Griep

Canberra: Big Screen: Touring Films to Regional Australia Kate McLoughlin

Dublin: The Irish Film Archive Kasandra O’Connell

Düsseldorf: The Film Museum Sabine Lenk

Hong-Kong: Waves of Generosity Mable Ho

Monterrey: La Cineteca de Nuevo León Roberto Escamilla

Regional Groupings / Groupements régionaux / Agrupaciones regionales SEAPAVAA Steps Out Ray Edmondson Publications Received at the Secretariat / Publications reçues au Secrétariat / Publicaciones recibidas en el Secretariado

100 FIAF Bookshop / Librairie FIAF / Librería FIAF

Comité de rédaction Editorial Board Chief Editor / Rédacteur en chef Robert Daudelin EB Members / Membres CR Mary Lea Bandy Eileen Bowser Paolo Cherchi Usai Christian Dimitriu Susan Oxtoby Steven Ricci Hillel Tryster Corespondents/Correspondants Thomas Christensen Claudia Dillmann Ray Edmondson Michael Friend Silvan Furlan Steven Higgins Juan José Mugni Hisashi Okajima Donata Pesenti Eric Le Roy Editeur / Publisher Christian Dimitriu Editorial Assistant Olivier Jacqmain Graphisme / Design Meredith Spangenberg Imprimeur / Printer Artoos - Brussels Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film - FIAF Rue Defacqz 1 1000 Bruxelles / Brussels Belgique / Belgium Tel: (32-2) 538 30 65 Fax: (32-2) 534 47 74 E-mail: [emailprotected]

The 2002 FIAF Award for Manoel de Oliveira Iván Trujillo

FIAF Award Prix FIAF Premio FIAF Discours prononcé par Iván Trujillo lors de la cérémonie de remise du Prix FIAF 2002 pour la Préservation du Cinéma à Manoel de Oliveira, à l’occasion du 50ème Festival International du Film de San Sebastián le 23 septembre 2002 au Kursaal Theatre. Cher Manoel de Oliveira, Chers organisateurs du Festival du Film de San Sebastián, Mesdames, Messieurs, C’est un grand jour pour la Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film. Pour la deuxième fois, la FIAF remet son Prix de la Préservation du Cinéma à une personne dont la carrière et le dévouement ont soutenu la FIAF dans sa mission et sa raison de vivre : la préservation des images en mouvement. Cette année, il a été décidé à l’unanimité de décerner le prix au réalisateur Manoel de Oliveira. Que dire de plus pour couronner une carrière abondamment louée sinon que Manoel de Oliveira est un trésor vivant qui enrichit sa filmographie année après année. Il est fort probablement le seul réalisateur qui commença sa carrière, avec Douro, faina fluvial en 1932, avant la création de la FIAF, en 1938. Depuis son célèbre Aniki Bóbó, en 1941, jusqu’au magnifique O princípio da incerteza (2002), l’œuvre de Oliveira est devenue une référence aussi bien pour les pionniers que pour les futures générations d’archivistes du film.

Message delivered by Iván Trujillo at the ceremony of the Presentation of the 2002 FIAF Film Preservation Award to Manoel de Oliveira, on the occasion of the 50th San Sebastian International Film Festival on September 23, 2002, at the Kursaal Theatre. Dear Manoel de Oliveira, Dear organizers of the San Sebastián Film Festival, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a very special day for the International Federation of Film Archive. For the second time, FIAF is presenting its Film Preservation Award to a personality whose career and participation have contributed to support FIAF’s mission and reason to live: the preservation of moving images. This year, it was unanimously decided to present the award to the film director Manoel de Oliveira. Not much can be added to crown a career thoroughly praised but to say that, for many people, Manoel de Oliveira is a living treasure who enriches his filmography year after year. He is probably the only active director who started his career before the creation of FIAF, in 1938, with Douro, faina fluvial, in 1932. From his famous Aniki Bóbó, in 1941, until his marvellous O princípio da incerteza (2002), the work of Oliveira has become a reference for the pioneers and the coming generations of film preservation workers. Manoel de Oliveira’s encouragement to our cause has been significant, with highlights of the supports he has always given to our colleagues of the Cinemateca Portuguesa, with whom he has actually collaborated in view of the preservation of his own films. All the FIAF Affiliates remember his wonderful appearance at our 1999 Congress in Madrid, masterfully organised by the Filmoteca Española. FIAF is dealing with preservation of all sort of stories told with moving images. Its 130 affiliates spread over the 5 continents, preserve around three million titles of audiovisual works. Some of these, as the films of Manoel de Oliveira, are seen as samples of real pieces of art and highest demonstrations of human creativity. Without exception, all are historical documents that provide priceless information on a given moment. When the Award was created, it was decided that its presentation would be accompanied by the screening of a relevant film, restored by one of the FIAF Affiliates. Within a few minutes, we will see, for the first time in an international event, a copy of the restored version of Max Ophuls’ Lola Montes. This film was successfully restored by our colleagues from the Filmmuseum im Muenchner Stadtmuseum. I take this opportunity to thank Stefan Droessler for the completion of this project.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

L’énorme soutien de Manoel de Oliveira à notre cause se reflète dans l’aide qu’il a toujours donnée à nos collègues de la Cinemateca Portuguesa, avec laquelle il a collaboré pour la préservation de ses propres films. Tous les Affiliés de la FIAF se souviendront de sa formidable apparition lors de notre Congrès 1999 à Madrid, organisé de main de maître par la Filmoteca Española. La FIAF s’occupe de la préservation de toutes les histoires racontées avec des images en mouvement. Ses 130 affiliés préservent près de 3 millions de titres d’ouvrages audiovisuels à travers les 5 continents. Certains de ces ouvrages, comme les films de Manoel de Oliveira, sont considérés comme de véritables œuvres d’art, témoins de l’extraordinaire créativité de l’homme. Ce sont, sans exception, tous des documents historiques d’une inestimable valeur informative. Lorsque ce prix a été créé, il a été décidé que sa remise serait accompagnée de la projection d’un film restauré par un Affilié de la FIAF. Dans quelques minutes, vous allez voir, pour la première fois lors d’un événement international, une copie restaurée de Lola Montes de Max Ophuls. Ce film a été restauré par nos collègues du Filmmuseum im Muenchner Stadtmuseum. Je profite de l’occasion pour remercier Stefan Droessler pour le travail qu’il a accompli. Nous avions aussi pensé que la remise de ce prix n’aurait pas la répercussion qu’elle méritait si elle n’était pas organisée lors d’un important événement culturel. Nous n’aurions pas pu trouvé une meilleure occasion que le 50ème anniversaire du Festival du Film de San Sebastíán. Je remercie Mikel Olaciregui et José María Prado sans qui cette soirée n’aurait pu avoir lieu. Je voudrais aussi remercier nos collègues de la Cinemateca Portuguesa, et tout particulièrement son président, João Bénard Da Costa, qui a convaincu Don Manoel d’être parmi nous ce soir. João Bénard a récemment publie un article dans lequel il prédit, vu la situation critique de plusieurs pays et de l’industrie audiovisuelle, la fin des archives du film. Je réponds à cet article que, tant que

We had also thought that, if we wanted this presentation to have the repercussion it deserved, we needed to organise it in the framework of a significant cultural event. We probably couldn’t have found a better scene than the 50th anniversary of the San Sebastian Film Festival. I want to particularly thank Mikel Olaciregui and Jose María Prado who made this event possible. I also want to thank our colleagues of the Cinemateca Portuguesa, especially their president João Bénard Da Costa, for convincing Don Manoel to be with us tonight. João Bénard has recently Manoel de Oliveira in San Sebastián, 23.09.2002 published an article in which he alerts that, considering the crisis faced by several countries and by the audiovisual industry, the time of film archives might be coming up. This article led many people like me to tell our friend João Bénard that, as long as there will be audiovisual works and supports like those of Manoel de Oliveira, film archives will not pass away. As it is said in a Mexican film: we may bend but will not break. These are some of the reasons for which I am very proud to present the 2002 FIAF Preservation Award to Manoel de Oliveira today.

Discurso del Presidente de FIAF con motivo de la entrega del premio FIAF a Manoel de Oliveira Señor Manoel de Oliveira, Amigos organizadores del festival de San Sebastián, Señores y Señoras, Para la Federación internacional de archivos fílmicos esta es una fecha muy especial. Por segunda ocasión la FIAF hace entrega de su premio a la preservación fílmica, reconocimiento que se otorga a una personalidad externa a nuestra organización, cuya trayectoria y participación han contribuido a apoyar la misión y razón de existir de la FIAF, la preservación de las imágenes en movimiento. Esta vez, la distinción ha sido otorgada por unanimidad al cineasta Manuel de Oliveira. De su trayectoria poco podemos agregar a la multitud de elogios que ha recibido. Baste decir que para muchos, Oliveira es un verdadero tesoro viviente que, para beneplácito de todos, año con año incrementa su filmografía. Quizás sea el único cineasta en actividad que inició su carrera antes de la fundación de la FIAF, que tuvo lugar en 1938, con . Douro, faina fluvial, en 1932. Desde su celebre Aniki Bobó (1941) a la fecha, con O princípio da incerteza (2002), la obra de Oliveira ha

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

l’on produira des œuvres audiovisuelles et que l’on pourra compter sur le soutien de personnalité comme Manoel de Oliveira, les archives du film ne disparaîtront pas. Comme il a été dit dans un film mexicain : “il est possible que nous pliions, mais nous ne casserons pas.” Voilà quelques-unes des raisons pour lesquelles je suis très fier de remettre le Prix FIAF de la Préservation à Manoel de Oliveira aujourd’hui.

sido una referencia obligada, para los precursores y generaciones subsecuentes de la preservación fílmica. El apoyo de oliveira a nuestra causa ha sido muy amplio pero en particular es de destacar el apoyo que ha brindado en todo momento a nuestros colegas de la cinemateca portuguesa, con ellos incluso ha colaborado en la restauración de sus propios filmes. Todos en la fiaf recordamos su brillante participación nuestro congreso de 1999 en Madrid, que magníficamente organizó la filmoteca española. La FIAF se ha preocupado por preservar todo tipo de historias contadas con imágenes en movimiento, en conjunto entre los 130 afiliados a la FIAF, distribuidos en los cinco continentes, conservamos alrededor de 3 millones de títulos de obras audiovisuales. Algunas de ellas, como las de Oliveira, pueden ser consideradas verdaderas obras de arte y ejemplos de la manifestación mas alta de la creatividad humana. Todas sin excepción, son documentos históricos de los que podemos obtener valiosa información de un momento determinado. Al diseñar el premio a la preservación fílmica de la FIAF, nos propusimos que su entrega se hiciese junto con la proyección de una película relevante, restaurada por alguno de nuestros miembros, en unos instantes más veremos, por primera vez en un foro internacional, la copia de la versión restaurada de Lola montes de Max Ophuls, elaborada por nuestros colegas del Frankfurt y agradezco a su director Stefan Droessler su colaboración para que así sea. También consideramos que si queríamos que la entrega de este premio tuviese la repercusión que merece era necesario hacerlo como parte de una importante manifestación cultural. Sin duda en esta ocasión, no podríamos tener mejor marco que el 50° aniversario del Festival de San Sebastián. Agradezco a Mikel Olaciregui y a Chema Prado el poder hacerlo posible.

Iván Trujillo, João Bénard da Costa and Manoel de Oliveira during the prizegiving ceremony in San Sebastián

También agradezco a nuestros colegas de Cinemateca portuguesa, en especial a su presidente Joao Bénard da Costa, su apoyo para lograr en esta ocasión la presencia de don Manuel. Precisamente Joao Bénard escribió no hace mucho un artículo en el que, ante las diversas crisis que azotan a países y a la industria audiovisual, nos alertaba de que posiblemente en estos momentos estamos viviendo la agonía de las cinematecas. Ese artículo ha servido de motivación para muchos como yo que queremos contestarle a nuestro amigo Joao Bénard, que mientras existan obras audiovisuales y apoyos como los de Manoel de Oliveira, las cinematecas no morirán. Y si me permiten sacar una frase de una película mexicana les diría “quizás nos doblemos pero no quebramos.” Es por ello y por todo lo anterior que me es muy grato hacer entrega del Premio a la preservación fílmica de la FIAF 2002 a Manoel de Oliveira.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Reconstructing the German Version of Lola Montes Stefan Droessler

FIAF Award Prix FIAF Premio FIAF

When Max Ophüls’ Lola Montes premiered in Paris on December 22,1955, it had to meet expectations: a lot had been heard about the most expensive European super-production, shot in French, German and English versions, in Eastmancolor and in CinemaScope with fourchannel magnetic sound. The prestigious international cast was headed by Martine Carol, whose name since Caroline chérie (1950), Lucrèce Borgia (1953), Madame du Barry (1954) and Nana (1955) promised another frivolous and piquant period movie. But Ophüls’ movie, set against the background of a big circus show in which Lola Montes exposes herself while remembering in flashbacks various episodes of her life, received furious reactions by the audience and reserved reviews by the critics - the beginning of a financial disaster which was survived by neither the production or distribution companies or the director or the film itself. In vain, Ophüls fought against the mutilation of his work; he couldn’t prevent the reediting of the three original negatives and thus, the destruction of his film.

The framing story: Lola in the circus like a puppet in the show business

Only after 1968, when producer Pierre Braunberger purchased the rights of Lola Montes from a bankrupt estate and duped an old distribution print was a restored French version of 110 minutes length available and distributed all over the world. But rumour had it that a German version print from the Munich Filmmuseum had the advantages of four-channel magnetic sound and a wider CinemaScope gauge over the Braunberger print, whose structure it shared, plus 3 more minutes in length (yet without any additional scenes: some shots are longer in the German version). Attempts to preserve this print were confronted with an insoluble problem: The Eastman Colour print from the fifties showed strong signs of colour fading, in some parts only the magenta had survived. It

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Stefan Droessler raconte l’histoire de la sortie de Lola Montes de Max Ophuls et décrit les récents efforts déployés au niveau de la restauration pour se rapprocher le plus possible de la version allemande originale. Il compare les copies des différentes versions de ce film dans les trois langues de diffusion originale. Il étudie les différences au niveau des instruments de lecture sonore qui ont affecté les proportions de l’image, fait état de ses recherches sur Ophuls, et plus particulièrement sur sa manière de traiter les couleurs et sur l’utilisation de plusieurs pistes pour l’enregistrement sonore. Un tableau montre quelle langue était utilisée pour quelle séquence dans les versions originales allemande et française. L’auteur détaille également la manière dont les proportions de l’image ont été tronquées par les systèmes sonores dans les versions imprimées après 1957. On y décrit les coupures faites à un grand nombre de séquences, même si les raisons et le degré de responsabilité de Ophuls dans ces changements ne sont pas toujours clairs. Stefan Droessler fait une description des copies les plus sûres, trouvées dans les archives de Munich, de Luxembourg et de Bruxelles, qui furent utilisées pour la restauration de ce film, copies qui étaient généralement soit incomplète, soit de mauvaise qualité. On s’est basé sur le négatif original allemand pour cette restauration et on a fait appel aux copies anglaises et françaises en cas de besoin. La restauration a été entreprise sur HDTV. Cet outil digital a permis de pallier les écarts de qualité des différentes sources utilisées et de se rapprocher le plus possible de l’intention originale de Max Ophuls.

was impossible to recreate the original colour, neither with traditional means nor digital techniques. Yet, the question remained, how one single print could possibly show colour fading in so many different states. A close examination led to an astonishing conclusion: the magenta passages were clips that had been spliced into the print before the magnetic sound stripe was put onto it. The Munich Lola Montes print had been reedited before it was even released - strangely enough, for cuts normally are executed in the negative and not in the positives. What had happened to Lola Montes ? Language versions and distribution versions The premières of the German version of Lola Montes on January 12, 1956 in Munich and on January 13, 1956 in Hamburg, took place three weeks after the disappointing French première in Paris. In France a new distribution cut was in preparation: four sequences were shortened, the soundtrack was newly mixed down and all parts in foreign languages were re-dubbed in French. The decision to reedit the German version too, was already taken, even before its own première, at which the print was declared to be an “international” one, the “new” German distribution version still being in preparation. Four weeks later, on February 9, 1956, this new German version premiered in Berlin and followed the changes of the re-dubbed French version (released in France on January 20, 1956): the multilingual parts had been replaced by German dubbing, the sound had been remixed and the same four sequences cut. For financial reasons, the prints struck for the première were reedited: the shortened sequences were cut directly out of the positives and the originally subtitled multilingual passages were substituted by newly struck material of the same passages. The poorer colour quality of these film clips, whose colour didn’t harmonise with the rest of the film, was noticed at that time already - obviously they had been produced without great care, and their colour is not as stable as for rest of the film. Both known prints, the French one by Braunberger and the Munich print, are prints of the reedited and re-dubbed second and not of the première versions. The English language print was never granted a première in a version matching the intentions of Max Ophüls. On the contrary, Ophüls reported that in 1956, at the occasion of a French Film Festival in London, he was able to prevent the release of an English edition, made behind his back, which was cut down to 90 minutes, told Lola’s story chronologically with a new voice-over commentary by herself and reduced the circus story which forms the framework of the entire film, to the last episode of her life story. When a new French version, cut in the same chronological manner, was released in Paris on February 22, 1957, Max Ophüls has already been in a Hamburg hospital for seven weeks, the hospital in which he was to die four weeks later. The chronological English version wasn’t released until November 22, 1957, under the title of The Fall of Lola Montes in London. And two years later, this version, now reduced to 75 minutes and distributed as an exploitation film, was released in the US as The Sins of Lola Montes unsurprisingly without any success.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

French version Lola Montes

German version Lola Montez

23.12.1955 12.1.1956 première version

3.117m, 114 minutes subtitled passages, 4 channel magnetic track prints

3.158 m, 116 minutes subtitled passages, 4 channel magnetic track prints

February 1956 re-dubbed version

3.009 m, 110 minutes four sequences cut, subtitled passages substituted and re-dubbed, partly new sound mix, 4 channel magnetic track prints (modified prints of the premiere edition and new prints) and mono optical track prints

3.093 m, 113 minutes four sequences cut, subtitled passages substituted and re-dubbed, partly new sound mix, 4 channel magnetic track prints (modified prints of the premiere edition and new prints) and mono optical track prints

1957 Caraco version

2.510m, 91 minutes chronological order of the episodes with voice-over commentary, circus sequences shortened and dissolves cut, mono optical track prints

2.795 m, 102 minutes chronological order of the episodes with voice-over commentary, circus sequences shortened and dissolves cut, mono optical track prints

1959 American version

English version The Fall of Lola Montez

2.468 m, 90 minutes, chronological order of the episodes with voice-over commentary, circus sequences shortened and dissolves cut, 4 channel magnetic track prints 2.080 m, 75 min, chronological order of the episodes with voice-over commentary, happy end of a success story, mono optical track prints, American title: The Sins of Lola Montes

The premiere versions “The audience expects a cream gateau and instead gets a punch in the belly,” Max Ophüls wrote in his diary after the Paris première. The hostility he was confronted with may have surprised him, but he shouldn’t have been unprepared, having described in several articles the “stream of imagination” and calling for a rejection of conventions and for a conscious transgression of technical limits. Lola Montes brought Ophüls face to face with several technical innovations and after some hesitation he saw them as a challenge to his creativity: To

Ophüls reduces the CinemaScope picture to create the effect of a close up.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

reproduce the effect of a close up in the wide scope gauge, he partly reduced the aperture of the wide frame for more intimate scenes. The use of colour isn’t realistic but follows a concept, which assigns every episode to a season whose colours then dominate its costumes, buildings, the scenery and the lightning. The image’s composition gains in depth of field by means of apparently minor objects coming to the fore during long travelling shots, like in the backstage scene this rope, which hangs from the ceiling and swings for several minutes in front of Adolf Wohlbrück’s face, or this stovepipe which covers Martine Carol’s face in the coach during the flight from Bavaria. Ophüls avoided all the stereophonic effects the new four-channel magnetic sound could have made possible, by only using the un-separated three front channels and doing without the effect channel. And finally, some scenes’ exposure is so dark that the faces of the actors as well as the costly set aren’t recognisable anymore. All this remained in the known prints, or at least could be suspected. What we know little about is the original sound mix, for this is what has been modified most in the reedited versions.

The direct view to the actresses is blocked to create a feeling of space

The curtain in the foreground covers the faces of Martine Carol and Adolf Wohlbrück.

The soundscape Most reviews of the German première refer to the sound of Lola Montes, probably with regard to the fact that it was one of the first German films with four-channel magnetic sound, and that a remix of the soundtrack had already been announced for the ulterior German release version. The judgements vary from “technical amateurism” to

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Stefan Droessler cuenta la historia del estreno de Lola Montes de Max Ophuls y describe los esfuerzos de restauración recientes tendientes a reconstituir la obra lo más cerca posible de la versión original alemana. Compara las copias de las tres versiones de difusión originales, y estudia las influencias a nivel de las pistas de sonorización que han influenciado las proporciones de la imagen. También enumera los estudios de Ophuls, en particular sobre su manera de tratar a los colores y la utilización de varias pistas sonoras. Un cuadro sinóptico muestra qué idioma se utilizó para las secuencias de las versiones originales alemana y francesa. El autor también detalla cómo han sido modificadas las proporciones de la imagen a raíz del sistema de sonorización utilizado después de 1957, y se analizan los cortes de numerosas secuencias, aunque no quede clara la responsabilidad de Ophuls en dichos cambios. Seguidamente, el autor describe las copias utilizadas para la restauración de la película, provenientes de los archivos de Munich, Luxemburgo y Bruselas. Se tomó como base para la reconstrucción el negativo original alemán, recurriéndose a las copias inglesas y francesas en casos de necesidad. La restauración fue realizada en HDTV. Esta tecnología permitió reducir las diferencias de calidad entre las diferentes fuentes, y de aproximarse a la idea original de Max Ophuls.

“interesting experiment” representing an unreasonable demand on the general public. What irritated most was that parts of the sound were hard to understand - which contradicted the promises of the advertisements for the magnetic stereo sound. A short note in the February 1956 issue of Cahiers du Cinéma is the best source regarding the multilinguality of the German première version. Its author had seen the German première Lola Montes in Munich and was impressed by its differences from the French première version, calling the German version the “original” one, since no actor was dubbed. He points out that the German actors (playing Liszt, the young student and king Ludwig) spoke German whereas the French actors (like Lola’s mother) spoke French and were subtitled. He was particularly impressed by Martine Carol’s achievements, who spoke both French and German (with a charming French accent). Additionally consulting the film scripts and analyzing the sound track of the reedited version which wasn’t done properly at all, the repartition of the languages can be inferred.

sequence

German premiere version language

French premiere version language

credits circus ring Lola and Liszt in the coach arrival at the inn arrival of Maurice Lola and Liszt at the inn Departure circus ring Lola's dressing-room Lola on the ship Lola and steward Dormitory dining ball, Lola on deck Lola at the opera box at the opera Lola leaves the opera Lola's dressing-room circus ring Lola in Scotland Lola and sister/servant of James circus ring Lola dancing at the Tivoli circus ring Lola in the hotel at the Riviera the equerry visits Lola circus ring Lola meets the student Lola arrives at the Bavarian inn parade at the English Garden Lola visits the king needle and thread king and queen at the theatre Lola's dressing-room at the theatre Lola and the king backstage outside the theatre

German German German/French Italian, subtitled French German German/French German German/French French/English, subtitled German/French French/English French, subtitled French, subtitled French/German French, subtitled German/French German English/French, subtitled German/French German French, subtitled German French/German German German French/German German/French German German/French German German French/German German German

French French French Italian French French French French French French/English French French/English French French French French French French English/French French French French French French French French French French/German French French German, subtitled German, subtitled French French German, subtitled

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

sequence the academy of arts the painter's studio circus ring Lola's palace Prof. Jeppner Lola's palace subtitled Lola meets the student preparing the coach for the flight subtitled the journey of the coach Lola and the student in the coach circus ring Lola in the cage credits

German premiere version language

French premiere version language

German German/French German German German German/French

French/German French/German French French French French/German,

German German/French

French French/German,

German German/French German/English German German

German French French/English French French

In comparison to the sound track of the French première version, which luckily reappeared (see below), the German version plays far more significantly with mulitilinguality. In this version, the main character, Lola Montes, frequently switches from German to French when with her German partners, sometimes even within a single phrase - Ophüls, in a note, called this language “Kauderwelsch” (hotchpotch). Subtitles being used sparsely, large parts of the dialogue remain mysterious for those unfamiliar with foreign languages. Yet this is what Ophüls wanted in general: to let the spectator understand only what is really important, language being for him an acoustic element of the soundscape, conveying atmosphere rather than content. Ophüls wrote: “The height of acting is achieved when the word itself has lost its importance. (...) I think, the inner feelings words convey, may sometimes be stronger, sometimes weaker than the words. Sometimes they’re in contradiction to them, the dialogue may drag along after the feeling. I think, the experience begins a long time before the word and ends a long time after it.” Thus, in the German première version there are quite a number of barely comprehensible sequences, in which characters mumble and mutter and in which noise covers up the dialogue, just like those objects that come to the fore of the frame composition and cover up the people. Ophüls’ special sound concept has been destroyed in the reedited version. The dubbing eliminates the multilinguality and the sound remix consequently pushes dialogue into the fore, and music and sound into the background - a dubbing custom that was quite common in Germany at the time, depriving many foreign film classics of their specific soundscape. And since, for the dubbing of Lola Montes, the actors weren’t available anymore, one even accepted that many characters, like Lola, the student, King Ludwig or Maurice, speak with two different voices: with their own when speaking German in the original version, with a borrowed one in the dubbed sequences. Sometimes the voices even switch within a single sentence. The aspect ratio The original four-channel magnetic sound goes together with an

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

aspect ratio characteristic of CinemaScope prints up to the end of the 50s: 1:2.55. Today’s common scope ratio is more narrow (1:2.35), and all Lola Montes prints struck after 1957 show this narrow aspect ratio, which has cut the frame at the left side to have room for an optical sound track. To illustrate this problem, some technical notes: CinemaScope wants to make a picture with double width out of a normal 35mm film by means of an anamorphic lens, squeezing the picture while filming and printing in the ratio of 1 to 2, and unsqueezing it in projection - technically a simple process, yet having to contend with problems of blurring. The definition of a picture twice as big as the 35mm frame it’s taken from is rather bad. Hence the industry’s efforts to use the entire picture (with its side ratio of 1:1.33), as in silent film. In unsqueezing projection, this picture has a side ratio of 1:2.66, the 4 channel magnetic sound being played independently from a band player. Yet, during the production of 20th Century Fox’s The Robe (1953), the first scope film, a special process was already invented, to bring four magnetic sound stripes directly onto the picture: the sprocket holes were reduced and the sound stripes brought on on both sides of the left holes. The side aspect ratio of such a picture, which is only minimally reduced on its left side, is 1:2.75, which makes 1:2.55 in unsqueezing projection. Those magnetic sound prints needed special projectors and sound systems that only bigger first-run theatres could afford. Smaller cinemas required optical sound prints, in which the picture frame was reduced on the left by about 10%, thus creating an aspect ratio of 1:2.35. The smaller scope ratio caught on because it is best adaptable to other gauges, and even more so since multi-channel sound became possible with Dolby Stereo optical sound. If nowadays new prints are made from old Scope films, their left side is cut just as easily, as one did for decades with silents when printing them in the sound film gauge. With many films, this does not show all that much, but with Lola Montes, a film which uses the scope frame to its full extent, information is cut and the symmetry of the pictures composition is ruined. [SCHEDULE 3] [PHOTO MAG] [FRAME2,55] FILM FRAME FOR 1:2,55 PROJECTION the full aperture 1:1,33 frame is slightly cropped on the left side the perforation holes are smaller than usual to have space for the 4 channel magnetic sound tracks (all 4 channel magnetic track films of the fifties have this format) [PHOTO OPT] [FRAME2,35] FILM FRAME FOR 1:2,35 PROJECTION the silent 1:1,33 frame is heavily cropped on the left side to have space for the optical sound (all optical cinemascope prints have this format)

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

The cut sequences One cannot but speculate about the reason for the cuts from the première versions. The first one, right at the beginning, in the Liszt episode, is particularly regrettable, since it deletes an argument between Lola and Liszt which substantiates their later disagreement. According to costume designer Georges Annenkov this scene had a high importance to Ophüls for Liszt’s characterisation.

cut: Lola and Liszt in the coach

The next cut has been made in the scene on the ship, when young Lola is sent to bed by her mother who wishes to dance with lieutenant James. First, we see Lola returning to the dormitory, then going back on deck, watching her mother dance with James through the window, upon which, crossing other strolling passengers, she walks to the ship’s bow. The uncut sequence has a completely different sound mix than the shortened version. One hears the whistle of the wind, fragments of the mother’s conversation with James as well as of those of the other passengers.

cut: sent to bed by her mother, Lola returns to the dormitory and meets the little girl

The next cut occurs in Lola’s flight from Bavaria: Exterior shots of the coach riding through the night have been cut to tighten up the scene. Anyhow, Pierre Braunberger already noticed that one take (“twelve meters of film”) was missing in his negative and that he was unable to find it.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

cut: the coach, fleeing from Bavaria

The last cut concerns the famous last take with Lola in a kind of cage, with the camera pulling slowly back through the crowd of people pressing to Lola’s cage, until a curtain is drawn and the film ended. In the reedited versions, this long travelling shot is shortened, in the French version by means of a clever dissolve in the travelling, in the German version by means of a harsh cut leading to a jump cut in the travelling shot. The differences in sound are even more important: in the original sound mix, until the very last, the voices of the equerry and the page boys, who collect the money, are audible. The last words one hears are “one dollar”, then the curtain is closed and silence is set for a short time, before the end titles and the music begin. In the reedited versions the music covers up the voices in the travelling shot and leads straight to the end titles. This ending is far less sobering and much more harmonising than the original one. shortened: the last travelling starting with the opening curtain in front of Lola in the cage and ending with the curtain which closes the movie

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

We cannot settle the question how and why the cuts have been made and if Max Ophüls co-operated. Yet, one may guess the enormous pressure under which he stood after the disappointing premières of Lola Montes, since he must have been aware of how difficult it would be ever to make a new film after such an economic failure. On the occasion of the Berlin première of the reedited German version he intimated in interviews that he consented to it “with a heavy heart”. The reconstruction Only two prints of the original German première version were released, one in Munich, which ran until the première of the reedited German version, and one in Hamburg, which was taken out of circuit after two weeks. There is little likelihood that one of these two prints may have

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

survived - until now no trace has shown up in any archive. The most complete remaining material of the German version is the magnetic sound print of the reedited version the Munich Filmmuseum possesses. Since the colour faded film clips spliced into it later originally had been in foreign language, the idea occurred to replace these sequences with the corresponding sequences from the French reedited version and thus to restore the multilinguality of the film. Yet, one must bear in mind that this will lead to a new version, a construct combining material from two differently shot language versions which represents but an approximation of the original. In the course of the search for the best French material, two prints showed up which surprisingly enough correspond to the French première version. The Cinématèque Municipale de Luxembourg possesses a silent workprint in which some takes have been replaced with black leader, but which includes all the cut sequences and moreover, is of good picture quality, for, thanks to its silence, it’s never been run. But the major surprise came from a somewhat worn Belgian distribution print from the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, corresponding not only in picture to the French première version, but has also the original four-channel magnetic sound. The only limitations consist of the bad colour preservation and in the Flemish subtitles stamped into the picture. On the soundtrack but one word had been erased: Lola’s answer to the governess’ question in the ship’s dormitory, how old she is. Commentaries from the Paris première report, that the public laughed at Lola’s answer “Sixteen”, not buying it from 33 year old Martine Carol. The best picture quality can be found in the original negatives. The German negative as well as the French negative have survived, the first one (without reel 2b which is lost) preserved by Bundesarchiv/Filmarchiv, the second one at G.T.C. in Paris. Unfortunately both negatives have been cut down to the short reedited chronological version. But whereas in the French negative each second shot is shortened, the German negative keeps all the remaining shots in their original length so that they could be used for the reconstruction. The montage of the new, restored version is highly complex, since it adheres as often as possible to the German original negative, but also has to fall back upon the Munich print for missing parts, and for foreign parts mainly upon the Luxembourg workprint and only sometimes upon the French original negative. In order to harmonise these different materials and to avoid a loss in picture quality by duplication, the reconstruction was made digitally on HDTV. For the sound reconstruction the magnetic track of the Munich print had to be interwoven artistically with the one of the Belgian print. The sound mix of the French première served as a model to correct the modifications of the reedited German sound mix. Yet, these corrections could only be carried out in a limited way, since Ophüls did not separate the sound to the four channels and since no music, noise and dialogue tracks have survived. Thus, the restoration of bilingual sequences by a combination of the two existing sound tracks could be carried out only in scenes where music and background noise were identical. This turned out well at Lola’s meeting with the student, and at her audience at the King’s. At

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Lola’s drive in Liszt’s coach the language switch could only be recreated in larger sections and at her flight from Bavaria, only the re-dubbed version could be used for her dialogue with the student. To compound matters in the combination of the two different soundtracks, the German sound naturally fitted only the German, and the French only the French picture. Every step in the editing of the new, restored version had to reconsider the different language and distribution versions, sound and picture synchronisations, the existing material as well as the technical possibilities, opting sometimes for solutions which were technically highly complicated. Ophüls described in a number of interviews and articles how the colouring of each flashback should be assigned to a season with its dominant colours: The Liszt-episode in Italy should be dominated by the autumnal colours gold, ochre, red and orange, the Bavarian episode by wintry pastels of white, ivory, light blue, silver and pale gold. Ophüls wanted the circus ring to be in violent colours, like a show booth’s announcement, while the public in the circles should be sitting colourless in the dark. In contrast to the existing prints of the ‘50s, all showing major or minor signs of fading, which neutralises the exceptional colour dramaturgy, the original negatives - apart from some imbalances - conserve the original colouring and could serve as a model for the restoration. Yet, it gave prominence to an aspect which had gone unnoticed. As beautiful and enthralling as the picture quality of the new, restored version might be, Ophüls would not always have liked it. Lola Montes’ colour timer Jean Guillou told in an interview that Ophüls had scenes copied so dark that faces and decorations became hardly recognisable. Apparently, Ophüls in some scenes definitely wanted to avoid perfectly lit pictures, since they betrayed studio lighting.

The dark grading prevents the audience from recognising the white sheets on the roofs which simulate the snow

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Thus, the work on Lola Montes is not ended with the reconstruction of the German première version devised by the Munich Filmmuseum in collaboration with the Cinémathèque Municpale de Luxembourg, and with the technical restoration, executed by TaurusMediaTechnik, but with the transfer of the digital HDTV tape back to a 35mm negative and the grading of a positive print transferring the entire, wide CinemaScope frame ratio in the new optical track scope frame. In an anecdote, Ophüls described the difficulties he had in preserving his artistic vision in spite of conventional conceptions: “Several weeks ago, I went to a laboratory. There, they had come up with some very clean prints, with the help of chemical preparations, of some sonorous passages in my film that I had wanted to be very confused. I didn’t want to allow it. The gentleman who had directed this operation declared to me: ‘The policy of our laboratories is this: people must always understand what one is saying.’ I tried to explain to him what it was all about. He cut me off with: ‘You must consider, Mister Ophuls, that you are working in an entertainment industry.’ I answered: ‘That’s true. That’s why I try to do what gives me pleasure.’ The reconstructed German première version of Lola Montes, in its original length, in its proper aspect ratio, with corrected colours and with multilingual multi-channel soundtrack, displays Max Ophüls’ whole artistic concept which nowadays won’t cause a scandal anymore, but which might give the audience the same pleasure Ophüls had in making the movie. Translated by Andrea Kirchhartz

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Challenges of Film Archiving in the 21st Century David Francis

Second Century Forum Forum du Second Siècle Forum del Segundo Siglo This text includes the paper delivered by David Francis at the ocassion of the Second Century Forum debate organized at the 57th FIAF Congress held in Seoul in April 2002.

Ce texte a été présenté par David Francis lors du débat sur le Deuxième Siècle du cinéma, organisé lors du 57ème Congrès de la FIAF à Séoul en avril 2002.

Este texto fue presentado por David Francis en el marco del debate sobre el Segundo Siglo del cine, organizado en el marco del 57° Congreso de la FIAF en Seúl en abril del 2002.

This forum is about the future of film archiving not about the future of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF). We need to address the challenges of film archiving in the 21st Century before we consider how FIAF can help archives solve the problems identified. Changes in film technology have been infrequent and gradual and film archivists have been lulled into a sense of false security. Even the major changes that have occurred; the coming of sound; the demise of nitrate raw stock and the introduction of subtractive tri-pack colour film; have had little impact on their thinking. It is probably surprising to the younger film archivist that there was not more concern about the passing of nitrate. However, one must remember that in 1951 archives were small organisations with minute budgets that spent most of their time collecting the acknowledged classics of world cinema. Archivists’ minds were not tuned to appreciating the impact of such a change on the film experience. The very first challenge for every film archive is to define its mission. In the past, when the future of celluloid was assured, it was unnecessary to have a clearly defined medium and long term plan. The new century changed that situation dramatically. One approach would be to limit activities to the acquisition, preservation and presentation of films produced on celluloid and relevant paper materials related to them. There is plenty of precedence for this. Many museums or art galleries limit their collections to a period in history that has long since passed and acquire and display no items made in the last hundred years or more. However, this would mean in about twenty year’s time the film archive would be dealing with a retrospective collection that spanned a finite period of time, say 1895- 2025. After that only films made in those years would be added to the collection. . There are advantages and disadvantages of this approach. There is plenty of work to keep an institution with this policy gainfully employed for the whole of the century and probably far beyond. Archives have in the past devoted most of their resources to nitrate preservation but colour films remain virtually untouched and little has been done to control the ravages of the vinegar syndrome and dimensional instability. Also it will be possible to project films in archive theatres long after new titles are no longer produced on celluloid and the manufacture of film stock has ceased. It will always be possible to build a 35mm film projector. This means that future generations will be able to see films in the way the creative team that made them intended. The experience of cinema will be secure which it may not be in the digital environment. However, it might be difficult for an archive with such a vision to get the necessary public and private funding to continue its work. The film

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

archive could become frozen in time and serve an ever decreasing group of aging film enthusiasts. Also the commercial moving image industry would be alienated because it could not readily satisfy it’s ever increasing demand for film images from the past in digital form - the way they will obtain them from other sources. Another approach would be for the film archive to accept now that it cannot sustain the film experience because technology will eventually force a change. If it begins to transfer its vast holdings into the digital environment immediately, it will be able to provide on-line access to the national cinema heritage for anyone interested wherever they live. This will attract both private and public support and possibly allow it to receive a significant income from the sale of copyright free images to commercial disseminators. It will not be an anachronism but a vibrant contributor to what inevitably will be the most audio-visual century so far. Of course we do not know whether the archive’s collection will in fact be secure in the digital environment. It will certainly have to be transferred from one format to another many times in the next hundred years because software and hardware obsolescence will happen even more frequently in future. We are told that there will be no loss of quality during this exercise and that it can be achieved automatically, but little is known about the costs involved. Certainly at the Library of Congress, we are being advised to put $5 million a year aside to refresh our digital holdings. There is also no guarantee that we can reproduce the cinema experience in the digital environment and born digital moving images, which will be created in unimaginable numbers, could compete with the films of the past for preservation resources. Also the curators who in the past had the luxury of seeing actual images when they looked at the film support will have per force to pass over those curatorial functions to an Information Technology Officer who is likely to be completely unaware of the history or importance of those images – or perhaps I should say potential imagesin his or her care. Does the Information Technology Officer add the study of film history to his or her skills or does the film curator take an advanced course in digital image management. Or could it be a mixture of both scenarios. The film archive could continue to preserve and present films on film and it could acquire born digital moving images and preserve and present them in that form. It could also, subject to copyright approval, make digital copies of films available on line or in the form of video tapes, DVD’s etc and maintain the film experience in a properly equipped cinema. The preservation laboratory of the future then will also be a hybrid but it will have to be infinitely adaptable so that as the balance moves from the photochemical to the digital, the appropriate workflow and adjacency requirements can be maintained. The laboratory will have to be self-supporting. It will have to undertake all the photochemical operations. The archive will have to do it’s own colour printing, processing and sound re-recording as well as the specialist tasks like tinting and toning and step-printing. It may have to

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

David Francis identifie les difficultés que devront affronter les archives du film du 21ème siècle et décrit la manière dont la FIAF pourra aider les archives à résoudre ces problèmes. Les grands changements du siècle dernier, l’apparition du son, l’abandon du nitrate et l’adoption de la couleur par soustraction, ont modifié le visage des archives. Le problème du futur à court et à long terme, ne s’y posait pas encore. Ce nouveau siècle a considérablement changé les données du problème. Plusieurs approches sont à envisager aujourd’hui. La première approche est la limitation des acquisitions, de la conservation et des projections de films en cellulose et du matériel papier s’y rapportant. Les exemples de collections de périodes limitées ne manquent pas dans l’histoire des musées et des galeries d’art. Dans le cas des archives du film, cela équivaut à accepter que seuls les films d’une période donnée seront conservés, de 1895 à 2025 par exemple. Passée cette date, seule un petit nombre de films seront ajouté à la collection. Cette approche a ses avantages et ses inconvénients. L’expérience du cinéma serait sauvegardée, mais les pouvoirs publics se lasseraient de financer la préservation d’un art passé de mode. Une autre approche est la supposition que les archives ne pourront continuer à maintenir l’expérience originale du cinéma à cause des avancées technologiques et que la conversion au format digital permettra au public un accès immédiat aux patrimoines cinématographiques nationaux. Cette possibilité attirerait des capitaux publics et privés. On pourrait également envisager une solution issue des deux précédentes. Les archives du film pourraient continuer à conserver et à projeter des pellicules, et, dans un même temps, acquérraient des films au format digital original, les conserveraient et les projetteraient dans ce format. On pourrait digitaliser les films et les diffuser sur internet, sous forme de cassettes, de DVDs, et en même temps, maintenir l’expérience du cinéma dans une salle spécialement équipée. Le laboratoire du futur sera

manufacture it’s own black and white and colour raw stocks. The hybrid laboratory will be an expensive place to operate. It will have to work on a round-the-clock basis if it is to offer a service that archives can afford. This means cooperation between archives in a given country or continent and therefore probably a decline in the importance of FIAF and an increase in the importance of regional film archive federations. I only envision a dozen such laboratories in the world. The richer regions will have to assist the poorer ones. For a period of time the archival preservation laboratory of the future may also have to undertake work for the national film industry. The initial move to the digital environment may be swift but the final demise of the cinema, as we know it today, may be painfully slow. We must not be afraid of charging commercial rates for such services and ploughing income back into film preservation. We don’t know exactly when film stocks will no longer be available and whether it will be duplicating or print stocks that will disappear first. This will depend largely on what the film industry does and how fast it embraces change. Already in Scandinavia many feature films shot on film are scanned into the digital environment and transferred back to film. The latest generation of datacines have a resolution of 4000 pixels. If you accept Kodak’s claim that their current 35mm film stocks have a resolution of 6000 pixels, you can appreciate that the time will soon come when one can reasonably claim that the use of digital intermediates does not degrade image quality. Many people in the film industry would say that you cannot detect degradation today if you use the best digital technology now available. The next step will be the use of digital media for shooting features and then we will see digital restoration costs that will be comparable with the photochemical methods used now. We will see similar changes in projection. As soon as the industry feels confidant that digital moving images beamed via satellite are as reliable as those originating from celluloid and that the cost of equipment to receive those digital images is competitive, they will make such a change. This in turn will impact the stock manufacturers – Kodak is already promoting itself as an “imaging” company rather than a supplier of photographic materials. In this scenario print stock may be the first to disappear. The film laboratories will then move more into the digital environment and we will be left with a few boutique operations that will continue to undertake photochemical duplication. The film archivist of the future will also have to address some ethical issues. In the past we have always insisted that anything we do to preserve a film is recorded and reversible and that the original materials are maintained at a level of temperature and humidity that will ensure their long –term survival. Is it worth spending money on the conservation of a nitrate negative if you can no longer make a film print from it? I think not. We must also consider how reversible what we plan to do is when we can no longer make a film copy from the bits and bytes and metadata that represent a given film. The preservation laboratory of the future will have a finite time to duplicate the collections of the archives it serves. Deciding to restore a film – make it appear on the screen as it did at a particular point in it’s

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

également hybride et devra être adapté au remplacement graduel de la technologie photochimique par le digital. Lorsque celui-ci sera rentable, il y aura aussi des changements dans les techniques de projection. Les laboratoires de cinéma adopteront également la technologie digitale, laissant ainsi les travaux de duplication photochimique à quelques boutiques spécialisées. Pour finir, nous verrons surgir de nouvelles questions éthiques, de nouveaux problèmes aux niveaux technologique et économique. L’auteur conclut cependant que les critères d’admission à la FIAF doivent rester les mêmes, tels qu’ils ont été énoncés par Roger Smither dans le code d’éthique de la FIAF.

history like it’s premiere or it’s initial release – is a decision that cannot be taken lightly. It must involve the cooperation of all other archives with relevant material and the help of the appropriate scholars and technicians. Most films will simply have to be preserved ie. make the best possible master and projection prints from materials held by constituent archives. Some films may have to be duplicated on automatic or high-speed printers without involvement from any staff member except a lower paid machine minder. This should probably be called the production mode and will require much more development before it can be employed. Now time is of the essence we must develop a common language to describe our holdings accurately so that we can use the Internet to its full advantage. The days of the quid pro quo where any archive cooperation in a preservation requires all parties to receive a print or a master may be over and we will have to accept that the film, like a painting, has to be seen in the location where it is preserved and only loaned in the most exceptional circumstances to an archive whose projectionist and projection box have passed the most stringent inspection. We must ensure that the archive in the country of production has the best film materials on any title that is legitimately part of it’s national heritage and other archives retain the less complete copies which they already hold. We must also intensify research into old film systems. Already too much has been lost. Now we have limited time to safeguard what remains. We must know the characteristics of the film stocks we are trying to replicate, the formulae laboratories used in their processing, the sound systems, the colour dyes, the tints etc. There will be no second preservation chance in the future. We must also step up archive technical training. When processes become obsolete those who really understand them are the only ones who can pass this information on to future generations. The archive technicians we have now are perforce those people. The positive side of this integration of media is that the traditional film laboratory, which now relies heavily on computers and electronics, will have the appropriate skills nearby to help solve problems in these fields. In fact the mechanical and electronic maintenance areas and the obsolete equipment stores will be major components of the preservation laboratory of the future Film archives have made great steps in the last twenty years in making governments and private funding organizations aware of the importance of film preservation. We need to move away from the” Nitrate Won’t Wait” approach. The obvious campaign for this century is the safeguarding of the colour film. Archives have been hesitant to address this issue because they fear that both government and private funding organisations will see this as a task for the copyright owners and because of the astronomical costs involved. Now that the archive movement has existed for about sixty-five years it is time to take a tougher line with copyright owners who don’t preserve their films. If they are not doing it properly we need to quote chapter and verse and name names. Otherwise archives will never get funding to solve this problem. This century copyright owners need archives as much, if not

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Se trata aquí de identificar primero los desafíos que deberán enfrentar los archivos cinematográficos del Siglo 21 y luego de definir de qué manera la FIAF podrá ayudar a los archivos a resolver los problemas que se hayan identificado. Los grandes cambios ocurridos durante el primer siglo, tales como la introducción del sonido, el abandono del nitrato y la adopción de los colores por sustracción, afectaron poco la manera de pensar los archivos. El problema del futuro a mediano y largo plazo no se planteaba. El nuevo siglo cambió drásticamente la situación. Varios enfoques se enfrentan hoy. El primero consiste en limitar las actividades de los archivos a la adquisición, conservación y presentación de películas producidas en celuloide y materiales papel relacionados con ellas. Los ejemplos de colecciones de períodos limitados en el tiempo no faltan en la historia de los museos y galerías de arte. Para los archivos cinematográficos, esto equivale a aceptar que sólo se conservarán películas de un período limitado, digamos 1895-2025. Después de ese año, sólo unas pocas películas del período considerado serían incorporadas a la colección. Este enfoque tiene sus ventajas y sus desventajas. La experiencia singular del cine quedaría garantizada pero se perdería paulatinamente el interés de los poderes públicos en financiar la preservación de un arte pasado de moda. Otro enfoque consistiría en suponer que los archivos no pueden seguir manteniendo la experiencia fílmica original a causa del empuje de los avances tecnológicos y que la conversión a las tecnologías digitales permitiría un acceso en línea directo del público al acervo cinematográfico nacional, desde cualquier punto del planeta. Esto atraería a las fuentes de financiación pública y privada. También se puede considerar una solución híbrida de los dos modelos a la vez. El archivo cinematográfico continúa a conservar y presentar películas cinematográficas y al mismo tiempo adquirir imágenes en movimiento digitales originales, conservarlas y presentarlas en ese

more, than archives need the support of copyright owners. We don’t want to be confrontational but if we have to be we should not shy away. The safeguarding of the national heritage cannot be entrusted to commercial entities. We wouldn’t entrust the preservation of other artefacts like furniture, ceramics and silverware to the manufacturers. A first class master and two access copies of every film an archive feels belongs to the national heritage must be kept in a not-for- profit film archive with national support and an open access policy. Every archive must make this policy clear to its government. Likewise archives have started to address the training issue in recent years. There are now several courses that provide specialist training. However there needs to be more activity on a bilateral basis; exchange of archive staff between institutions, exchange of policies and practices through the web and meetings between representatives of a small number of archives to discuss specific common problems. Film archives must also review their relations with commercial film and television producers and disseminators. Under FIAF rules, archives are not permitted to engage in commercial activities. This is impossible in today’s society. There needs to be a more realistic approach. Archives should not charge bona fide students for research services but they should charge the commercial user. They should ask the going rate for supplying films or extracts to commercial enterprises but they must also make certain that all income is used to support archival activities and that existing public or private funding is not reduced as result. Also the desire for income must not distort the central mission to preserve and make available the national heritage and the archive’s unique holdings. This leads to the question of cooperation and duplication of effort. A universal archival database of film and related paper holdings is a reality in this age of computers, cheap storage and the Internet. It is a vital tool for both cooperation and the prevention of duplication of effort. A catalogue of holdings available to all FIAF member archives should be a priority for every film archive. There is also another aspect of cooperation that has not been fully exploited in the past. That is cooperation of all not-for-profit bodies interested in any aspect of film culture within a given country. Educational users of historic films, editors of serious film magazines, film museums and university professors all have an interest in the work of the film archive. The whole is greater than the parts and one voice representing a broad based community of interests is more effective than a person representing a single institution. In fact it may be possible to create a group representing not-for-profit institutions involved in the entire audio-visual culture. Whereas membership of an international organization needs to be limited to those who have a common mission, at the national level broader groupings can provide an effective voice. The potential disappearance of film also changes the status of the archival show print. It will be impossible to replace a colour print after say 2025 and it maybe difficult and expensive to replace a black and white print. Even if archives manufacture their own raw stock, printing and processing equipment will no longer be commercially available so

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

formato. Podría digitalizar las películas y difundirlas por la red, en forma de casettes, de DVDs y al mismo tiempo mantener la experiencia fílmica en una sala de cine equipada a tal efecto. El laboratorio del futuro también sería un híbrido y deberá adaptarse a las transformaciones a medida que se vaya pasando de la tecnología fotoquímica a la digital. Apenas sea más o menos rentable, también habrá transformaciones en las técnicas de proyección. Y los laboratorios de cine también adoptarán procedimientos de la tecnología digital, limitando la práctica de las duplicaciones fotoquímicas a unas pocas boutiques especializadas. Finalmente surgirán nuevos cuestionamientos de ética, nuevas situaciones en el campo de la tecnología y la economía. No obstante, sintetiza el autor, mantienen su validez los criterios de admisión a la FIAF enunciados por Roger Smither tal como quedaron definidos en el código de ética de la FIAF.

archives that take the purist or hybrid approach to their role will spend more and more time and money on maintenance and repair. The print will therefore need to be protected in the same way as the master. It cannot be lent to colleague institutions unless their projection equipment is very well maintained and their projectionists appreciate the importance of treating the prints with respect. The art of projection has all but disappeared and film archivists will have to train a new breed of archival projectionists who have the same attitude to their profession as fine art restorers. Films will only be projected to appreciative audiences. Others will have to view alternative carriers. Although the loss less transfer of 35mm film to the digital environment is still a dream for most film archives, storage and repository costs will continue to fall. As we have seen already from the titles preserved digitally on behalf of archives by Sony, one can repair damaged frames that can never be retrieved optically One also produces same quality master and multiple copies for little additional expenditure – a great attraction for archives who want to show the world’s accepted film classics to their national constituency. However as I have already stated the security of the digital environment is still untried – a digital loss is total whereas analog deterioration is usually gradual - and the experience of seeing a digital copy is definitely different to that of seeing a film copy even if they are projected on the same screen in the same auditorium. Archives must be prepared to monitor developments in digital technology and not be opposed to it in principle as a future method of at least film content preservation but they need to let the industry solve all the problems before they embark on its widespread use for preservation. The hybrid approach proposed at the beginning of this paper allows archives to play the waiting game. As an aide-memoire for thinking about the future of film archiving, I will end by quoting Roger Smither’s proposed criteria for membership of FIAF. Be committed to the preservation of a film collection, at least part of which consists of material not held elsewhere Preserve the unique part of your collection to the best possible standard’s in the original format or the closest possible approximation Cooperate with other archives in the preservation of material which is not unique Improve knowledge of the collection by preparing an accurate catalogue Without compromising the archival integrity of the collection, make it accessible in a range of activities that will include correct presentation of the film on its premises. The purpose of a film archive is to preserve film: other activities are secondary. However one should encourage documentation centres, cinema museums, film studies departments at universities, film schools and any organization that supports the archive’s cultural work.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

La venganza de Pancho Villa (The Vengeance of Pancho Villa) A lost and found border film* Gregorio C. Rocha

Historical Column

On January 5, 1914, Frank N. Thayer, representing Mutual Film Corporation and General Pancho Villa, head of the Constitutionalist army in the Mexican revolution, gathered in the office of attorney Gunther Lessing in El Paso, Texas, to sign a contract.

Chronique historique

In it, Pancho Villa agreed to give exclusive rights to Mutual to film the triumphant campaign of his army on its way down to Mexico City. As a result of this contract, the film The Life of General Villa was made, becoming perhaps, one of the first biographical films ever made and “…One of the oddest episodes in film history”, according to film historian Kevin Brownlow.1

Columna histórica

The Life of General Villa opened its commercial run in the Lyric Theater in New York, in May, 1914 and afterwards, once World War I had started, the film was apparently junked by the same company that produced it, becoming another lost film, but quite a legendary one. After an exhaustive two-year search, digging in the film archives in Amsterdam, London, New York, and Mexico City, while looking for film materials for my documentary The Lost Reels of Pancho Villa, I stumbled into one of the most precious treasures a film researcher may aspire to find: dozens of nitrate film reels from the 1920’s, lobby posters, photographs, film artifacts, glass slides and memorabilia, which had been sitting in the basement of the house of the Padilla family in El Paso, Texas, since the late 1930’s. The amazing find followed a earlier one: while visiting the Special Collections in the library of the University of Texas at El Paso, a set of photographs was put in front of me. To my surprise, the photographs showed many unknown scenes from The Life of General Villa, Showing Raoul Walsh, Teddy Sampson and other players hired by Mutual Film Corporation. Since this film was the ultimate goal of my quest, my pulse accelerated with the belief that I was getting close to it, if there was a surviving print. Along with the photographs, there were copies of exhibition leaflets announcing the film La venganza de Pancho Villa, (The Vengeance of Pancho Villa), a title of which I had never heard before. Since the leaflet was dated 1937, my first thought was that they were announcing a talkie film, but small letters at the bottom of the page read: “We will soon count with sound equipment!” Then, I was positive that they were referring to a silent film, but there was only one film made about Pancho Villa in the silent era, The Life of General Villa. Where and what was this new “lost” film? It happened to be very near, in the vault of the library, nested in a metal container, since 1985, when it was donated to UTEP. La venganza de Pancho Villa had been slowly decaying in it’s container.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Photogramme of Liberty, Daughter of the U.S.A., Jacques Jaccard, 1916

When we opened up the lid, a strong smell of nitrocellulose filled the air. We pulled seven reels out of the container. While examining the positive print, multiple glue splices showed that the film had been cut from different sources –both fictional and documentary - and using different brands of film, namely Eastman Kodak, Pathé and Agfa. At first glance, it was possible to date most of the strips of film as being 1916 nitrate film stock. All seven of the reels showed melting of the emulsion in the section proximate to the core, for which it was possible to foresee that at least one third of the film was irretrievably lost. At first glance too it was possible to see in some of the frames the image of Raoul Walsh playing the young Pancho Villa, and fascinating bilingual EnglishSpanish intertitles, telling a somewhat obscure story about Pancho Villa. My conclusion was that I had found not the lost, but another lost film about Pancho Villa. Subsequently, with the help of the Institute of Oral History, I came to meet the Padilla family, former owners of La venganza de Pancho Villa, who welcomed me in their home, allowed me in their basement to open those rusty cans filled with film treasures, investigate in their documents, and shared with me the story of their ancestors.

Poster advertising for the screening of La venganza de Pancho Villa at the Cine Azteca

Between 1920 and 1936, Mr. Félix Padilla, an empresario from Cd. Juarez, Chihuahua, traveled extensively with his son Edmundo throughout Northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States, exhibiting silent films that he rented or purchased from film distributors based in Mexico City and Los Angeles. Félix and Edmundo Padilla toured in a pick-up truck, carrying with them 35mm films, a portable film projector, a manual phonograph, lobby posters and several 78rpm records, which they used to add music to the projections. In the afternoons, Mr. Padilla would traverse the center of each town, announcing the day’s program, using a megaphone. Screenings usually took place in the local theater, where Mr. Padilla shared the profits on a 50-50% basis with the owner. Occasionally, when movie theaters were not available, Mr. Padilla would set a huge white canvas in the main plaza and the screening would take place in the open air, with the assistants bringing their own chairs. For 5 cents and 10 cents (children and adults respectively), the people from places like Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Gomez Palacio, Durango, Coyote, Coahuila, or Deming, New Mexico, could enjoy the exhibition of American short comedies, followed by silent Mexican melodramas, such as En la hacienda, by Ernesto Volrath, 1922. In the early 1930´s, when the family had already moved to El Paso, Texas, Félix and Edmundo decided to create their own version of the life of Pancho Villa in film, cutting and re-editing fragments from films they

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

En 1914, Frank N. Thayer, représentant de la Mutual Film Corporation, et le Général Pancho Villa, chef de l’armée Constitutionnaliste, signèrent un contrat portant sur l’exclusivité des images des conquêtes de ce dernier. Avec ses images, la Mutual produisit The Life of General Villa, le premier film biographique de l’histoire du cinéma.

had in their collection. By doing this, they unknowingly became the first Mexican-American filmmakers. Edmundo Padilla´s fascination with Pancho Villa, probably began when, as a child, he witnessed the Mexican revolution: “…At midnight you could listen the gunfire. The shout of “Viva Villa!” would unleash yelling and thundering all around. Sometimes the revolutionaries would take the town, but at other times they would be defeated. I also became aware of the executions that took place in the municipal cemetery, where federal soldiers would fire their rifles against the revolutionaries standing in front of a wall. I also got to see Pancho Villa in person, when one time he arrived in his own car pulling a wagon loaded with corn and beans. He personally distributed the goods with the poor people who arrived carrying baskets.”2

Ce film sortit pour la première fois à New York en mai 1914, mais son succès commercial fût de courte durée ; il se perdit dans la Première Guerre Mondiale. Lors de ces recherches pour un documentaire sur Pancho Villa, l’auteur de cet article a découvert, à la bibliothèque de la University of Texas de El Paso, des tracts annonçant la sortie de La venganza de Pancho Villa, film dont personne n’avait jamais entendu parler. L’auteur a trouvé ce film dans les dépôts de la bibliothèque. Cette trouvaille allait être suivie par une découverte encore plus exceptionnelle, Gregorio Rocha est tombé sur ce que tous les chercheurs rêvent de trouver ; des dizaines de bobines de nitrate des années 20, des posters, des photos, etc. Il dénicha ce trésor dans les caves de la maison de la Famille Padilla à El Paso, au Texas. Entre 1920 et 1936, Félix Padilla et son fils Edmundo ont sillonné le nord du Mexique et le sud des Etats-Unis avec leurs bobines de films qu’ils projetaient dans les théâtres ou sur les places publiques. Dans les années trente, ils décidèrent d’utiliser des versions existantes, de les couper, de les éditer et de filmer eux-mêmes quelques scènes supplémentaires pour les raccords, pour créer leur propre version de la vie de Pancho Villa.

The Padilla´s fascination with Pancho Villa rivaled their fascination for the moving image. As a result of the first assemblage of appropriated footage, they came up with a compilation film which was exhibited under different titles, depending the version. El reinado del terror (The Reign of Terror) was the first release of the film. It is possible that Félix and Edmundo Padilla began their project out of the remaining few reels of the legendary The Life of General Villa. One fact that may prove the hypothesis that The Life of General Villa was the basis for the Padilla film, is provided by the stills which were used for the lobby cards in advertising their film. These are in fact images from The Life of General Villa. By carefully examining those photographs, it is possible to see the “Eastman Kodak Nitrate Film” brand printed in the borders, which suggests that they are frame enlargements, rather than “stills” taken during production. In the same interview recorded by Magdalena Padilla in 1976, Mr. Edmundo Padilla remembered that “The film of Pancho Villa was about the Mexican Revolution. There were many scenes shot in real battlefields. My father brought that film to the U.S. and exhibited it in many places here, Arizona, New Mexico, California and Texas, always in small towns. He would bring his projector, rented the theaters and went for a percentage, including schools. The film of Villa was about when Villa was young, how he was pushed into the revolution, his first accomplishments after he was a bandit and then when he became a general. People loved this film, especially Mexican people.”3

L’auteur analyse la provenance des images de ce film.

This statement from Mr. Padilla clearly references the story line of The Life of General Villa. Though Félix Padilla claimed it as his film and never mentioned the sources from which he gathered the scenes for El reinado del terror, it is possible to establish now, that in addition to The Life of General Villa, they also drew from other sources, mainly from the 20-episode serial Liberty, a Daughter of the U.S.A. directed by Jacques Jaccard, and produced by Universal Film Manufacturing Co. in 1916. Most likely, Félix had purchased several episodes off Liberty at a low price, after it had lost its commercial value. This episodic film, released

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

En 1914, Frank N. Thayer, de la Mutual Film Corporation, y el General Pancho Villa, comandante del ejército Constitucionalista, firmaron un contrato de exclusividad de las imágenes de las conquistas de éste. Con esas imágenes, la Mutual produjo The Life of General Villa, primera película biográfica de la historia del cine. La película se estrenó en Nueva York en mayo de 1914, pero su éxito fue de corta duración. No sobrevivió a la Primera Guerra Mundial. Durante las investigaciones sobre el documental biográfico de Pancho Villa, el autor de este artículo descubrió en la biblioteca de la Universidad de Texas de El Paso, volantes que anunciaban el estreno de La venganza de Pancho Villa, filme del que nadie había escuchado hablar antes. Gregorio Rocha descubrió la película en el depósito de la biblioteca. A este descubrimiento sucedió uno más excepcional aún: el autor encontró lo que todo investigador sueña con encontrar: docenas de bobinas de nitrato de los años 20, afiches, fotografías, etc. El hallazgo fue hecho en los sótanos de la casa de la familia Padilla en la ciudad El Paso en Texas. Entre 1920 y 1936, Félix Padilla y su hijo Edmundo recorrieron el norte de México y el sur de los Estados Unidos con las bobinas de las películas que exhibían en los teatros y en las plazas públicas. En los años 30, decidieron reutilizar las copias existentes, desmontarlas, remontarlas e incluso filmar algunas escenas suplementarias y crear así su propia versión de la vida de Pancho Villa. El artículo emprende luego el estudio del origen de esas imágenes.

Still of La venganza de Pancho Villa

in August, 1916, showed a “patriotic” response to the attack of Villista forces on the town of Columbus, New Mexico on March 8th, that same year. This attack, which resulted in the complete destruction of the center of the town, caused several American civilian and military casualties, and marked a downturn in Pancho Villa´s image in North American public opinion. The response of the American government, led by President Woodrow Wilson, was the immediate invasion of Mexican territory with an army of 15,000 soldiers under the command of General John Pershing, in pursuit of Pancho Villa. The attack to Columbus and the resulting “Punitive Expedition”, set both countries on the brink of war and exacerbated nationalist feelings on both sides of the border. For Mexicans, Pancho Villa´s dimensions as a hero grew as the sole man able to defy the imperialist power by attacking U.S. continental territory. On the North American silver screen, however, Pancho Villa´s image once compared to that of Napoleon or Robin Hood in The Life of Villa, shifted to that of the worst of villains, becoming Public Enemy number one. In an advertisement published in August, 1916, by Moving Picture World, Liberty was announced as: “A great love story; scenes laid along the Mexican border; with enough of the military atmosphere in each episode to stampede your audiences into bursts of patriotic feeling and appreciation.” In Liberty, a Daughter of the U.S.A., the actress Mary Walcamp plays the young heroine Liberty, who is kidnapped by an evil character named Pancho Lopez, a Mexican bandit who demands ransom to finance his revolution. While doing this, Pancho Lopez invades Discovery, destroys the town, and kills most the inhabitants. Major Rutledge, played by Jack Holt, heads an army of Texas Rangers into Mexico to rescue Liberty and to get rid of Pancho Lopez and his band. Though Liberty seemed to be an innocent American episodic melodrama, nowadays, it offers a very interesting reading from an ideological point of view. On one side, it represents an excellent example of female protagonists finding a Utopian space to develop as the “New Woman”4, but Liberty may also be considered as the ultimate greaser film due to its profound and furious anti-Mexican content, perhaps not surpassed by any other American film of the period. Liberty also offers ground for the study of the symbolic representations of gender, race and politics in early American melodramas. This same kind of analysis could be applied to Patria, a “war readiness” serial also related to the American paranoia regarding Mexico as well as Japan, produced a year later by William R. Hearst.5 Padilla´s strategy in including this episodic film in his project, was to eliminate most of the scenes where Liberty appeared, bringing Pancho Lopez into the foreground as protagonist of the story. When creating new inter-titles in Spanish and English to convey his desired meaning, Padilla re-named the characters and places that Universal´s screenwriters invented in order to avoid any direct offense to Mexican sensibilities, using their real names. Thus, “Pancho Lopez” became Pancho Villa and “Discovery” became Columbus. But, in the few scenes where Liberty

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

appears, she became “La güera Amalia” (the “blonde Amalia”). With nationalist fervor, a common attitude in Mexican border-landers in order to exercise cultural resistance, Mr. Padilla transformed the original anti-Mexican intention of Liberty into a dubious glorification of Pancho Villa, in spite of the original portrayal of him as a merciless murderer. With all this, Padilla released another version, or more precisely, another episode of the film: Pancho Villa en Columbus, which he probably exhibited to the same audiences. Mr. Mariano de la Torre, grandson of Mr. Félix Padilla, witnessed some of the screenings when, as a child, he was hired as phonograph operator: “I was cranking the phonograph and when the attack on Columbus appeared on the screen, my grandfather would cue me to crank it with more impetus, making the crowd go wild. They would yell: ´Viva Villa!, Mueran los gringos!´”6 It is important to remember that during the Depression, when the Padillas were screening their films, intolerance towards Mexican immigrants was high and racial segregation was the norm in the border area. However, the Padillas edited their film to be appreciated by both Anglo and Mexican audiences. Due to the use of bi-lingual intertitles and to the interpretive ambiguity, the film could have had different readings and therefore satisfy audiences from both cultures. Edmundo and Félix Padilla

1 Kevin Brownlow explored the participation of cameraman Charles Rosher and his relationship to Pancho Villa in The War, the West and the Wilderness Alfred Knopf, New York, 1978. 2 From an interview with Mr. Edmundo Padilla, recorded by Magdalena Arias. Institute of Oral History, UTEP. El Paso, Texas, 1976. 3 According to Moving Picture World, it is possible to establish the following figures: In 1914, four feature films with Mexican villains were released. The figure rises to nine in 1915, and twenty in 1916, after the Columbus incident. Between 1914 and 1920, at least seventy nine greaser feature films were released.

Pancho Villa en Columbus was an open-structured film. When Mr. Félix Padilla passed away in 1936, Edmundo followed up the family tradition and he came up with the definitive version of the film, La Venganza de Pancho Villa. Edmundo added historical value to the film by incorporating documentary scenes borrowed from Historia de la Revolución Mexicana, a Mexican compilation documentary made by Mr. Julio Lamadrid in 1928. From it, Edmundo drew sequences showing the “real” Pancho Villa and different events of the Mexican revolution such as the Battle of Celaya, which might be an example of his method: he would start the sequence showing a Mexican newsreel of the actual event, and suddenly, would cut to an action-packed fake battle, filled with hundreds of extras, from one of the episodes of Liberty. While trying to arrive to a coherent cinematic discourse on the life of Pancho Villa from this extremely contradictory materials, Edmundo Padilla found it necessary to film additional sequences that would later be inter-cut within his assemblage of appropriated footage. These include the opening sequence, now lost, when the mother makes a fatal confession to the young Pancho Villa; the abduction and subjugation of his father by federal soldiers, which sparks the rage of Pancho, and his own assassination, recreated with friends and relatives in the the outskirts of El Paso in 1930. Some sequences which he did not modify and we see for the first time in a silent film in La venganza de Pancho Villa, represent some polemical

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

historical events that shaped the United States and Mexico´s hazardous border in that era. The attack on Columbus, New Mexico; the Santa Isabel incident where 16 American engineers were slaughtered; and the little known event of the Battle of Ojos Azules, when Pershing´s expedition unsuccessfully confronted Villista soldiers. But perhaps the best example of Padilla´s method is an amazingly edited denunciation of the 1914 American invasion of Veracruz, where he inter-cuts scenes from Birth of a Nation, 1914; naval battle newsreels from World War I; Liberty, 1916 and The Life of Villa, 1914; to contest American representations of the other, of the enemy, in this case the Mexicans. Perhaps acting not only as a metaphor, the title The Vengeance of Pancho Villa, suggests Padilla´s unstated intention: La venganza de Pancho Villa is a revenge against cultural stereotypes imposed by early American cinema.

Advertising for Pancho Villa en Columbus

4 From an interview with Mr. Mariano de la Torre, recorded by Gregorio Rocha in El Paso, TX. June, 2001. 5 There is an excellent study of the role of women in early American films in Benjamin Singer´s Melodrama and Modernity. Indiana University Press. 2001. 6 It is important to mention that William Randolph Hearst owned enormous tract of land and large numbers of cattle in the state of Chihuahua. By 1917, when Patria was released, Pancho Villa had already seized Hearst´s cattle and distributed it among the peons. The contents of Patria were so offensive to Mexico, that President Woodrow Wilson ordered Hearst´s film company to remove all signs in the film that referred directly to Mexico. Ever since 1914, Hearst had heralded an American armed intervention in Mexico. 7 Félix and Edmundo Padilla´s notes were written in a logbook, preserved by the Padilla Familly. This logbook has been a helpful tool in reconstructing the history of the different versions of La Venganza de Pancho Villa.

La venganza de Pancho Villa may now be considered as a film maudit, a precursor of what may be called Border Cinema, not only due to the geographical location of its practitioners, but in its attempt to freely cross, back and forth, the dividing lines set between political and non-politically correctness; fact and fiction, Anglo and Mexican cosmogony, Gringo and Greaser stereotypes, but most of all, because of its intended - and at times successful - transformation of meaning. It is stated in Mr. Padilla´s logbook that La Venganza de Pancho Villa made $1280.00 pesos from September, 1936 to May, 1937. This figure represents the paid admission of at least 12,000 spectators, considering a 10-cent admittance fee.7 The Padillas´ leaflets of La Venganza de Pancho Villa suggest that it had its last run in October, 1937. Small letters at the bottom of the leaflet, read: “We will soon have sound equipment and films!”. But Empresas Padilla never made the leap to the sound era. *This research was possible due to grants from the Fulbright-García Robles Research and Lecturing Program and the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Mexico. I would like to thank the Library Special Collections Department of the University of Texas at El Paso, The Library of Congress Film Preservation Center, Filmoteca U.N.A.M, in Mexico, and above all, the Padilla Family for their generous support in the development of this research. Films cited: La Venganza de Pancho Villa. Félix and Edmundo Padilla. Mexico/U.S.A. ca. 1930 Liberty 20 episode serial. Jacques Jaccard and Norman McRae. U.S.A. 1916 The life of General Villa. William C. Cabanne and Raoul Walsh, U.S.A. 1914 Historia de la Revolución Mexicana. Julio Lamadrid. Mexico, 1928

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Quelques repères sur la Communauté asiatique dans le cinéma français Eric Le Roy

Historical Column Chronique historique Columna histórica

Some notes on the Asiatic community in French cinema The article sketches the history of Asian immigrants and their place in French cinema from the end of the nineteenth century to today. The first big wave of Asians, primarily Chinese and Indochinese, came to France from the colonies and protectorates, and during 1914-1918, they were brought in to work in the war effort. Aside from early Lumière travel documentaries and some Pathé “Japanese” films, the influence of Asian immigrants on cinema was extremely limited until the twenties, when Asian arts became the fashion. Japonism and Asian art spread in Europe, particularly in France, in the domains of literature, design, and painting. In cinema, Donatien and Edouard-Emile Violet produced Li-Hang le cruel (1920), script by André Lord and Henri Bauch, a sensational Grand Guignol horror film, in which the Chinese were first represented in French cinema. The film brought protests from the Chinese community and censorship, and much altered, was reissued in 1923. L’Epingle rouge, by Violet, decors by Donatien, followed, and then, Voile du bonheur for which Violet employed non-actors from the Chinese quarter.

Revitalisée par une révolution industrielle triomphante, la France de la fin du 19ème siècle voit arriver sur son sol des centaines de milliers de migrants qui vont former le premier terreau de la population immigrée française. Dans les premières grandes vagues d’immigration économique qui touchèrent le pays, on rencontre des asiatiques, en quantité restreinte, issus des colonies et protectorats français. Contrairement à d’autres populations, la Communauté asiatique n’intègre pas le milieu du cinéma, mais plutôt ceux de la recherche et de l’industrie. Historiquement, l’immigration asiatique en France, en majorité chinoise et indochinoise, commence au début du siècle, avec comme point culminant la première vague massive de la guerre 1914-1918. En 1916, environ 100 000 travailleurs chinois, originaires de la région du Zhéjiang et 50 000 indochinois, originaires pour la plupart du Tonkin, recrutés pour les divers besoins de la guerre, arrivent en France. A la fin de la guerre, la grande majorité d’entre eux retournent dans leur pays d’origine, alors que 2000 à 3000 décident de s’installer en France. On note dès les années 1920 un début d’implantation chinoise dans le quartier de la gare de Lyon sous forme de petites unités de restauration visant surtout une clientèle immigrée et estudiantine. Dans le milieu du cinéma, l’influence sera extrêmement limitée, à part la période des années vingt et trente, qui ont succombé aux effets de mode artistique de l’époque.

Au début du siècle, après quelques titres Lumière1 certains films « asiatiques » apparaissent au catalogue Pathé, avec la société de production lancée sur place par la firme au coq « The Japanese film ». Les scénarios sont bâtis sur le même schéma, avec une tendance à glorifier le « sacrifice », l’un des nombreux clichés sur les asiatiques. Des documentaires sur le Japon font également leur apparition en France, tandis que l’on s’émeut également de drames larmoyants inspirés d’exotisme comme dans La petite japonaise (1907) probablement tournée dans les studios de Vincennes entre deux scènes de l’Ouest américain. Le Japonisme et l’art asiatique s’imposent en Europe et particulièrement en France dans les années vingt : littérature, décoration, peinture. Cette influence laissera des traces dont le Musée Galliéra est l’un des emblèmes. Au cinéma, ce sont surtout deux auteurs qui apportent leur pierre à l’édifice: Donatien et Edouard-Emile Violet. En 1920, Li-Hang le cruel est l’occasion pour les deux cinéastes de conjuguer leur passion commune pour la Chine, par le truchement d’un scénario signé du prince de l’horreur André de Lorde et de Henri Bauche. Autour des interprètes français Mag Murray, J.C Warriley, Mary Harald, Félix Ford et Julio de

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Sessue Hayakawa, already a famous star of the American cinema, came to Europe, with his wife, the actress Tsuru Aoki, in July 1923, where he became a vital part of Asian culture in France. He was engaged for La Bataille, based on events of the RussoJapanese war of 1905, and then starred in J’ai tué (1924), directed by Roger Lion. After a period dedicated to theater, he began a second career in sound films, most notably in Max Ophuls’ Oshiwara (1937), a film whose exotic ambience was provided by Albert Kahn’s Japanese garden at Porte de Saint-Cloud. In the post-war period, there were only isolated titles to represent Asian influences, yet standing out among these was Hiroshima mon amour (1958) by Alain Resnais. However, these did not really place the Asian community in French society. But in May 1974 Jean Yanne put the fat in the fire with Les Chinois à Paris, drawing protests from the Chinese ambassador. In more recent times, Vietnamese students and refugees have constituted a new Asian presence in French cinema, for the most part relegated to comic or criminal characters. Chris Marker’s Sans soleil (1983), with a more direct look at this society, brought a renewal of interest in Asian culture in French cinema. The success of Asian productions in France, and coproductions by Tran Anh Hung, and Olivier Assayas, have contributed to this renewal.

Décor pour L'Epingle rouge, Edouard-Emile Violet, 1921. Source: Collection Archives du Film et du Dépôt Légal du CNC

Romero, des acteurs chinois: Tsin-Hou et Sio-Chin. La critique est unanime. Violet obtient une pluie d’éloges par la presse, y compris avec les moins tendres comme Louis Delluc, qui vante les mérites et la singularité du film. Il est vrai que jamais auparavant on avait osé aller, en France, aussi loin dans le domaine si particulier du Grand-Guignol, dont le sujet fait partie du répertoire. De plus, avant ce film, les chinois n’avaient eu aucune place dans le cinéma français. Donatien (décorateur, peintre, céramiste, réalisateur, costumier, producteur et acteur…) est l’auteur des intérieurs entièrement chinois, reconstitués à partir d’une documentation appropriée, avec un mobilier et de réels objets chinois provenant de sa boutique. En outre, plans d’ensemble, gros plans de visages ou d’objets, tout concourt à l’excentricité, à la terreur que Violet provoque. Mais le caractère monstrueux du film déroute. La scène où Li-Hang meurt étouffé par le boa terrorise les spectateurs peu habitués à un tel spectacle. Par ailleurs, la présentation d’un chinois assassin et dangereux provoque une plainte des autorités chinoises en France. Malgré l’obtention de son visa, le ministre de l’Intérieur fait interdire le film, passant outre la commission de censure. La corporation proteste devant cette procédure et les exploitants n’ayant pas de programme de substitution réagissent. Quant à Violet, il est contraint d’opérer des coupes pour rendre le film moins terrifiant et « négatif » vis-à-vis de la communauté chinoise, bien qu’il conteste, avec Donatien cette vision de leur oeuvre. La Société des auteurs de films, sous la plume de Camille de Morlhon publie une protestation dans Hebdo-Film2 tandis que la presse le défend ardemment. Après avoir effectué un nouveau montage, le film sort en salles début janvier 1921, mais à nouveau la Chine maintient l’interdiction totale du film. Elle n’est pas écoutée jusqu’au 7 septembre 1921, lorsque une circulaire aux préfets met en garde sa projection en France. En mars 1923, Li-Hang le cruel ressort en salles : tout semble apaisé, mais le film est défiguré... Après ce succès non négligeable, Violet, avec la complicité de Donatien, récidive avec L’Epingle rouge3. Un sujet qui, bien qu’éloigné du précédent, met en scène un seul personnage chinois (de nouveau interprété par Tsin-Hou) au milieu d’une ambiance dramatique inquiétante et angoissante, ayant pour cadre la Riviera où s’affrontent un assassin et un chinois, par l’entremise d’une épingle rouge, preuve d’un meurtre commis dans le passé. Tiré d’une nouvelle de Pierre Bienaimé, journaliste et romancier, L’Epingle rouge a été tourné à Marseille et Paris. Le parallèle avec Li-Hang le cruel est inévitable, mais ce film est construit avec des retours en arrière (situés dans un pays asiatique) qui éclairent la narration et ne s’arrête jamais sur une action: aussi le film est-il alerte jusqu’au dénouement final, tragique, brutal et même d’un pathétique poignant. La nature étrange du film, représentée par ce chinois qui erre dans les rues étroites d’un Marseille vidé de ses habitants, déstabilise la critique. Elle est partagée entre l’incompréhension de l’histoire (qui semble compliquée et peu vraisemblable), l’étonnement (les décors modernes et chinois de Donatien4 toujours soignés, l’ambiance irréaliste, la tension des rapports 31

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

El artículo resume la historia de los inmigrantes asiáticos y del lugar que ocupan en el cine francés desde finales del siglo XIX hasta hoy. La primera gran ola de inmigración, proveniente principalmente de China e Indochina, llegó a Francia de las colonias y protectorados y, durante 1914-1918, fueron integradas en el esfuerzo bélico colectivo de esos años. Excepto algunas documentales Lumière y películas “japonesas” Pathé, la influencia de los inmigrantes asiáticos en el cine francés fue muy limitada hasta los años 20, período en el que el arte asiático se puso de moda y, con el “japonismo,” se extendió por toda Europa, particularmente en Francia, ejerciendo su influencia en el campo de la literatura, el diseño y la pintura. En el cine, Donatien y Edouard-Emile Violet produjeron Li-Hang le cruel (1920), basada en el guión de André Lord y Henri Bauch. Se trata de una película de terror de un exotismo exagerado, en la que los chinos aparecen por primera vez en el cine francés. La película encontró vivas oposiciones, tanto por parte de la comunidad china, como de la censura, y fue reestrenada con muchas modificaciones en 1923. Vino luego L’Epingle rouge, de Violet, con decorados de Donatien, y Voile du bonheur, en la que Violet empleó como protagonistas a los habitantes sin formación de actores del barrio chino. Sessue Hayakawa, quien ya era famoso en el cine americano, se transladó a Europa con su esposa, la actriz Tsuru Aoki, en julio de 1923. Fue un personaje clave de la cultura asiática en Francia. Contratado para La Bataille, inspirada de acontecimientos de la guerra ruso-japonesa de 1905, se inicio en el teatro con J’ai tué (1924), bajo la dirección de Roger Lion. Tras un período dedicado al teatro, comenzó una segunda carrera en el cine sonoro, destacándose en Oshiwara (1937) de Max Ophüls, rodada en los exóticos y exquisitos jardines japoneses de Albert Kahn en la Porte de Saint-Cloud. En el período de posguerra, son escasas las películas que muestran influencias asiáticas. Se destaca entre ellas Hiroshima mon amour (1958) de Resnais. Su éxito no alcanzó para dar a la comunidad asiática el justo lugar que ocupa en la sociedad francesa. En mayo de 1974, Jean Yanne provoca la protestación del embajador de China en Paris con

humains) et une forme de répulsion, le personnage central se suicidant, une fois de plus... Mais l’unanimité est faite sur la singularité de l’oeuvre, qui ne ressemble à aucune autre de la production française. Après la séparation avec Donatien en 1923, Violet poursuit sa passion pour l’Extrême-Orient, déjà entamée avec L’Epingle rouge et Li-Hang le cruel, courant alors en vogue (le chinois était enseigné à l’Institut des langues orientales, Chavannes professait des cours de littérature chinoise à la Sorbonne). Il commence en février 1923 aux studios d’Epinay le tournage du Voile du bonheur, d’après le roman de Georges Clémenceau5. Le Tigre, après sa défaite aux élections présidentielles de 1920, s’est retiré. Elu à l’Académie française, il était déjà l’auteur de romans, dont Le Voile du bonheur (1901). En janvier 1923, il signe à Violet une lettre d’accord pour que son roman soit adapté au cinéma. Le sujet colle à la peau du cinéaste habité par l’angoisse de la mort, la perte des sens: à l’époque des Ming (1320-1620 de l’ère chinoise) le noble poète Tchan-I recouvre la vue grâce à un guérisseur et constate la trahison de l’amour (sa femme le trompe devant ses yeux) et de l’amitié (son fils se moque de lui). Il repart dans la nuit en s’arrachant les yeux. Pour cette adaptation d’une vieille légende chinoise (nous dit-on) , le cinéaste demande à l’artiste Manuel Orazi6 de composer les décors à partir de documents chinois authentiques. Meubles, vases, coussins et tentures sont choisis dans une collection unique. La Compagnie Chine et Indes contribue à l’ensemble, tout comme la Maison MuelleRossignol qui exécute les costumes dessinés par Jean Bradin. Les intérieurs sont intégrés dans des espaces reproduisant à l’identique la Bibliothèque impériale de Pékin, la maison du poète et les jardins, pour lesquels des arbres d’une valeur de 2000 francs ont été apportés... Jean Bradin7 qui se prépare à une carrière internationale en tant qu’acteur, est le collaborateur le plus proche du cinéaste, dont il est le régisseur et directeur artistique, assisté de plusieurs chinois. Rompant avec les habitudes du cinéma national, le metteur en scène ne choisit aucun acteur français mais des non-professionnels dans la communauté chinoise...qui paraît avoir oublié les incidents autour de Li-Hang le cruel: sa troupe est donc bizarrement composée d’un sous-directeur de banque, d’un étudiant en médecine, d’un avocat, d’un groom et d’un ouvrier et de membres de la diaspora parisienne !8 Lors du tournage début avril à Epinay, l’équipe a la satisfaction de recevoir le Tigre en personne, en présence du musicien Charles Pons et de Louis Aubert qui attend beaucoup de cette audacieuse production. Aussi, lorsque le film sort le 21 septembre, une fois passée une enthousiaste réception à la presse, la déception est de mise car le film ne fera qu’une carrière estimable, sans plus. Cependant, le nom de Violet reste décidément marqué par l’Extrême-Orient et inspire même ces quelques lignes spirituelles à Louis Delluc au moment de la présentation du Voile du bonheur: « E-E Violet, un charmant garçon, certes, victime d’une étrange déformation physiologique, car à force de réaliser des films chinois, sa peau a jauni, ses yeux se sont tirés et ses cheveux se sont nattés sans prendre de conseil de personne ª9... Avant même la sortie en salles du Voile du bonheur,10 Edouard-Emile

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

su pelicula Les Chinois à Paris. Más recientemente, estudiantes y refugiados vietnamitas representan una nueva tendencia asiática en el cine francés, limitándose sin embargo a representar personajes cómicos o criminales. En Sans soleil (1983), Chris Marker propone una mirada más directa sobre este sector de la sociedad y renueva el interés por la cultura asiática en el cine francés. El éxito de las producciones asiáticas en Francia y las coproducciones impulsadas por Tran Anh Hung y Olivier Assayas, contribuyeron de manera significativa al renuevo.

Violet se lance dans la préparation de La Bataille10 d’après le roman à succès de Claude Farrère publié en 190911et jouée au théâtre par Firmin Gémier. L’idée d’adapter ce récit qui relate la lutte incessante entre orientaux et occidentaux n’est pas récente: dès 1919, Violet et Donatien y avaient songé, annonçant à la presse un tournage au Japon qui n’eût jamais lieu.

Le Voile du bonheur, Edouard-Emile Violet, 1923. Source: Collection Archives du Film et du Dépôt Légal du CNC

Sessue Hayakawa, durant la période des préparatifs du film, donne des conférences de presse sur le métier d’acteur et rencontre la profession. Par ailleurs, un jeune artiste du nom de Georges Violet13sculpte le visage expressif de l’acteur, buste attendu au salon des artistes de 1924.

C’est le 7 juillet que la presse corporative révèle l’arrivée dans le courant du mois, en France, et pour la première fois, de Sessue Hayakawa et son épouse Tsuru Aoki pour interpréter le film, sur la demande de Violet épaulé par Louis Aubert. La venue de l’acteur japonais, né Kintaro Hayakawa le 10 juin 1889 dans la province de Chiba est d’une importance rare sur l’attrait de la France et de son cinéma à l’époque. Sa présence sur le sol français est l’une des meilleures fortunes entre la France et le Japon. Fils de gouverneur, Hayakawa a fait des études commerciales à l’Université de Chicago, puis du théâtre japonais à Los Angeles, adopte le nom de Sessue, et épouse l’actrice Tsuru Aoki en 1914. La célébrité au cinéma lui vient dès 1915 avec son rôle de Japonais fourbe et cruel dans Forfaiture. Tournant sans discontinuer, il devient l’un des acteurs les mieux payés d’Hollywood où il fonde d’ailleurs sa propre maison de production, écrit des scénarios, collabore à la mise en scène. En 1923, fatigué de l’attitude hostile des Américains face aux étrangers, il décide de partir pour l’Europe. De 1923 à 1925, Sessue Hayakawa tourne quatre films en France et en Angleterre. Ensuite, il se consacre au théâtre, et à l’avènement du parlant, commence sa seconde carrière et revient en France où il devient très populaire dans des films comme Yoshiwara, coproduction franco-japonaise dirigée par Max Ophuls, le remake de Forfaiture signé Marcel L’Herbier, et joue aux côtés d’autres émigrés célèbres comme Conrad Veidt ou Erich von Stroheim dans Tempête sur l’Asie ou Macao. Durant l’occupation, il délaisse à nouveau le cinéma pour vivre en France de la vente de ses aquarelles. Après la guerre, fatigué des productions médiocres qu’on lui fait jouer, il rentre dans son pays natal12.

Le tournage débute à Toulon où l’équipe s’est entièrement déplacée. Sessue Hayakawa, quant à lui, dirige un atelier spécial à Neuilly pour les éléments japonais. Sur fond de guerre russo-japonaise (1905), La Bataille est presque un livre de témoignage de l’auteur, comprenant de nombreuses références et détails déclarés exacts et vérifiés, avec une trame fictionnelle peu développée. Le film est, quant à lui, une très libre adaptation traduisant la volonté délibérée des auteurs d’avoir fait une oeuvre grand public, à spectacle et effets grandioses. Mis en scène avec le concours de l’Escadre de Toulon et de la Marine nationale, le film est aussi centré sur la personnalité monolithique de Sessue Hayakawa, ce qui a pour conséquence d’écarter les autres interprètes ou de les cantonner à des rôles secondaires. Violet, en sinologue distingué se plaît à tourner des intérieurs japonais; on y dénote également son 33

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

La Bataille, Nicolas Farkas, 1934. Source: Collection Archives du Film et du Dépôt Légal du CNC

1 En 1898, Gabriel Veyre, opérateur des frères Lumière, filme le Japon de l’Ere Meiji. Un siècle plus tard, le cinéaste japonais Kiju Yoshida rend hommage à ce pionnier qu’il considère comme le premier cinéaste digne de ce nom. 2 Hebdo-Film n°52, 25 décembre 1920, p.4. 3Film sauvegardé et tiré par Les Archives du film du CNC, intertitres manquants. 4 Un court passage dans une boutique d’antiquaire-décorateur lors de l’achat de l’épingle donne à penser que cette scène a pu être filmée dans la boutique même de Donatien qui vendait des objets d’art asiatique. 5 Georges Clémenceau (1841-1929) 6 Manuel Orazi (?-?). Décorateur de L’Atlantide (Jacques Feyder, 1921), Crainquebille (id., 1922) et La Bonne hôtesse (Jeanne Bruno-Ruby, 1926). Egalement peintre et affichiste. 7 Jean Bradin (?-?), Interprète de nombreux films français (de Paul et Virginie, Robert Péguy, 1924, Le réveil, Jacques de Baroncelli, 1924, Le Berceau de Dieu, Fred Leroy-Granville, 1926, etc... ) mais aussi de Champagne (Alfred Hitchcock) ou Moulin-Rouge (E-A Dupont) 8 Voir le reportage de Charles-Félix Tavano dans Ciné-Miroir n°23, 15 avril 1923: Un film joué par des chinois, p.119. 9 Cinéa n°98, 15 août 1923.

esprit tourmenté par les fins tragiques: Yorisaka s’écroule mortellement blessé par les explosions, et Hirata se fait Hara-Kiri...Le film comporte par ailleurs plusieurs scènes spectaculaires filmées en réel dans la rade de Toulon. L’accueil des critiques fût mitigé, tandis que le public, au moment de la sortie en décembre 1923 lui fait un véritable triomphe. Violet abandonne alors sa veine asiatique. Un autre film à signaler : J’ai tué de Roger Lion (1924) avec Sessue Hayakawa, Huguette Duflos et Max Maxudian. Il s’agit d’une œuvre étonnante dans la carrière du réalisateur. A Paris, un riche orientaliste et sa femme, les Dumontel, ont secouru un marchand d’antiquités de Tokyo, Hideo, aujourd’hui ruiné. Reconnaissant, celui-ci fait preuve d’un dévouement extrème à leur égard. Il a deviné la liaison qu’entretient Mme Dumontel avec un individu douteux, Vérian. Celui-ci ne songe qu’à user du chantage pour se faire remettre de l’argent. Au cours d’une dispute avec Dumontel, il provoque la mort du professeur et s’échappe. Hideo, surpris auprès du corps un poignard à la main, est arrêté. Au cours d’une dramatique audience en Cour d’Assises, Mme Dumontel accuse Vérian, qui est arrêté, et innocente Hideo. Dans ce film étonnant et oublié, apparaîssent brutalement dans une fiction conventionnelle, des plans du tremblement de terre au Japon l’année précédente (1923), conjugués à des images raffinées des décors de Donatien et du jeu retenu d’Hayakawa, aux antipodes de celui de ses confrères européens. Le milieu des années vingt voit s’essouffler l’inspiration asiatique, qui réapparaît fugitivement dans les années d’avant-guerre, avec force de reconstitution de décors en studio. En 1933, Nicolas Farkas tourne une version sonore de La Bataille (versions française et anglaise) avec Annabella, Betty Stockfeld, Charles Boyer, Valéry Inkijinoff, donc sans acteur japonais. Forfaiture avec Lise Delamare, Sylvia Bataille (dans le rôle de Ming !), Victor Francen et Sessue Hayakawa est le remake français (en 1937) d’un film américain tourné auparavant trois fois, qui se déroule en Mongolie…la même année, Yoshiwara (1937), le Pigalle japonais, sert de décor à ce film d’ambiance «exotique» que Max Ophuls reconstitue dans le Jardin japonais d’Albert Kahn, à la Porte de Saint-Cloud. L’interprétation est dominée par deux acteurs de nationalité nippone, Michiko Tanaka, étoile de l’Opéra de Vienne, et Sessue Hayakawa. L’officier russe est joué par le Français Pierre RichardWillm, coutumier de ce type de rôle. Yoshiwara, le moins personnel des films d’Ophuls, il n’en connut pas moins un vif succès commercial. L’après-guerre nous offre des titres isolés de tout mouvement et mode, ce qui ne diminue pas leur impact et leur qualité, à commencer par Hiroshima mon amour, d’Alain Resnais (1958) avec Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada, Bernard Fresson, d’après un scénario et des dialogues de Marguerite Duras. Deux ans plus tôt, l’une des rares coproductions françaises avec le Japon avait vu le jour : Typhon sur Nagasaki, d’Yves Ciampi, 1956, avec Danielle Darieux, Keiko Kishi, Jean Marais, Gert Froebe, Hitomi Nozohé, Kumako Urabe. Dans le même mouvement

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

commercial et académique, il faut citer Du rififi à Tokyo, de Jacques Deray (1961) d’après Auguste Le Breton, avec Keiko Kishi, Barbara Lass, Charles Vanel, Karl-Heinz Boehm, Michel Vitold, Eric Okada. Ces titres sont isolés dans la production française, et ne représentent pas réellement la place de la communauté asiatique dans la société française. Mais en 1974, Jean Yanne met le feu aux poudres avec Les Chinois à Paris : Les Chinois envahissent la France. Panique. Exode. Les gens s’entretuent sur les routes. Le président de la République et le gouvernement s’enfuient en Amérique, tandis que leurs concitoyens redécouvrent les joies de la dénonciation et de la fumisterie, obligés qu’ils sont de ne plus fabriquer que des tuyaux. Le jeune général PouYen installe son quartier général aux Galeries Lafayette, à Paris…Troisième film de Jean Yanne comme réalisateur-interprète, ce film a suscité une vive réprobation de l’ambassade de Chine à Paris qui, y voyant une “ assimilation inacceptable de la Chine socialiste à l’Allemagne fasciste “, demanda purement et simplement son interdiction, tout comme d’ailleurs, “ L’Humanité rouge “, seul journal maoïste français reconnu par Pékin…

La Bataille, Nicolas Farkas, 1934. Source: Collection Archives du Film et du Dépôt Légal du CNC 10 Sauvegardé par les Archives du film du CNC. 11 Editions Flammarion, 1909. 12 Sa troisième carrière débute en 1949 avec son retour, aux côtés de Humphrey Bogart dans Tokyo Joe. L’année suivante, il incarne Jean Valjean dans une adaptation japonaise des “ Misérables”. Mais la plus belle création de ses dernières années sera sa composition du colonel Saito dans Le pont de la rivière Kwai de David Lean qui lui vaudra une nomination à l’Oscar. Après quelques apparitions dans des films secondaires, il retourne à Tokyo où il se consacrera désormais au théâtre, à la télévision, et à l’enseignement dans une école d’Art Dramatique. Sa femme disparaît en 1961. Il sera récompensé en 1966 par l’Ordre du Soleil Levant pour sa contribution aux échanges culturels internationaux. Il succombera le 24 novembre 1973 au Kyoundo Hospital de Tokyo à une thrombose cérébrale.

Depuis les années 80, on entrevoit un autre regard des cinéastes français sur la culture asiatique : la forte présence des étudiants venus du Sud-Vietnam après 1954 a donné une nouvelle génération. C’est en 1975, après la victoire des communistes, que s’implantent les premiers réfugiés de l’ancienne Indochine dans le quartier rénové de la Gare du 13ème arrondissement de Paris. Il apparaissent fugitivement dans certains films, souvent des comédies où leur sens de la débrouille est utilisée (chez Mocky par exemple) ou bien dans des films policiers dans lesquels on exploite les rumeurs sur la disparition des morts chinois, la mafia, la corruption… D’autres cinéastes apportent un vrai regard, et vingt ans après Le mystère Kumiko, Chris Marker filme à nouveau le Japon dans Sans soleil (1983), construit comme une sorte de documentaire fiction, écrit à la façon d’une composition musicale, avec thèmes récurrents, contrepoints, et fugues en miroir. Sans soleil est un film charnière avant un « renouveau » de la culture asiatique dans le cinéma français, et avant le triomphe des films asiatiques en France. Les coproductions voient le jour avec les œuvres personnelles de Tran Anh Hung : L’Odeur de la papaye verte en 1993, tourné intégralement en studio à Paris, reconstituant le Vietnam, Cyclo (1995) puis À la verticale de l’été (2000). Enfin, Olivier Assayas, féru de cinématographie asiatique a signé HHH, un portrait de Hou Hsiao-Hsien (en 1999) avec Chu Tien-Wen, Wu NienJen, Chen Kuo-Fu, après avoir réalisé Irma Vep en 1996, avec Maggie Cheung, actrice de Hong-Kong.

Fervent adepte du bouddhisme Zen dont il était devenu prêtre en 1929 et sur lequel il écrivit un livre en 1961, Sessue Hayakawa fut sans doute, avant Toshiro Mifune, le seul acteur japonais internationalement célèbre. 13 Apparemment, aucun rapport avec Edouard-Emile Violet.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Silent Japanese Films: What Was the Right Speed? Yoshiro Irie

Historical Column Chronique historique Columna histórica

The projection speed of silent film is a relatively new subject of study in Japan. Initially inspired by Kevin Brownlow’s work, especially “Silent Films: What Was the Right Speed?”i and after having investigated film archives and cinematheques around the world, including the National Film Theater in London, we, at the inauguration of our newly reopened National Film Center (NFC) building in 1995, introduced new projection facilities equipped with variable speed capacity ranging from 15 frames per second (fps) to 25 fps. Regarding our national cinema, that is Japanese cinema, we do not yet have definite answers to such questions as “At what speed were the motion pictures filmed?” and “At what speed were they shown at the cinemas?” At NFC we make it a rule to have preview screenings in order to ascertain and establish the proper projection speed for each silent film. We have also investigated relevant documents and records regarding the issue, but so far have not yet found a cue sheet, an important piece of information commonly found in both the US and Europe. We have, however, occasionally encountered references to both camera speed and projection speed of the silent era in historical descriptions as well as the records of filmmakers’ interviews and talks. We thus started our research on the projection speed of silent film by collecting such references from various documents. Of course, as Brownlow rightly warns, actual filmmakers’ testimonies and remarks may be unreliable and therefore not necessarily the most accurate testimony to the standard practices of the time. It is nonetheless true that we have not paid as much attention as we ought to have to the fact that a number of contemporary remarks do refer to a variety of different speeds (we do share in Japan a general tendency to regard the running rate at 16 fps to be the standard projection speed for silent films). Given how little we know about the subject, historical descriptions and filmmakers’ remarks are indeed among the most valuable pieces of information available. What follows is a work-inprogress report of our research on the subject. “Camera Speed in the Silent Film Era” It is said that the first motion picture camera imported to Japan around 1897 was a product made in England by Baxter and Wray. According to Shiro Asano, who tested the camera, his major concern about this rather unfamiliar apparatus was to rigidly follow the rate of cranking at “21 fps,” the only piece of knowledge he had about it. Apart from whether or not his recollections are reliable, Asano’s remark suggests that in those days in Japan 16 fps was not yet regarded as the standard camera speed. In fact, in various newspaper articles around the time of the introduction of cinema into Japan, Edison’s Kinetograph and Kinetoscope (projected at 46 fps), as well as Lumière Brothers’ Cinématographe (filmed at 16 fps), were given equal attention, and

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

furthermore the descriptions about the projection speeds of these machines vary a great deal. In the case of Cinématographe, the information about speeds and descriptions about projection methods greatly differ depending on each article: for example, “projected series of 900 photographs [sic] per minute,” which roughly equals to 16 fps; “projected by 2000 revolutions [sic] per minute”; “illustrating one minute movement by dividing it into 90 times [sic],” etc. In the late 1910s, the issue of standard camera speed (16 fps) was repeatedly discussed in the context of the so-called “pure film movement”, a series of movements and activities calling, after the Western mode of filmic narration, for changes in the Japanese filmmaking practice. Nikkatsu, the first major film studio in Japan, mass-produced a type of jidai-geki (period dramas), known as the “ninja and strong heroic men” genre, full of action and trick photography, featuring the first Japanese film star, Matsunosuke Onoe. But a contemporary film journal, Kinema Record, Japan’s first film magazine to introduce films as an artistic medium, strongly criticized the Nikkatsu Kyoto studio, which produced these jidai-geki films at 8fps.

Detail of one of the projectors with variable speed capacity in the National Film Center

Other records indicate that Yoshizawa Co., M. Pathe, Yokota Co., and Fukuhodo, the four pioneering production companies with studios, all of which were to be merged into Nikkatsu, had already established standard speeds of their own. Yokota Co. (the Nijo castle studio in Kyoto) filmed at 8ps around 1908, while the Hokkedo studio of Yokota C. in Kyoto around 1912 filmed “at best 14 fps and at worst 8 fps”; Fukuhodo around 1911 altered the speed from “the previously established 12~13 fps to 14~15 fps”; Yoshizawa Shokai’s chief cameraman Kichizo Chiba filmed at “12~14 fps at the slowest.” In other words, the 8 fps filming practice of the Nikkatsu Kyoto studio seems to be inherited from the filmmaking policy of Yokota. According to Yasunao Taizumi, a cameraman at M. Pathe who in 1912 filmed the Japanese second expedition to the South Pole, camera speed at the time was “the contemporary standard speed,” that is, “12~13 fps, and 8fps when it was dark.” Regarding films documenting the inauguration ceremony of the Taisho Emperor in 1915, Norimasa Kaeriyama, who was soon to be a leader of the “pure film movement,” criticized the fact that all of them were photographed at “somewhere between 8 and 11 or 12 fps.” I should add that the camera speed for sound-on-disk talkies attempted by Yoshizawa Co. in 1909 was reportedly settled on at 14 fps after tests and trials. From these descriptions, we might be able to assume an estimate of

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

La vitesse de projection des films muets est un sujet d’étude assez récent au Japon. En 1995, le NFC a fait l’acquisition de nouveau matériel de projection permettant de régler la vitesse. En étudiant le cinéma japonais, on a découvert des descriptions historiques et des témoignages de réalisateurs sur la vitesse des caméras et des projecteurs utilisés pour le cinéma muet. Au Japon, la tendance générale est de considérer la vitesse de 16 i/s comme étant la vitesse de projection standard pour les films muets. Jusqu’à présent, on n’avait pas porté toute l’attention nécessaire à ces différentes vitesses. Par exemple, les quatre premières compagnies de production disposant de studios, regroupées par après sous le nom de Nikkatsu, avaient déjà établi leurs propres règles concernant la vitesse. A la fin des années 1910, la vitesse standard des caméras (16 i/s) était constamment au centre des discussions. Dans le contexte du “pure film movement” il est question, suivant les modes de la narration cinématographique occidentale, de variations de vitesse de projection des films japonais. De plus, plusieurs commentaires recueillis vers la fin de l’ère du muet font état d’un changement de mentalité concernant la vitesse des caméras. D’un autre côté, en 1910, on souleva le problème de “l’effet de vitesse de projection” créé en alternant la vitesse de la manivelle. On ne peut pas parler de ce problème sans parler du “benshi” qui contrôlait souvent la vitesse pour garantir une meilleure harmonie avec sa narration, ni sans parler de l’habitude des propriétaires des salles qui changeaient la vitesse de projection les dimanches et jours de congé pour augmenter le nombre de projections. Ces pratiques étaient courantes pendant toute l’ère du cinéma muet, et régulaient ainsi tous les aspects de la projection des films japonais, mais, en 1931, la police allait annoncer un contrôle de la vitesse de projection... Le NFC a donc commencé sa recherche sur la vitesse de projection des films muets en rassemblant des renseignements provenant de différentes sources.

the standard camera speed in the early days of Japanese cinema. Similarly interesting in this regard are remarks about Tenkatsu, a production company which, quite unlike Nikkatsu, was famous among movie fans for their reliable, sophisticated expertise in shooting and developing in the period before 1920 when the second major studio Shochiku was founded. For example, some scholars believe that filming at 16 fps was in fact introduced by Tenkatsu’s chief cameraman, Yoshiro Edamasa. But according to a later recollection of Masaru Omori, then a young cameraman at Tenkatsu, Edamasa instructed young cameramen to photograph at 12 fps. If Omori’s recollection is accurate, it corresponds to the very “normal” camera speed of the time. Nonetheless, given that both Tenkatsu (the Tokyo studio) and Nikkatsu (the Kyoto studio) produced “ninja and strong heroic men” genre films as their primary features, Tenkatsu’s camera speed for this genre was slightly faster (by only 4 frames) than those of its counterparts produced by Nikkatsu. The slow cranking speed described above resulted from both technical and economical reasons: it compensated the low sensitivity of motion picture film on the one hand, and on the other, reduced the amount of film used. The extremely poor picture quality of finished films was said to be a big obstacle in the attempts of early production companies to export Japanese films abroad, as in the case of Fukuhodo’s attempts to advance into London. In the meantime, it is a rather interesting phenomenon that many of the famous directors who made great contributions to developing the narrative form in Japanese film history, were self-proclaimed pioneers in the development of proper camera speed. Directors Eizo Tanaka at Nikkatsu (the Mukojima Studio in Tokyo) and Norimasa Kaeriyama at Tenkatsu both declared with pride that they had introduced to the industry filming at 16 fps in 1918 and in 1919 respectively. Even were their claims to be true, however, it is unclear if their attempts actually made direct contributions to either the establishment of future studio policies or to the creation of a standard at the time. Director Masahiro Makino once said that Shozo Makino, the pioneering film director and Masahiro’s father, and his team had first, before his departure from Nikkatsu to form his own company, used to film at 8 fps, then at 10 fps after the foundation of Makino Educational Films in 1921, later switching to 16 fps in 1923 when Makino Eiga Produciton Company was formed. That is to say, according to this account, when Makino Shozo adopted filming at 16 fps 5 years had already passed since Tanaka’s attempt. This time lag seems to reflect the time it took for the jidai-geki genre, in which Makino was the leading director, to accept a new narrative form developed mainly in the gendai-geki (contemporary life genre) by such directors as Tanaka and Kaeriyama. On the other hand, however, some historians argue that it was Henry Kotani, a cameraman invited from Hollywood on the occasion of the inauguration of the Shochiku Studio in 1920, who was the pioneer in this matter, and that it took other production companies much longer to adopt 16 fps into their practice. Therefore, although many questions still remain to be answered, one can at least say that the standardization of camera speed was indeed a real issue for contemporary filmmakers with intellectual and artistic concerns. For example, Teinosuke Kinugasa, who launched the Japanese

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

avant-garde film, once remarked that he had set the cranking rate of Kurruta Ippeiji (A Page of Madness, 1926) at “18 fps, following Chaplin.” Kinugasa’s reference to Charles Chaplin probably refers to the release of Woman in Paris in Japan in 1924; the print came with instructions inserted at the beginning of the first reel to run the film at 85 feet per minute (though, precisely speaking, if the instructions had been followed, the fps should be 21 not 18). Moreover, remarks about studios’ filmmaking practices toward the end of the silent era indicate a further change in the awareness of camera speed. Cameraman Kazuo Miyagawa, who joined Nikkatsu (Uzumasa studio in Kyoto) in 1929, recollected that when he was working as an assistant cameraman the instructed cranking speed was 18 fps. In the case of Kataoka Chiezo Production, when they produced their first talkie, Tabi Wa Aozora in 1932, which they had to film by a hand-crank camera with post-recording sound, the most difficult problem for the camera crew was that they had to hand-crank the camera at the speed of 24 fps, not “at 18-20 fps, as they used to.” Our documentary research, thus far, seems supported by the estimates drawn from actually checking the films; but the sample is still rather small. These empirical estimates indicate that extant films produced during the 1910s by companies like M. Pathe and Tenkatsu were most likely filmed at slower speeds than 15 fps (the slowest speed we can select with our projector); and Shochiku films made at the end of the silent era seem to have been filmed at around 20 fps. I should mention, however, that some contradictory cases seem to exist. For example, there is a handbook written in 1935 by a Shochiku cameraman working at the Kamata studio in Tokyo, Taro Sasaki; it is a rare contemporary document that includes frame illustrations from films he had photographed, along with the relevant data such as actual camera speeds. According to this handbook, some films photographed by this single cameraman (and directed by Hiroshi Shimizu) had, at the time, at least three different speeds—16 fps, 18 fps, and 20 fps. Yet, while, according to the data provided by the book, some extant films such as Nanatsu no Umi (1931-2), Minato no Nippon Musume (1933) were filmed at 16 fps, this indicated speed of 16 fps does not correspond to our empirical estimate, which is somewhere around 20 fps. This incongruity seems rather disappointing. However, it is quite possible indeed that cameramen around the time, thanks to their technical sophistication, could have adjusted speeds for each shot according to the weather, or the lightening; there are in fact documents available suggesting that cameramen in the silent era were capable of operating the camera in a much more sophisticated manner than we had previously imagined. For instance, there is a statement that a Shochiku cameraman used “20 fps, a slightly faster speed than 16 fps,” for close-ups of people’s faces. As if to endorse this statement, a handbook for amateur filmmakers gives the following piece of advice: “The closer the subject is to the camera, the higher the cranking speed should be, and the farther, the slower.” “Projection speed” Our research in projection speed of the silent era has to depend, more so than camera speed, on documentation. What we know from various

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

La velocidad de proyección de películas mudas es un tema de estudio relativamente reciente en Japón. En 1995, el NFC instaló nuevos aparatos de proyección con reguladores de velocidad. Estudiando el cine Japonés y refiriéndose a descripciones históricas y testimoniales de directores sobre la velocidad de filmación y de proyección utilizada para el cine mudo, se descubrió que en Japón la tendencia general era de considerar la velocidad 16ips como la velocidad estándar. Hasta aquí no se había prestado la atención debida a las distintas velocidades de proyección. Por ejemplo, las cuatro primeras compañías de producción que tenían estudios, agrupadas bajo la razón social de Nikkatsu, habían adoptado sus propias disposiciones referente al tema de las velocidades de proyección. A fines de los años 10, la velocidad estándar de las cámaras (16ips) estaba en el centro de las discusiones. En el contexto del “pure film movement” se hablaba de variaciones de velocidad de películas japonesas que adoptan las modas de la narración cinematográfica occidental. Testimonios de la época tardía del cine mudo hablan de cambios de mentalidad al referirse a la velocidad de proyección de las cámaras. Por otra parte, en 1910, se habla del “efecto de velocidad de proyección” que se obtiene al variar la velocidad del manejo de la manivela de las cámaras. Tampoco se puede hablar del tema sin mencionar la influencia del “benshi”, quien a menudo controlaba la velocidad para garantizar una cierta armonía de la velocidad de proyección y su narración, y la de los directores de las salas, quienes cambiaban la velocidad de proyección durante los domingos y feriados, con el fin de aumentar el número de sesiones. Estas practicas eran comunes durante el periodo del cine mudo y regían la proyección de las películas japonesas, hasta que, en 1931, la policía adoptó disposiciones de control de la velocidad de proyección... El NFC inició una investigación sobre la velocidad de proyección de películas mudas recopilando informaciones provenientes de diversas fuentes.

documents centers on the problem of indifference and ignorance to camera speed. Already in the earliest film magazine published at the end of Meiji Era (1910), “the effect of projection speed” created by altering the cranking speed was an issue to be discussed, with detailed explanations and concrete examples of how changes in the actors’ movement would affect the dramatic impact. Because Japanese cinema inherited traditions of “narration” from various precedent art forms, one cannot ignore the presence of the benshi, who often had more authority and fame than directors and actors, and often actually controlled the speed of their own accord for better harmony with their narration. This is probably the main reason why we haven’t yet encountered a single cue sheet. Especially interesting is the case of films that photographed the Imperial family: for such material, jerky movement was taboo—even handbooks strictly warned against this. But of course, there were, inevitably, accidents, as one projectionist recalls nostalgically. Additionally, some film journals of the early Taisho era (1912~26) contain the information about the length and running time of the released films, giving us certain ideas about projection speed at cinemas around that time. Although we cannot immediately and readily determine the relationship between camera speed and projection speed of contemporary films, including some Italian films very popular then, simple calculations indicate that the speed was approximately 11~13 fps. We found a record of the comparison of the “running time” of Quo vadis? at the two theaters which showed the film. According to the comparison, the difference in the running time of the two theaters is as much as 50 minutes. We also have other reports, such as the inclination of theater owners to change projection speed on Sundays and holidays in order to increase the number of screenings; because of this, some said “I saw the film once during the New Year Holiday, and it looked completely different in a later weekday screening than it looked before.” This kind of customary practice continued to be prevalent until the very end of the silent era, controlling the exhibition aspect of the Japanese film industry. In fact, a document reports an intervention by the authorities; in 1931, when the transition to the sound film was well underway, the police department announced the control of projection speed. What was behind this was that due to a restriction imposed on the theaters to maintain a maximum four hour screening time per program, theaters competed by putting as many films as possible into one program period, thereby heating up the competition between theaters. As a result, projection speeds at theaters in Tokyo ranged from “19 fps minimum to 31 fps maximum.” The police intervention was to set projection speeds at the maximum of 21 fps. Against this measure taken by the police, the Exhibitors’ Association in Asakusa, one of the busiest sections of Tokyo, insisted on settling on the maximum of 28 fps as a reasonable compromise, because, according to their logic, speedy projection matched the “contemporary life style in which everything is speeded up.” Moreover, to make matters more complicated, according to the police investigation, the standard camera speed which Shochiku officially announced then was “14~16 fps”:

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

however, Shochiku once expressed the provocative opinion that the current projection speed, which at times doubled their standard camera speed, was definitely an imperative for creating an “expressive effect.” Perhaps, projections at the speed of 28 fps or 31 fps may be extreme cases, and pronouncements on the matter of the Exhibitor’s Association and Shochiku could have been an alibi for the industry to protect their interest. Yet, what kind of relationship was there between projection speed and camera speed? Or what was the most favored speed by the contemporary viewers? Although there are some more additional documents indicating that projection speed toward the end of the silent era ranged at least from 18 fps to 20 fps, none of them, unfortunately, refer to the camera speeds in those days. Furthermore, whereas some translated handbooks advised, “projection speed be a little faster than camera speed,” certain Japanese counterparts written around the same period advised the correspondence between projection and camera speeds. An official handbook published by Nikkatsu for movie theater owners strongly advised the use of the speedometer; and the standard projection speed for the silent films recommended in the handbook is at “90 feet per minute,” that is 24 fps, the same speed as for sound films. On the other hand, some local authorities selected a maximum projection speed slower than 21 fps, the police guideline projection speed; in the case of Osaka and Nara authorities even stated that the projection speed be “16fps.” Of course, there is no way of knowing how effective these official guidelines were in reality. If projection speed in the late silent era was moving closer to the sound speed, i.e., 24 fps, it is quite possible that local standards might have been already obsolete. If this was the case, however, the 1931 official announcement of Shochiku about camera speed to be “14~16 fps,” as mentioned above, becomes a little hard to fathom. At any event, we cannot at this point make any concrete decisions about the veracity or reliability of one set of facts over another. The only concrete finding we have that hasty judgment should be withheld while this investigation is ongoing.

i Kevin Brownlow, “Silent Films: What Was the Right Speed?,” Sight and Sound, Summer, 1980, 164-167.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Estudio e identificación de películas de los primeros años del cinematógrafo. La colección Sagarmínaga Encarni Rus Aguilar, Camille Blot-Wellens

Historical Column Chronique historique Columna histórica

Introducción Antonio María Sagarmínaga, empresario considerado como uno de los introductores del cine en España y organizador de proyecciones en la Sociedad Cultural bilbaína “El Sitio”, es quién reunió esta importantísima colección de películas primitivas que, en 1997, adquiriría la Filmoteca Española. La colección está compuesta, además de por un centenar largo de películas, por una linterna mágica y numerosas placas, así como dos proyectores cinematográficos, una bobinadora doméstica y algunos documentos (programas de festividades en Bilbao, reglamentos de teatros de la ciudad, entradas para sesiones de cinematógrafo, guías turísticas, un catálogo de 1915 de las películas distribuidas por la empresa Villaseca y Ledesma, y parte de la correspondencia que, entre octubre de 1897 y noviembre de 1898, intercambió Sagarmínaga con Louis Gaumont, Charles Pathé y Manuel Trigueros, diplomático residente en París y buen amigo del coleccionista). De esta correspondencia se deduce que Sagarmínaga debió comprar su primer aparato para la proyección de películas durante el mes de octubre de 1897. Además, su insistencia en la búsqueda de películas de cinco perforaciones por fotograma, hace pensar que se trataba de un aparato fabricado por Joly-Normandin1 o similar. El incendio del 4 de mayo de 1897 en el Bazar de la Charité, perjudicó la venta de películas para este tipo de aparatos, y quizá por ello (probablemente con fecha posterior a 1899) Sagarmínaga se vió obligado a comprar otro aparato adaptado para películas con perforaciones tipo Edison que era un formato más corriente y el que ofrecía la mayoría de las productoras. Se han recuperado noventa y cinco películas con cuatro perforaciones por fotograma (tipo Edison) y veinticuatro con cinco perforaciones por fotograma (tipo Joly-Normandin). La variedad y cantidad de las películas recopiladas por el coleccionista, permite hacernos una idea de los temas que se filmaban e incluían en las sesiones, en definitiva, de cómo era el espectáculo cinematográfico en aquella época (metraje, modo de proyección…)

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Antonino Sagarmínaga was one of the precursors of the cinematograph in Spain, he used to organize private projections in a cultural society of Bilbao and formed up a collection of movies, dated from 1896 to 1906, part of which was acquired by Filmoteca Española in 1997. The prints include 25 titles in a JolyNormandin format (5 perforations for still) and 95 with 4 perforations for still (type Edison); these ones are the subject of the study presented in this article. The movies, all apparently european productions, appeared in 19 boxes, edited with acetone splices in 200 meters reels with 5 to 8 prints in each. A third part of them is tinted in ambar. With the aim to avoid the excessive manipulation of the prints, we decided to scan the most representative stills of each movie, including the frame and the borders. The whole work of identification was made on these images, grouping them with the other data in Excel files. 19 prints conserved a title and in most of the boxes appeared notes with titles traduced in castilian. At the beginning, the identification was founded on the titles conserved but the titles traduced did not allow to find the original title with security. On the other hand, the marks introduced by the producers (in the first stills, in the image or in the borders) made possible the search of titles in the catalogues. The resemblance of numerous productions made that, sometimes, only the comparison with reproduced image (from an original catalogue or a recent publication) permitted the correct identification of the movie. The analysis of the images is very useful for identification, in this way, for example, the inscription of a placard allowed us to date and then identify Corso Cycliste (Pathé, 1898). The next step was to order the Excel files combining the producers of the identified movies following their physical characteristics. We could observe that it existed a relation between the physical characteristics and the producers (Pathé, Lumière, Méliès or Gaumont). This relation could be confirmed by other ways. A group of 25 prints, of similar

La Filmoteca se ha planteado una reconstrucción, lo más completa posible, de la colección recuperada. Ésta se basará en la restauración y reproducción de los materiales únicos o mejor conservados y en el intercambio con otros archivos de los materiales que aquí estén peor conservados o que hayan sido restaurados por ellos. A lo largo de este artículo se expondrán las hipótesis planteadas para la identificación de los materiales, aún pendientes de confirmar con total seguridad. 1. Inspección de la colección y primera identificación de las películas Alfonso del Amo, jefe de la Sección de Fondos Fílmicos e Investigación, inspeccionó el material a su llegada al Archivo realizando un primer acercamiento a la colección. A continuación, Irela Núñez del Pozo, archivista peruana colaboradora de la Filmoteca Española, inició la recopilación de datos necesarios para la identificación de las películas, centrándose en aquellas de formato Joly-Normandin. Irela Núñez sigue ocupándose de esta parte del trabajo y lo que aquí se expone se refiere únicamente a la investigación y catalogación de las películas tipo Edison. La inspección se realizó manualmente en una mesa bobinadora horizontal. Nos encontramos con películas de 35 mm2 en ByN en su mayoría, aunque una tercera parte de las noventa y cinco películas está teñida en distintas tonalidades de ámbar3. En principio todas son de producción europea y rodadas entre 1896 y 19064 según se ha comprobar a partir de las películas identificadas. Desde el punto de vista temático un gran porcentaje de los títulos representa escenas de ficción (cómicas) y vistas generales. La mayoría de las películas aparecieron, en grupos de cinco a ocho, montadas con acetona, en grandes rollos de 200 metros de longitud media. En otras cuatro cajas encontramos dos producciones de la productora inglesa Warwick (divididas entre 13 y 16 partes) y dos películas sueltas. Durante la inspección física, mediante un escáner adosado a la bobinadora, procedimos a la digitalización de los fotogramas más representativos desde el punto de vista temático, así como de todos aquellos datos que pudieran resultar relevantes para la identificación de las películas o para determinar su estado y preparar su reproducción (defectos producidos durante la elaboración de la copia, marcas de las productoras, dobles obturaciones, aplicación del barnizado, perforaciones, lesiones, empalmes y lesiones físicas y fotografiadas, etc). Todas las digitalizaciones se realizaron incluyendo las bandas de perforaciones y bordes de las películas y con una resolución que permitiera analizar los detalles más mínimos (900 ppp a un tamaño del 100%). Este procedimiento ha permitido que, una vez inspeccionadas las copias, todo el trabajo de catalogación pueda pueda proseguirse sin nuevas manipulaciones. Con los datos e imágenes extraídas se ha elaborado un archivo Excel que combina, por título, los datos identificativos (año de producción, productora, título, número de caja y situación de la película dentro del

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

physical characteristics (of which 7 conserve an original title in french) have not been associated to any producer yet. Four movies shot in Spain, although with similar physical characteristics, could not be identified for the moment.

rollo) con los fotogramas escaneados. Este archivo permite realizar distintos modelos de agrupación de las películas siguiendo las distintas hipótesis que se han ido planteando durante este trabajo.

Generally, although for the abundance of information, the identification of the great societies productions was easier.

Las noventa y cinco películas fueron depositadas en diecinueve latas, diferenciadas con distintos códigos: numérico (del 1 al 12), alfabético (A, B, C, E, G) y tres no etiquetadas. En el interior de casi todas las latas se encontró una nota de papel con un listado de títulos en castellano, su longitud correspondiente, un comentario sobre la proyección y una letra de ordenación (de la C a la V, faltando algunas). Este último dato nos hace pensar que la colección de origen está incompleta. Además la comparación de la ordenación primera con la de entrega nos hace pensar que la colección sufrió una manipulación posterior a la muerte del coleccionista. La presencia de celo5 en algunas películas refuerza esta hipótesis.

It is necessary to mark the difficulties to find original catalogues and that, unfortunately, most of their information (for example, about film making and apparatus) are not often reproduced in the recent publications. It would be absolutely necessary to put forward the elaboration of a compilation of the original catalogues held by the various archives. This work would make easier the searcher’s labour. It would be also very important to write down and publish the physical characteristics of the studied prints (perforations, frames, borders marks...); all the nitrate materials are condemned to death and their reproduction reduce the information of the materials, information that can be crucial for the knowledge of these years cinematography..

A partir de la numeración de las latas y las notas encontradas en su interior se elaboró una primera clasificación.

TÍTULOS ENCONTRADOS EN LAS NOTAS: Cuerpo de baile, Muñeco transformista, Prestidigitador, Las tres cabezas, Cabeza de Pierrot, Distracción Seltz al sombrero, Ladrón que se escurre, Pierrot y el diablo, La disputa, Muro derrumbado, Persecución accidentada, Alfonso XIII en Barcelona, Alfonso XIII en Guadalajara, Alfonso XIII en jura de bandera (Madrid), Carnaval en la Castellana, Montañas verdes en el agua, Caza del zorro, Prácticas de caballería italiana, Salto de caballos, Patos parisienses, Perro pelotari, Orden Notas en Metraje Ciclistas, El mono en el circo, Las actual papel total hermanas Daineff, Lucha de Caja 1 ----atletas, Salida de la iglesia en Bohemia, Danza Bohemia, Avenida Caja 2 M 200 de los Campos Eliseos, León XIII en Caja 3 C 199 el Vaticano, Regimiento de Caja 4 J 228 ingenieros, Regimiento imperial, Caja 5 ----Regimiento general, El gendarme Caja 6 ----atascado, Rally Paper, Regatas en el Caja 7 S No se ve Sena, Asalto al muro, Los barristas, Caja 8 H 210 Certamen ciclista, Bodas reales, Corrida regia en 1906, Encierro de Caja 9 R 189 los toros, Corrida de Fuentes, Caja 10 F 220 Guardia republicana, Llegada del Caja 12 L 203 tren, Salida de un taller, Visita a la Rollo 11 ----escuadra francesa, Guardia Caja A I 180 imperial, Mr. Faure en las carreras, Caja B V 205 Café y pasteles, El músico galante, Caja C ----El anunciador, La mariposa Caja E P 199 importuna, La siesta del portero, La ducha al (…), Los pescadores, El Caja G O pintor de fachadas, Provincianos Caja s/n A en París, Sidra espumosa, Caja s/n B Accidente náutico, Galanteos militares, El fumador, Fauno y las Bacantes, Quema de hierbas, La vaquería, Fiestas en Versalles, Caza del cierro en Inglaterra, Avenida del Bois de Boulogne, Fiesta nocturna en Michelet, Furgón a orillas del

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Antonino Sagarmínaga fut l’un des précurseurs du cinématographe en Espagne ; organisant des projections privées au siège d’une société culturelle de Bilbao, il forma une collection de films, datés entre 1896 et 1906, dont une partie fut acquise par La Filmoteca Española en 1997. Les copies comprennent 25 titres dans un format Joly-Normandin (cinq perforations par photogramme) et 95 avec quatre perforations par photogramme (de type Edison); ces dernières étant l’objet de l’étude présentée dans cet article. Les films, de production européenne, se trouvaient dans 19 boîtes, montés en bobines de 200 mètres, avec 5 à 8 films par bobine. Un tiers des films est teint en ambre. Afin d’éviter la manipulation excessive du matériel, nous avons scanné les photogrammes les plus représentatifs de chaque film, en y incluant le cadre et les marges. Tout le travail ultérieur d’identification a été réalisé sur ces images, en les regroupant avec toutes les informations supplémentaires dans des fichiers Excel. Une vingtaine de ces films avaient un intertitre de début et on trouva des notes avec des titres traduits en castillan dans de nombreuses boîtes. Dans un premier temps l’identification fut basée sur les titres conservés mais les titres en castillan ne nous ont pas aidé à trouver le titre original avec certitude. Les marques introduites par les sociétés de production (dans les premiers photogrammes, sur l’image au cours du film ou dans les marges) ont quelque fois permis la recherche de titres dans les catalogues originaux.

Mediterráneo, Furgón de (…), Gallina misteriosa…6 El que los títulos escritos estuvieran traducidas al castellano complicó la identificación de muchos de ellos. Muy pocas películas conservaban un rótulo de cabecera original que permitiera su identificación: La pêche miraculeuse, Les six soeurs Daineff, Défense d’afficher, Le laveur de devantures de 1902, Poursuite accidentée, Le pape au Vatican, Les barristes, Une partie de canot de 1903; y Dénicheurs d’oiseaux de 1904, producidas todas por Pathé. Estos rótulos están escritos siempre en mayúsculas con una fuente de letra básica, generalmente en el idioma original de producción, y suelen estar teñidos en un color diferente a la imagen. Pathé optó por teñirlos en rojo mientras que Warwick prefirió el azul. Ambos introducen su logotipo. Además Pathé añade una foto para su importante producción Maria-Antonieta y traduce sus distintos rótulos al castellano. En el caso de la productora inglesa Warwick, hemos encontrado un rótulo traducido al castellano (La caza de la zorra) y otro en italiano y alemán (Tor di Quinto – Die Centauren der Gegenwart!). La presencia de un rótulo no siempre garantiza la total identificación de la película. Así ocurre con películas como Les Bûcherons, Canards (...), La chasse à courre, Cidre mousseux, Faune et Bacchantes, Le marchand de nougat et le marchand d Un catálogo de Gaumont de 19058 especifica que la inserción del rótulo era opcional en el momento de la compra. En este catálogo se ofrecían dos metrajes diferentes de un mismo título, el común de 20 metros y una versión de 16,5 metros, cinco francos más barata.

La ressemblance entre les nombreux titres fit que, parfois même en connaissant la société de production, seule la comparaison avec une reproduction (dans un catalogue original ou une publication plus récente) permit une identification correcte du film.

En efecto, gran parte de las películas de Sagarmínaga tienen una longitud media de 20 metros, longitud muy común en los primeros años del cinematógrafo y sobre todo en los géneros elegidos por el coleccionista. Pensamos que la inserción de rótulo podría justificar estas diferencias de precio y longitud. Igualmente, la película La gallina maravillosa (Pathé, 1902) está conservada completa (con colas de inicio y de final) aunque sin rótulo, y mide 35,6 metros, mientras que en el catálogo Pathé, la longitud indicada es de 40 metros, incluyendo probablemente el título.

En nous basant sur les titres identifiés, nous avons regroupé des informations sur les films, le nom de la société de production et les

Para las películas sin rótulo respetamos los títulos indicados en las notas. Cuando no se encontró ninguna referencia al título, se le atribuyó un título provisional en función de su contenido.

L’analyse de l’image est importante pour l’identification, ainsi, par exemple, grâce à une pancarte du défilé nous avons pu dater puis identifier Corso Cycliste (Pathé, 1898).

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

caractéristiques physiques, dans un fichier Excel. Nous avons observé qu’il existait une relation entre les caractéristiques physiques des films et les sociétés de production (Pathé, Lumière, Méliès ou Gaumont). Cette relation put être confirmée par d’autres voies. Un groupe de vingt-cinq films de caractéristiques physiques similaires (dont sept présentent un intertitre de début original en français) n’ont, pour le moment, pu être associés à aucune société de production. De même, quatre films tournés en Espagne et présentant des caractéristiques physiques similaires, n’ont pu encore être identifiés.

2. Identificación a partir de datos históricos o marcas introducidas por las productoras La presencia en algunas películas de logotipos o marcas introducidos por las productoras9, ya sean marginales, grabadas en el soporte, estampadas en hueco, fotografiadas a partir del negativo o de cualquier otro tipo, nos fue de gran ayuda10 no sólo para identificar la productora sino también como garantía de la originalidad de la copia11. En Illusions Fantamagoriques de Méliès, hemos encontrado un número de catálogo y la firma grabados en el soporte, el sello de la productora estampado en hueco en los primeros fotogramas y una estrella perforada en el primer fotograma del negativo.

En général, grâce à l’abondance des informations existantes, il a été plus facile d’identifier les productions des grandes sociétés de l’époque.

Aparentemente, la Warwick Trading Co. estampa en hueco su logotipo en los primeros fotogramas y lo reproduce en los rótulos12.

Il est important de signaler les difficultés rencontrées pour localiser les catalogues originaux et que, malheureusement, seule une petite partie des nombreuses informations qu’ils offrent (par exemple, sur les méthodes et les équipements de tournage) est reproduite dans les publications récentes.

No hemos observado marcas en las primeras películas Pathé excepto un cartón con las iniciales “PF” colocado en el fondo del decorado de Paysans à Paris. Sin embargo en las películas posteriores a 1902, encontramos varios tipos de marcas: el sello de la firma estampado en hueco en los últimos fotogramas; un número (del uno al diez), también estampado en hueco, pero en los primeros fotogramas. A partir del 15 de abril de 1905 Pathé introduce una fecha estampada en los márgenes junto con el nombre de la productora13. Esta marca nos indica el año de tiraje de la copia que no siempre coincide con el año de producción. Por ejemplo, la copia conservada de Les six soeurs Daineff data de 1905, cuando la película se estrenó por primera vez en 1902.

Il est absolument nécessaire d’envisager l’élaboration d’une compilation des catalogues originaux conservés dans les archives. Ce travail faciliterait beaucoup la tâche des chercheurs. De même, il serait très important de compiler et de publier les caractéristiques physiques des films (perforations, cadres, marques marginales...). Tous ces films nitrate étant condamnés à disparaître et leur reproduction réduisant considérablement l’information contenue dans les matériels, il est impératif de garder une trace de cette information, cruciale pour l’étude de la cinématographie de ces années.

En ocasiones conocer la productora no fué suficiente para identificar la película. En efecto, las similitudes, tanto en los títulos como en los temas tratados por las distintas productoras, hacen que cada dato pueda resultar esencial en el momento de la identificación14. Por ejemplo, para identificar la película Cuerpo de baile (título atribuido), contábamos con una marca introducida por la productora (Pathé). Buscando en los catálogos encontramos varios títulos aplicables. Sólo una ilustración encontrada en la edición española del catálogo de 1904 permitió identificarla como Gran bailete (Grand Ballet, nº 1125, 1904). De la misma forma, Sortie d’église en Bohème (Pathé, hacia 1896, nº 307) fue identificada gracias a una ilustración15. Por otro lado, entre los títulos asignados, se encontraba él de Batalla en

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

1 Henri Joly comenzó trabajando con Pathé, pero rápidamente, a finales de 1895, los dos hombres se separaron. Henri Joly se asocia entonces con Ernest Normandin y patentaron juntos un aparato mejorado (L. MANNONI, Le grand art de la lumière et de l’ombre - archéologie du cinéma , Col. “réf”, Ed. Nathan, París 1995, p. 403-404 ; J. et C. RITTAUD-HUTINET, Dictionnaire des cinématographes en France (1896-1897), Ed. Honoré Champion, París 1999) 2 Al medir la contracción de las copias, hemos observado unos valores de contracción transversal muy altos que inducen a pensar en la posibilidad de que las primeras películas tuvieran un ancho inferior a 35 mm. En cuanto a la contracción longitudinal, el valor medio encontrado oscila alrededor del 2% (tomando como referencia una longitud de 190 mm equivalente a 40 perforaciones). 3 Color que, según Luciano Berriatúa, mejoraba la calidad de la proyección. 4 Hasta 1907 las copias son objeto de venta y no de alquiler (J. MITRY, Histoire du cinéma: art et industrie, I: 1895-1914, Editions Universitaires, París 1967, p. 94). Esto puede explicar que no hayamos encontrado ningún título producido con fecha posterior a 1906. 5 Inventado por Richard Drew y puesto en venta por la empresa 3M en 1929. Quo 78 (marzo 2002), p. 42 6Muchos de estos títulos fueron incluidos en un listado publicado por Jon Letamendi y Jean-Claude Seguin en Los orígenes del cine en Bizkaia y sus pioneros, Ed. Filmoteca VascaEuskadiko Filmategia, Donosita-San Sebastián 1998, pp. 246 y 247. 7 Por el tipo de rótulo, sospechamos que estas siete películas provienen de una misma productora. 8 Consultado en la Cinémathèque Gaumont en París (original conservado en el Filmmuseum de Amsterdam) 9 La ausencia de protección de derechos de autor permitía el plagio. Aparentemente, en el caso de Francia, no existe depósito sistemático de guiones en la Biblioteca Nacional hasta 1906. A partir de esta fecha, algunas productoras depositan una idea de guión que enriquecen, después del rodaje, con una tira de papel con algunos fotogramas de la película. Antes los depósitos eran casuales y no generalizados. Por ejemplo, desde agosto de 1897, con el fin de garantizar su autoría durante cinco años, Lumière deposita sus

la nieve, producido tanto por Pathé como por Lumière. Las descripciones de ambos catálogos no nos permitían reconocer la productora por ser demasiado generales: Nº 217 Bataille de neige. Un grand nombre de personnages se battent à coups de boules de neige. Au milieu de cette mêlée, survient un cycliste sur lequel tout le monde lance des boules et qui finit par rouler par terre; il se relève et s’esquive vivement avec sa bicyclette et la bataille reprend de plus belle. (Lumière, 1897)16 Nº 623/589 Bataille de neige. Des dragons se battent à coups de boules de neige, surviennent des bicyclistes qui, voulant traverser le groupe, sont assaillis et, après plusieurs chutes, parviennent enfin à s’échapper. (Pathé, 18961899) Nº 597 Bataille de neige. L’arrivée malencontreuse d’un malheureux cycliste au milieu des batailleurs ajoute la note comique à cette scène très mouvementée. (Pathé, 1900)17 La reproducción de esta película en el CD-Rom del catálogo La Production cinématographique des Frères Lumière guardaba un gran parecido con la película de la colección pero, por no incluir las características técnicas, no era suficiente para asegurar su identificación. Afortunadamente, en Filmoteca Española, se conservaba una copia de Batalla en la nieve de los Hermanos Lumière. La comparación de las dos copias nos demostró que la película adquirida por Sagarmínaga era una producción Pathé. En otros casos, el análisis del contenido nos aportó algún dato que permitió establecer una fecha de rodaje. Por ejemplo, gracias a una pequeña pancarta, dedujimos que Certamen Ciclista fue rodada durante la Fête des Fleurs de 1898. Con esta información, pudimos buscar títulos aplicables en varios catálogos de productoras de la época. El único título posible era Corso Cycliste (Pathé Frères, nº 318).

3. Identificación a partir del estudio de las características físicas del material Partiendo de las primeras películas identificadas18, reunimos las distintas películas por su forma de ventanilla y comprobamos que

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

vistas en la Greffe du Conseil des Prud’hommes de Lyon (M. AUBERT; J.C. SEGUIN (sous la dir.), La Production cinématographique des Frères Lumières, Ed. CNC – Mémoires de cinéma, París 1996, p. 453), mientras Méliès, a partir de la primavera de 1903, deposita en la Library of Congress de Washington una reproducción positiva de la película completa y a partir de 1904, una foto y un cartón de copyright incluido en el decorado (AA. VV., Essai de reconstitution du catalogue français de la Star-Film suivi d’une analyse catalographique des films de Georges Méliès recensés en France, Ed. Publications du Service des Archives du Film – CNC, Bois d’Arcy 1981 , p. 6 y 8) 10 Incluso, la variedad de las marcas introducidas por una misma productora a lo largo de los años puede ayudar a datar el año de la copia. 11 Dato reforzado por el nivel generacional de las copias, que suelen ser de segunda generación. 12 Gracias al sello pudimos observar que Warwick tenía una sucursal en París: la Warwick Continental Trading Co. 13 Catálogo Pathé de 1907 (edición francesa), no obstante, según A. Gaudreault y H. Brown, la fecha desaparece a partir de 1906 (A. GAUDREAULT (sous la dir.), Pathé 1900. Fragments d’une filmographie analytique du cinéma des premiers temps, Ed. Les Presses de l’Université, Laval 1993, 39-40, H. BROWN, Physical Characteristics of Early Films as Aids to Identification, Ed. FIAF, Bruselas 1990, p. 9) 14 Estos problemas están expuestos en el artículo de R. WORLAND, “The Sulphur Springs, Texas Early Films Discovery”, Journal of Film Preservation 51, p. 59 15 J. KERMABON (sous la dir.), Pathé. Premier empire du cinéma, Ed. Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris 1994, p. 50 16 La Production cinématographique des Frères Lumière, p. 109 17 BOUSQUET, Catalogue Pathé, 1996, p. 851 y 859 18 La identificación de las películas Sortie d’usine y Démolition d’un mur de los Hermanos Lumière o La poule merveilleuse de Pathé era evidente. 19 Sospechamos que estas películas fueron las primeras producidas por Pathé. 20 Y, en dos películas de 1902 y una de 1904, observamos una marca en

existía una relación entre ésta y la forma de las perforaciones. Esta asociación resultó bastante eficaz para la identificación de las productoras. Estudiando todas las películas identificadas como Pathé, observamos una diferencia clara entre las características técnicas según el año de producción: 1896-1899. Las películas tienen los márgenes negros o transparentes, un nervio estrecho y una perforación negativa circular de tipo Lumière, fotografiada entre la tercera y cuarta perforación. Las perforaciones positivas son pequeñas y en el caso de las copias con borde transparente19 parecen irregulares. En general apreciamos un ligero desplazamiento de la ventanilla hacia uno de los márgenes posiblemente debido a una diferencia de anchura entre la copia positiva y el negativo original, según hemos podido comprobar en las películas con bordes expuestos. 1900-1901. Las esquinas exteriores de la ventanilla se redondean y su contorno es de mayor grosor, los márgenes son transparentes y las perforaciones positivas son de un tamaño ligeramente mayor y más regulares. A partir de 1902. El marco de la ventanilla es más regular (de dos tipos: con ángulos más o menos rectos o suavemente redondeados)20 y los márgenes siguen siendo transparentes. Además de la perforación negativa tipo Lumière, situada a la altura de la primera perforación positiva, se aprecia una reperforación del negativo con forma rectangular21. Según esta distinción por la forma de la ventanilla, se identificó la primera versión de Une bonne histoire de Pathé rodada entre 1896 y 1899 (nº 589 del catálogo) de la que se rodó en 1903 una segunda versión modificada pero guardando la misma sinopsis (nº 727)22. Siguiendo estas observaciones pudimos identificar, casi con total seguridad, veinte de las treinta y cinco películas de posible producción Pathé23.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

forma de guión entre la segunda y la tercera perforación por ambos lados en el marco de la ventanilla. 21 Sabemos que en 1903 Pathé, con las patentes de Joly y Continsouza, modificó y mejoró una de sus cámaras (J. MITRY, Histoire du cinéma: art et industrie, I: 1895-1914, Editions Universitaires, París 1967, p. 96) 22 En efecto, al tirar muchas copias, los negativos se estropeaban con relativa rapidez (B. CHARDERE, Lumières sur Lumière, p. 113). Hasta los años veinte, no existía película especial para el tiraje de internegativos de calidad y las copias se hacían directamente a partir del negativo de rodaje. Hemos observado varias copias tiradas a partir de negativos ya usados. Para remediar este problema, las productoras volvían a rodar las vistas, aprovechándolo para adaptar las intrigas antiguas al gusto del público. 23 Esta identificación fue confirmada por Henri Bousquet, a quién agradecemos toda la ayuda prestada. 24 Aparentemente, esta película será utilizada como primera parte de una segunda versión, Nouvelles luttes extravagantes, rodada en 1900. Essai de reconstitution, p. 20-21 25 Una tarde inolvidable, tomando pastas y café con Marie-Hélène Leherissey-Méliès, no sólo nos permitió identificar con certeza estas películas sino también acercarnos un poco más al mundo del mago. 26 Esta franja fue también observada en una copia de Débarquement et feu de mousqueterie (1898) de Lumière (con perforación positiva Lumière) conservada en Filmoteca Española y en las copias de Les dernières cartouches, Mort de Marat, Les tribulations d’une concierge (todas de 1897) conservadas en la Filmoteca de la Generalitat de Catalunya (CD-Rom del catálogo Fons de Nitrats de la Filmoteca, vol.I: Films de ficció, Barcelona 2001). 27 Finalmente identificada con la ayuda de Eric Le Roy (Service des Archives du Film – CNC). 28 Treasures of Film Archives, reproducido en un CD-Rom de la FIAF 29 Ambos títulos (Nº 4480 y Nº 4476 respectivamente) fuera del catálogo Lumière, han sido identificados por Nathalie Morena (Association Frères Lumière). 30 Inventor, entre otros del cine sonoro, que trabajó con Félix Mesguish, operador de los Hermanos Lumière. B. CHARDERE, Le Roman des Lumière, p. 405; Ch. FORD, Auguste Baron. Inventeur et martyr, Ed. CNC, Bois d’Arcy 1985

Au réfectoire, Automobiles fleuries, Baigneurs et plongeurs, Bois de Boulogne, Brûleuses d’herbes, Danse bohémienne, Fantaisie cycliste, Garde républicaine à cheval, L’illusioniste, Laveuses en Bohême, Métamorphoses d’un magicien, Montagnes russes nautiques, Le Président Félix Faure aux courses, Réception d’Alphonse XIII à Barcelone, Les régates de juillet 1899 sur la Marne, Le repas infernal, Le singe voltigeur, Voyage dans un train En el caso de las cuatro películas de Méliès, cuya identificación fue facilitada por la introducción de marcas de productora, contamos con una forma única de ventanilla, probablemente por tratarse de películas producidas entre 1898 y 1899: Un homme de têtes, Illusions fantasmagoriques, L’illusioniste fin-desiècle y Luttes extravagantes24. El principal problema para identificar estas películas fue la similitud temática entre los distintos títulos del catálogo25. Para las producciones Lumière, este método nos permitió formar un grupo de películas rodadas entre 1896 y 1898: Sortie d’usine, Démolition d’un mur, Hallebardiers de la Reine, Caravane de chameaux y Encierro de los toros. Estas películas están caracterizadas por un nervio doble (causado por la superposición de la ventanilla al tirar la copia) y una franja oscura a lo largo de tres perforaciones en uno de los márgenes26. Esta última característica aparece igualmente en Rally Paper y Le moustique récalcitrant, ambas de 1905. Mientras la primera película fue identificada gracias al título anotado por Sagarmínaga, la segunda, a pesar de tener las mismas características, no pudo ser identificada debido a la diferencia del título original con el título de la nota (La mariposa importuna)27. Siguiendo el mismo criterio, agrupamos veintinueve películas caracterizadas por sus perforaciones regulares en forma de barril, por la ausencia de perforación negativa de tipo Lumière fotografiada en los bordes (excepto en los títulos conservados) y una ventanilla casi sin nervio, más ancha de lo habitual (que incluso, en algunas, se extiende hasta la zona de las perforaciones). Gran parte de ellas están teñidas en un mismo tono de ámbar. Dos películas tienen el mismo forillo, en otras observamos decorados muy parecidos y siete de ellas conservan un rótulo original similar.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

31 Los títulos de estas películas fueron atribuidos según las notas encontradas en las latas. 32 Un dup-negativo de sexta generación (35mm) de una película muy parecida se conserva en el archivo del Nodo bajo el título Globos de ingenieros en Guadalajara (nº AR 39). 33 Con la ayuda de Jorge Pantoja, documentalista de Filmoteca Española, gran conocedor del mundo taurino, pudimos reconocer la plaza de toros como la Real Plaza de la Villa de Aranjuez. Títulos pendientes de ser totalmente identificados: Alfonso XIII en Guadalajara, Asalto al muro, Avenida de los Campos Elíseos, Banco del parque, Baño de colegiales, Cabeza de Pierrot, Canards…, Carnaval en la Castellana, Cidre Mousseux, Corral de aves, Corrida de Fuentes, Corrida regia de 1906, Desfile de bienvenida, Distracción Seltz al sombrero, El músico galante, El rebaño, Faune et Bacchantes, Gendarme atascado, Guardia Imperial, Jura de bandera, La chasse à courre, La ducha al…, La siesta del portero, La vaqueria, Ladrón que se escurre, Le Marchand de Nougat et le Marchand de Coco, Les bûcherons, Llegada del tren, Militar saltando cerco, Militares a caballo, Petites causes grands effets, Galanteos militares, Pierrot y el diablo, Quema de hierbas, Regimiento de ingenieros, Restitución del vaso de vino, Riego general, Taberna bretona, Visita a la escuadra francesa 34 Physical Characteristics of Early Films as Aids to Identification, Ed. FIAF, Brusselas 1990 35 Las dos películas vendidas como históricas son en realidad reconstrucciones: Le Pape Léon XIII au Vatican y María-Antonieta. En esta última, solo encontramos siete de las nueve partes que componían la película integra. Sospechamos que las partes que relatan el episodio de la Revolución Francesa no fueron adquiridas por el coleccionista. 36 Las películas catalogadas como documentales (aunque este término haya sido utilizado por primera vez en los años veinte para hablar de una película de Flaherty, según C. FERNANDEZ CUENCA en “Fructuoso Gelabert. Fundador de la Cinematografía Española”, Cuadernos de la Filmoteca Nacional de España 2, p. 20) se caracterizan por el largo metraje y la intencionalidad en el montaje (La caza de la zorra, Tor di quinto, Rally Paper…)

Por la similitud con Service bien fait (1910), película recientemente identificada en Filmoteca Española, y por la existencia de un mismo título Petites causes, grands effets (1913)28, pensábamos en un principio que se trataba de producciones Gaumont. En nuestro viaje a París en búsqueda de documentación, visitamos la Cinémathèque Gaumont y entre la escasa documentación conservada sobre este período, pudimos consultar varios catálogos de la productora de 1905 a 1907. Gracias a las ilustraciones de este último, pudimos identificar dos de estas películas: La charité du prestidigitateur y Chien jouant à la balle (seguramente de 1905). Aún nos quedaban otros veintisiete títulos de los cuales no teníamos ningún dato adicional. Continuando con la búsqueda de documentación, enviamos un listado ilustrado de todas las películas de la colección, identificadas y no identificadas, al Service des Archives du Film – CNC (Bois d’Arcy). Sorprendentemente identificaron dos de estas veintisiete películas como producciones Lumière: Ballet sur scène avec orchestre y Arrivée d’un train à wagon à étage, cuyo año de producción desconocemos29. Aparentemente, la primera no es una vista de Lumière sino de Auguste Baron30. Finalmente, agrupamos cuatro películas por tener perforaciones totalmente rectangulares, muy distintas a las observadas hasta el momento. Todas ellas fueron rodadas en España, concretamente en la provincia de Madrid y alrededores31: Alfonso XIII en Guadalajara32, Jura de bandera, Carnaval en la Castellana y Corrida de Fuentes33. En la segunda y tercera, observamos un número de cuatro dígitos perforados, unos al final del negativo (9101 ó 1016) y otros al principio de la copia positiva (1411). Estos últimos van acompañados de dos signos en forma de flor a ambos lados. Todos estos títulos tienen los bordes negros excepto Corrida de Fuentes que tiene generalmente los bordes transparentes. Actualmente continuamos con la búsqueda de información para poder identificar la colección completa34 así como con la búsqueda de copias de estos mismos títulos conservadas en otros archivos. Por supuesto, estamos abiertas a cualquier sugerencia relacionada con el cine en sus primeros años.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Conclusión Como se ha podido observar, resultó más fácil identificar las películas procedentes de las principales productoras de la época, en gran parte porque han sido objeto de numerosos estudios y publicaciones. No obstante, queremos señalar la dificultad para encontrar los catálogos originales. En los pocos que hemos podido consultar hemos encontrado informaciones interesantes no sólo para la identificación del material sino también para su mejor conocimiento: condiciones y precios de venta, marcas sobre el material, opciones de coloreado o inserción de rótulos… Además, en el catálogo Gaumont de octubre de 1907, hemos encontrado una introducción histórica presentándonos los distintos aparatos utilizados por la firma desde su creación. Lamentamos que este tipo de datos no sea siempre reproducido en las recientes publicaciones. Por ello, planteamos la necesidad de elaborar una recopilación de todos los catálogos originales y documentos de la época conservados entre los distintos Archivos, facilitando así la labor del investigador. Por otra parte, la importancia de los datos físicos a la hora de identificar una película, ya demostrada por Harold Brown35, nos lleva a insistir en la necesidad de reproducir imágenes de cada título con el mayor número de datos (es decir, márgenes, perforaciones, forma de la ventanilla…) en las publicaciones actuales. No debemos olvidar que se trata de material nitrato, es decir condenado a desaparecer, y que con cada nueva reproducción se reduce considerablemente la información contenida en los materiales originales, información que es crucial para un mejor conocimiento de la producción cinematográfica de estos años.

Anexos Anexo 1. Clasificación de las películas de la colección por productoras y año de producción

1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 Desconocido TOTAL

Pathé 2 15 1 1 1 1

Lumière Méliès Gaumont Warwick Desconocida 3 1 2 1 2

6 4 4

1 2

TOTAL 28

2 9

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

1 3 5

39 39

6 4 5 4 1 44 94

Anexo 2. Clasificación de las películas de la colección por género

5 FICCIÓN

Al clasificar las películas de la colección por géneros, pensamos que la selección adquirida por Sagarmínaga representa bastante bien la oferta del mercado cinematográfico en aquel momento.

5,3 %

Cómicas

22 23,4 %

Trucos

40,4 %

11,7 %

DEPORTE y BAILE

4,3 %

ESCENAS MILITARES

4,3 %

ESCENAS HISTÓRICAS

2,1 %

ACTUALIDADES

7,4 %

29,8 %

VISTAS CORRIDAS

3,2 %

DOCUMENTALES

6,4 %

VARIOS TOTAL

2,1 %

100 %

Nota: El grupo de 25 películas que se señala como “pendiente de identificar” en la nota 7 y en la última parte del artículo, ha sido recientemente identificado a través de artículos encontrados en la prensa de la época.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Recuperación y restauración de nuestra Alma provinciana Rito Alberto Torres, Jorge Mario Durán

Historical Column Chronique historique Columna histórica

Cartel de la película Alma provinciana

Para Clementina Pedraza, la mejor película del periodo silente del cine colombiano era su Alma provinciana. Así lo expresó en 1973, en una entrevista concedida a Hernando Salcedo Silva, quién en ese momento y desde hacia tiempo, andaba en busca de las raíces del cine colombiano, una obsesión a la que dedicó toda su vida. Gracias al entusiasmo y empeño de don Hernando, se pudieron encontrar muchas obras de los pioneros de nuestro cine, hoy consideradas valiosos documentos. Nadie podrá negar que su trabajo al frente de la Cinemateca Colombiana es el que nos hace posible ver hoy los primeros ensayos de nuestro cine. Clementina Pedraza, la viuda de Félix J. Rodríguez, guardó como un tesoro, por más de cincuenta años, la única copia que sobrevivió de Alma provinciana, y es por eso que tal vez, es la más completa de las películas que se conservan de la primera etapa del cine colombiano. Ella y su familia entendían que, más allá del valor sentimental que tenían esos diez rollos de nitrato, lo realmente importante era la trascendencia histórica de su contenido. Hoy, Alma provinciana se nos revela como una obra plena de logros artísticos, producto de la aguda percepción de su creador, quien puso en escena un drama de fuerte contenido social, donde se muestra cómo las contradicciones entre las diferentes clases son posibles de resolver gracias al amor. Era la obra de un inquieto personaje, escritor poeta, pintor, orfebre y el único de los pioneros de nuestro cine que adquirió cierta experiencia en la producción del arte mudo, trabajando precisamente donde más rápido se estaba desarrollando, la costa oeste de los Estados Unidos. Félix J. Rodríguez fue el alma de Alma provinciana. A la edad de 28 años escribió, dirigió, hizo cámara, diseño y construyó escenografía e iluminación, e incluso, molesto por el trabajo de los laboratorios en Estados Unidos, el mismo reveló una segunda copia de la película en un laboratorio que adaptó en su casa. Aunque Rodríguez contó con un reducido presupuesto, supo aprovechar al máximo sus modestos conocimientos sobre fotografía y “técnica cinematográfica”. Obsesionado por el realismo, insistió en que las locaciones fueran desprovistas de artificio, sin telones de fondo ni interiores decorados y ahí precisamente reside uno de los mayores atractivos de la película, quería ambientar un drama romántico en un ambiente natural. Así pues, don Félix no usó estudios - en ese momento, en el teatro Olimpia los Di Domenico ya tenían uno adaptado donde se rodó Aura o las violetas- y por el contrario, para las escenas de interiores, acudió a las casas de los amigos que, según su

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

The article provides information about the recovery and restoration of an important film of the silent period of Columbian cinema, Alma provinciana (1926), and tells the story of the adventurous life of its director. Félix Joaquín Rodríguez was born in 1897, year at which cinema arrived in Columbia, and tragically died in 1931, committing suicide after becoming a lawyer. Alma provinciana is believed to be the eighth Columbian long feature film production. Entirely shot in the country, with Columbian casting, the film was released more than 75 years ago, in the Teatro Faenza, and was a big success. Félix J. Rodríguez was the soul of Alma provinciana. At the age of 28, he wrote, directed and shot the only movie he made. He constructed his own scenography and took care of the lighting. He first processed the original in California, developed further copies at his home at a later stage, and made his best out of the limited resources he disposed of, fully taking advantage of the knowledge he acquired in photography and “cinema techniques.” Obsessed by the objectivity of images, he insisted in chosing natural locations, avoiding artificial backgrounds and decorations. He wanted to shoot a romantic drama in a natural scenery. The widow of don Félix, Clementina Pedraza, kept the film for more than 50 years as a family treasure. She understood that the value of the film went far beyond the sentimental attachment of her family to these ten reels of nitrate. The real interest of the film was the historical data it provided. Today, Alma provinciana is revealed as an oeuvre plenty of artistical achievements, produce of the sensibility of its creator. It is the work of a writer, poet and painter who was the only Columbian pioneer that acquired a certain dexterity in the art of silent cinema, thanks in particular to his journeys to New York and San Francisco. The only print that survived was donated by the heirs of Félix J. Rodríguez to the Cinemateca Colombiana in 1980. In 1997, rolls 3, 4 and 5 of the nitrate source were restored in co-operation with the

esposa, gustosamente fueron prestadas para la película. Los exteriores fueron rodados en la capital, en la sabana y en los páramos de Santander. Los paisajes que se ven son los alrededores de Bogotá, un hermoso registro de esa sabana que ahora está tapizada de flores bajo los plásticos de los invernaderos, la capital de entonces hoy prácticamente borrada. Vistas hoy en día, impactan las imágenes de la ciudad desaparecida o transformada: la Calle Florián, el Capitolio Nacional vestido para el carnaval, delineado por cascadas de luces; la catedral y los billares aledaños; el edificio Lievano y sus almacenes -hoy convertido en Palacio-; el parque del Centenario - hoy de La independencia- con La Rebeca, el Trianón, el busto de don José María Vergara y Vergara y los cerros al fondo y la Escuela de Medicina en la plaza del Voto Nacional, entre otros. No quedaron por fuera los eventos y las gentes de la época. Es particularmente interesante el registro de los carnavales estudiantiles que se realizaron para festejar el aniversario de la ciudad en 1925. Y si las cosas fueron, la aristocracia y sus maneras, salvo leves diferencias son y serán, por eso las fiestas de antaño, los vestidos y algunas de las costumbres más peculiares, como la de “bautizar” las muñecas de los niños de los hijos de los más adinerados, también están ahí, en Alma provinciana. Las protagonistas de algunas películas colombianas de la época eran en su mayoría extranjeras. Esto se debía, por una parte, al tradicionalismo familiar que impedía que las jovencitas de la sociedad aparecieran en pantalla y por otra, al espíritu de quienes invertían en cine, que no eran ni artistas ni soñadores, sino por el contrario industriales y comerciantes que buscaban que las películas fueran un producto. Para la muestra en 1926, año del estreno de Alma provinciana, aparecía en una carátula de la Revista Cromos la actriz italiana Lyda Restivo, conocida como Mara Meva. La Meva fue una estrella traída por la Cali Film Company y subcontratada por la SICLA de los Hermanos Di Domenico para protagonizar El amor, el deber y el crimen, que como casi todas las películas nacionales del momento, incluida Alma provinciana, estaban marcadas por la influencia de los melodramas italianos que llegaban al país. Sin embargo, Alma provinciana no era una iniciativa de acaudalados. Félix J. Rodríguez invitó a sus amigos para que actuaran en la película, donde incluso aparece al final, quién posteriormente sería considerado el pionero de la aviación colombiana, el también santandereano Camilo Daza. Curiosamente, aunque Rodríguez no actúa, aparece con sus ojos fijos y su expresión desencantada en las primeras imágenes, como presentando su obra. Fueron pues los compadres, actores sin experiencia, quienes gracias a los ensayos dirigidos por él, pusieron en escena Alma provinciana. A diferencia de Bajo el cielo antioqueño, cuyo rodaje según Luis Alberto Álvarez, fue un continuo carnaval donde actuaba lo más selecto de la sociedad antioqueña, las “estrellas” de Alma provinciana eran gente común y corriente, personajes muy parecidos a los de la película, con los que don Félix quizá, pretendía también alcanzar el ansiado realismo. Ya que la empresa era filial y a riesgo compartido, las acciones y los dividendos de la misma fueron

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Fundación Cinemateca Nacional de Venezuela. The other reels had to wait until 1999, and were restored in the laboratories of the Filmoteca de la UNAM, thanks to the support of the Ministry of Culture via the Columbian Direction of the Cinematography and the Spanish Memoria Compartida II program (a joint AECI - FIAF project) .

repartidos en partes iguales entre el realizador y el elenco artístico. La única copia que sobrevivió de la película, fue donada a la Cinemateca Colombiana por los herederos de Félix J. Rodríguez el 13 de octubre de 1980 y pasaron veintiún años para contar con una copia restaurada para exhibición de la misma, a pesar de los esfuerzos que se hicieron desde el mismo momento de la donación, contactando instituciones en el país y en el extranjero, sin obtener respuestas concretas que permitieran iniciar el costoso pero absolutamente necesario proceso de preservación. En 1997, más de setenta años después del rodaje de Alma provinciana, los rollos 3, 4 y 5 del original en nitrato de celulosa que habían soportado el paso el tiempo, estaban a punto de perderse definitivamente y con ellos la parte más importante de la película. Así pues, la Fundación Patrimonio Fílmico Colombiano, que había recibido el legado de la Cinemateca Colombiana, dio la voz de alerta y gracias al apoyo del Ministerio de Comunicaciones, se enviaron estos materiales para su restauración y copiado en los laboratorios de la Fundación Cinemateca Nacional de Venezuela. Los demás rollos, que por las afortunadas casualidades del destino estaban en mejores condiciones, tuvieron que esperar hasta 1999, cuando el Ministerio de Cultura a través de la Dirección de Cinematografía aportó los recursos que faltaban para restaurar y preservar nuestra Alma provinciana, en los laboratorios de la Filmoteca de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, contando también con el apoyo del programa Memoria Compartida II un proyecto de la FIAF (Federación Internacional de Archivos Fílmicos) y la Cooperación Española. Don Félix J. Rodríguez, un entusiasta soñador Félix Joaquín Rodríguez perteneció a esa extraña raza de los soñadores y aventureros, de los inquietos y quizá como las imágenes del cine “hiper-kinéticos”. Fue parte de esa minoría de idealistas que quisieron hacer cine en un país de grandes aldeas, donde apenas algunos conocían el avión y la radio lentamente estaba llegando. Creció en Santander y aún sin terminar el bachillerato en el colegio del cual su padre era rector, buscó camino, tal vez por que no le bastaba el horizonte que tenia frente a sus ojos. Dueño de sí mismo, Inició con su hermano un gran viaje, un periplo que arrancó bajando por el Río Magdalena desde Barrancabermeja y que terminó también en el Magdalena, cuando él, a su buen parecer, así lo quiso quince años después. Le encantaba devorar horizontes y siguió río abajo. Cuando llegó a Barranquilla, se embarcó hacia Panamá y de ahí, haciendo múltiples escalas en el Caribe, llegó a Nueva York. Para este personaje que, según su esposa Clementina Pedraza, estaba poseído de una sed inextinguible de conocimiento, los rascacielos del Nueva York de 1915 no le fueron suficientes y junto con su hermano decidió atravesar Estados Unidos de costa a costa, para llegar a San Francisco, buscando, probando, conociendo, untándose de todo lo que en ese momento estaba allí en ebullición. Esa curiosidad lo llevó, como a muchos de los inmigrantes de la época, a participar como extra para películas, atraído como una luciérnaga por la fabulosa novedad del cine.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Cet article décrit les étapes du sauvetage et de la restauration d’un important film de l’ère du cinéma muet colombien; Alma provinciana (1926) et dépeint la vie aventureuse de son réalisateur. Félix Joaquín Rodríguez est né en 1897, date des débuts du cinéma en Colombie, et se suicide en 1931. On pense que Alma provinciana est le huitième long métrage produit en Colombie. Tourné entièrement dans le pays, avec des acteurs colombiens, ce film est sorti pour la première fois il y a plus de 75 ans au Teatro Faenza. Félix J. Rodríguez était l’âme de Alma provinciana. C’est à l’âge de 28 ans qu’il écrivit, réalisa et tourna son seul et unique film. Il a mis sur pied sa propre scénographie et s’est également occupé des lumières. Il envoya l’original en Californie et développa plus tard quelques copies chez lui, palliant ainsi les maigres ressources dont il disposait par sa connaissance de la photographie et des techniques de cinéma. Obsédé par l’objectivité de ses images, son intention était de filmer un drame romantique dans un décor naturel. La veuve de don Félix, Clementina Pedraza, garda le film pendant 50 ans comme un trésor familial. Elle comprit que la valeur de ces dix bobines de nitrate dépassait largement l’attachement sentimental que sa famille y portait. Le véritable intérêt de ce film résidant dans son témoignage historique. Aujourd’hui, Alma provinciana est considéré comme une oeuvre artistique aboutie, produit de la sensibilité de son créateur. Ce film est l’œuvre d’un écrivain, d’un poète et d’un peintre, pionnier colombien de l’art du cinéma muet acquis lors de séjours à New York et à San Francisco. Les héritiers de Félix J. Rodríguez ont fait don de la dernière copie connue de ce film à la Cinemateca Colombiana en 1980. En 1997, les rouleaux 3, 4 et 5 de l’original nitrate ont été restaurés en coopération avec la Fundación Cinemateca Nacional du Venezuela. Les autres rouleaux ont été restaurés en 1999 dans les laboratoires de la Filmoteca de la UNAM, grâce à l’aide

Pero él fue más allá y de extra, pasó a cargar cables, para conocer y aprender todo acerca de esa maravilla que eran las fotografías en movimiento. Algo mágico que al parecer lo perseguía desde el año de su nacimiento,1897, fecha que coincide con la llegada del cine a Colombia. La película se devuelve y en 1919 Félix J. Rodríguez regresa al país con sus ahorros invertidos en un proyector de cine y algunas películas, para dedicarse a mostrar la nueva maravilla en los pueblos de Cundinamarca, Boyacá y Santander. Durante algún tiempo estuvo radicado en El Socorro, donde alquiló el teatro Manuela Beltrán para la exhibición de películas y terminó su bachillerato. Luego se trasladó a Bogotá para ingresar en la Universidad Libre y obtener el título de abogado. No se tienen datos que permitan asegurar que Don Félix haya continuado con la exhibición de películas en Bogotá. Sin embargo, su vena creadora estaba intacta y durante ese período, gracias a su esposa, se sabe que escribió el libro de cuentos Chingalo y algunas obras para teatro entre las que se recuerda Corazón de tierra, Amor de patria y Con el nombre de Isabel en los labios. Lo que sí es seguro, es que la pasión por el cine no disminuyó, ya que recién llegado a Bogotá, se entregó a su gran proyecto: Alma provinciana. Precisamente a mediados de los años veinte, la escena cinematográfica nacional estaba en su momento más agitado. De esa época son filmes como Bajo el cielo antioqueño, Conquistadores de almas, El amor, el deber y el crimen y Como los muertos, entre otros. Alma provinciana es considerada el octavo largometraje del cine colombiano, un melodrama totalmente nacional cuyo estreno en el teatro Faenza hace un poco más de 75 años, el 23 de febrero de 1926, fue un éxito, tanto que, incluso ganó un concurso de películas comerciales. Después de Alma provinciana, literalmente la vida de Don Félix Joaquín Rodríguez se pierde en el río del tiempo, sólo se sabe que intento rodar Isabel, pero que por diversos motivos no pudo. Después de recibir su grado de abogado en 1930, se trasladó al entonces prospero puerto de Girardot, sobre el río Magdalena, donde puso fin a su vida en 1931. Ficha filmográfica de Alma provinciana “Interpretada por un distinguido grupo de jóvenes y señoritas, amantes del arte nacional. El autor y actores dedican esta cinematografía a la memoria del noble joven César Philips”. Dirección: Félix Joaquín Rodríguez ; Producción: Félix Joaquín Rodríguez; Guión: Félix Joaquín Rodríguez; Fotografía: Félix Joaquín Rodríguez; Montaje: Félix Joaquín Rodríguez; Cámara: Félix Joaquín Rodríguez; Escenografía: Félix Joaquín Rodríguez; Ambientación: Félix Joaquín Rodríguez. Producida por Colombia, Félix Mark Films, 1925. — Filmada en Colombia, Santander; Sabana de Bogotá; Bogotá, 1925. — Distribuida por Colombia, Félix Mark Films, 1925. — Exhibida por Colombia, Félix Mark Films; Teatro Faenza, Bogotá, 1926. Duración: Largo Metraje de 110’ 52” a 20 imágenes por segundo y 91’ 49” a 24 ips.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

du Ministère de la Culture octroyée via la Direction Colombienne de la Cinématographie et le programme espagnol Memoria Compartida II (projet conjoint entre la FIAF et AECI).

Género: drama-romántico-costumbrista. - Idioma: español Reparto: Maga Dalla (Rosa), Alí Bernal (Gerardo), Elisa Lobel, Rosa Lobel, Carlos Brando, Ramón Vesga, Juan Antonio Vanegas, César Philips, Alberto Galvis, Camilo Daza. Sinopsis: Los hijos de un gran hacendado estudian en la ciudad. La joven viaja en vacaciones al campo y allí se enamora del encargado de la finca, relación a la que el padre se opone con rudeza. El hermano lleva una vida de bohemio universitario hasta que se topa con una humilde y bella obrera que le hace conocer el verdadero amor. El padre tampoco admite ese romance. Son amores difíciles cuyo desenlace será feliz. Fuentes documentales y referenciales sobre Alma provinciana 1. Cine colombiano: Mudo y parlante / Luis Alberto Alvarez En Gran enciclopedia de Colombia temática: Tomo 6, Arte. Bogotá: Círculo de lectores, 1993 2. Crónicas del cine colombiano / Hernando Salcedo Silva. Bogotá : Carlos Valencia Editores, 1981 3. Historia del cine colombiano / Hernando Martínez Pardo. Bogotá: América Latina, 1978 4. Historia del cine colombiano / Luis Alberto Alvarez En Nueva historia de Colombia: Tomo VI, Literatura y pensamiento. Bogotá, Planeta colombiana, 1989 5. Historia del cine en Colombia / Hernando Martínez Pardo. En Cuadernos de cine No 2, mayo-septiembre de 1976 6. Influencias sobre el cine mudo colombiano / Hernando Salcedo Silva. En Cinemateca No 2, octubre de 1977 7. No te me muevas paisaje: Galería histórica de la imagen fija del cine colombiano. Diego Rojas Romero en Cinemateca No 10, noviembreenero del 2000 8. Prensa: Mundo al día, Bogotá, febrero de 1926 9. Prensa: El gráfico / Bogotá / Febrero de 1926 10 Prensa: El tiempo / Bogotá / Febrero de 1926 11. Documentos de la Fundación cinemateca colombiana 12. Documentos de la Fundación patrimonio fílmico colombiano Oscar Acevedo, reconocido pianista, arreglista y compositor colombiano nacido en 1957, obtuvo el grado como músico profesional en el Berklee College of Music en 1983 y ese mismo año realizó una especialización en Dirección coral en la Harvard Summer School. Entre 1980 y 1984, hizo parte de la Back Bay Chorale de Bostón de donde pasó al Paul Winter Consort de Nueva York. Desde 1984 ha realizado giras de conciertos visitando España, México, Colombia y Estados Unidos. Se destaca en su trayectoria el estreno latinoamericano del Concertino para jazz y orquesta de Otto Ketting realizada en 1992.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

In Memoriam Maryann Gomes Janet McBain

In Memoriam

Maryann Gomes, Director of the North West Film Archive, born 15 August 1954; died 2 June 2002. We present hereafter the texts of two colleagues that have known her for a long time. A night at the pictures presented by Maryann Gomes confounded pleasurably two sets of stereotypes. That historical factual film albeit worthy and educational can also be entrancing, entertaining, revealing and viewed with affection and humour, and that archivists can be lively and energetic, passionate and extrovert as well as knowledgeable about their collections.

Hommage rendu par deux collègues qui ont connu et travaillé pendant de longues années avec Maryann Gomes, Directrice de la North West Film Archive (15 août 1954 - 2 juin 2002). Janet McBain fait la biographie de Maryann et nous rappelle qu’elle est née à Glasgow, de parents indiens, qu’elle a fait ses études à la Loreto Grammar School de Manchester, à la University of London, et à Leeds Polytechnic et qu’elle a suivi une formation de pédagogie des disciplines artistiques et de l’histoire de l’art. Après son parcours au Manchester City Art Galleries Service et au Manchester Polytechnic, elle fût nommée en 1983 conservatrice de la North West Film Archive. Elle deviendra ainsi pionnière de la conservation du patrimoine régional en Grande Bretagne. Maryann a toujours su combiner une exigence professionnelle extrême avec un sens de l’humour et une joie de vivre communicatifs. Roger Smither met en évidence le travail infatigable de Maryann en faveur de la reconnaissance mondiale de la collection régionale de son archive et souligne son mérite d’être entré à la FIAF à une époque (1995) où le règlement ne permettait en principe pas l’adhésion des candidats travaillant au niveau national. Sa participation au Symposium de Cartagena a ouvert la voie de l’acceptation des films documentaires au sein de la FIAF. Sa contribution à l’ouverture de la FIAF en 2000 a été déterminante. Sa lutte pour la cause des archives régionales était encore plus passionnée à la Conférence de AMIA à Miami en 1998 où son exposé “La richesse des régions, ou projeter une image globale du 20ème siècle » a servi de préambule à ses interventions à Montréal en 1999, et à Los Angeles en 2000. La vie de Maryann contredit ceux qui pensent que dans notre ère de plus en plus bureaucratique, personne ne pourra

Born in Glasgow of Goanese parents, she was educated at Loreto Grammar School, Manchester, the University of London, and Leeds Polytechnic, training in the teaching of art and art history. After educational posts for Manchester City Art Maryann Gomes, 1954 – 2002 Galleries Service and Manchester Polytechnic, where she developed interests in both social history and film, in 1983 she became curator of the North West Film Archive, one of the pioneering regional film collections to emerge in England in the mid 1970s. Maryann rose to the challenge of developing the film collection to reflect the history of the region and earning for local productions a hitherto neglected place in the canon of British cinema history. Maryann’s presentational style reflected her personality - her passion for the subject, her affection for the images and their recording of ordinary peoples’ lives and her determination that the films would be available for future generations to understand and enjoy. Throughout her tenure as Curator, later Director, of the Archive she fought hard to preserve and develop the archive’s role of acquisition, preservation and access, activities which were maintained in good part through stalwart support from Manchester Metropolitan University, despite a dispiriting lack of statutory core funding and fluctuating staffing levels. She acquired new skills in marketing management to equip herself with the tools of fund raising which in recent years of necessity would occupy the greater proportion of her time. Successes in this field came about due to her determination, tenacity and drive, attributes that carried over into every aspect of her life. As a colleague she was challenging, stimulating and demanded the highest standards in everything, yet she was also delightful, funny and the most welcome of companions on any occasion.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

remplacer les pionniers des médias du siècle passé. Sa vie et son œuvre montrent et montreront exemple aux nouvelles générations d’archivistes. Se presentan los textos de homenaje de dos colegas que conocieron y trataron durante muchos años a Maryann Gomes, directora del North West Film Archive (15 de agosto de 1954 - 2 de junio de 2002). Janet McBain relata la biografía de Maryann y nos recuerda que nació en Glasgow, de padres de Goa; que cursó estudios en la Loreto Grammar School, Manchester, la University de Londres, y el politécnico de Leeds; que recibió una formación de pedagogía en disciplinas artísticas e historia del arte. Luego de una carrera en el Manchester City Art Galleries Service y el Politécnico de Manchester Polytechnic, en 1983 fue nombrada conservadora del North West Film Archive, transformándose en una de las figuras pioneras en la conservación del acervo regional en Gran Bretaña. Maryann siempre supo combinar una exigencia profesional extrema con un sentido del humor y alegría de vivir entusiasmantes. Roger Smither destaca la infatigable labor de Maryann a favor del reconocimiento de la colección regional de su archivo a nivel internacional, subrayando su mérito de haber adherido a la FIAF en una época -1995- en que el reglamento en principio sólo admitía candidatos que operaban a nivel nacional. Su participación en el simposio de Cartagena abrió el camino a la aceptación de las películas de noficción en el seno de la FIAF. Su contribución a la apertura iniciada en la FIAF en 2000 fue determinante. Su lucha por la causa de los archivos regionales fue aún más apasionada en la Conferencia de AMIA en Miami en 1998, donde con su contribución titulada “La riqueza de las regiones: Proyectando la imagen global del Siglo XX” sirvió de preámbulo a sus intervenciones en Montreal en 1999, y en Los Angeles en 2000. El ejemplo de Maryann contradice a quienes piensan que en el nuevo orden, más y más burocratizado, nadie podrá remplazar a los pioneros de mediados del siglo pasado. Su vida y obra sirven y servirán de ejemplo a las nuevas generaciones de archivistas.

She has left her colleagues with many fond memories of the strength of her personality. Maryann during sight-seeing breaks at international congresses, doggedly and good humouredly bartering for hours with local traders and typically emerging triumphant with armfuls of gifts for friends and workmates back home while her faint hearted colleagues sat quietly in the shade of tropical heat. Meetings of the UK’s Film Archive Forum, of which she was a founder member, enlivened by her contributions always articulate and energetic, if not always consensual. It is hard when someone with such a zest for life is taken so young from the friends and colleagues who loved her.

Roger Smither, Keeper, Imperial War Museum Film & Video Archive/Vice-President, FIAF With her profound commitment to the film heritage preserved in her archive, Maryann naturally took a leading role in championing such material in the international domain. She made an incontestable case for the NWFA’s membership of FIAF, and gained admission in 1995, when the Federation was governed by rules which normally expected candidates to “operate at the national level.” Although many FIAF members at that time had little time for non-fiction film of any kind, Maryann’s symposium presentations on amateur film at the Cartagena Congress in 1997 and on local topicals at the London Congress in 2000 helped open their eyes. Her participation in other elements of the Federation’s annual congresses proved the relevance and value to FIAF’s terms of reference of all kinds of moving images - and moving image archives - and helped pave the way for the more inclusive membership definition that was adopted in 2000. In AMIA - the Association of Moving Image Archivists - Maryann stimulated an even more immediate recognition of the cause of regional film archiving, when her first attendance at an AMIA Conference, in Miami in 1998, led to the creation of a Regional Archives Special Interest Group, which she immediately volunteered to chair. Her compelling ability to explain and to share her passion for film as a record of the lives of ordinary people was demonstrated in two important presentations: “The Richness of the Regions: Projecting a Global Picture of the Twentieth Century” at the AMIA Conference in Montreal in 1999, and an equally influential presentation on diversity in Los Angeles in 2000. Maryann’s life refuted those who complain that the spirit that fired the legendary founders of film archives and cinematheques in the middle of the last century has no equivalent in the increasingly bureaucratic modern world. Her memorial will be the number of archives and archivists who will continue to acknowledge her as an inspiration in their own work.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Notes from Il Cinema Ritrovato 2002. Bologna, 29 June – 6 July Antti Alanen

Bologna & Sacile

The two best film festivals for film historians now both take place in Italy. Whereas Le Giornate del Cinema Muto has taken the epic task of systematic revaluation of silent film history, Bologna’s Il Cinema Ritrovate plays a more versatile and cinephilic role of all kinds of “rediscovered film”. It is a substantial showcase of recent preservation. Arranged for the 16th time by Cineteca del Comune di Bologna and Nederlands Filmmuseum, the Artistic Director was for the second time Peter von Bagh. This year the programme threefolded: a full screening schedule was on offer in three venues: Cinema Fulgor, Cinema Lumiere (3-D etc.) and Sala Cervi (video projections etc.). It was now possible to see but a third of it all. From the preservation angle, a common feature linked the Léonce Perret, La Maison du mystère, and the Film d’Art Italiana retrospectives: what wonderful results can be achieved when there is access to the original negative and when the project is followed through, that is, reassembling films, and reconstructing intertitles and colours.

For many years, the Journal has reported on successive editions of two important film heritage festivals, both located in Italy: Il Cinema Ritrovato, in Bologna and Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, in Sacile. The review of these two major events has fallen, together this time, to Helsinki programmer Antti Alanen and Editorial Board member Hillel Tryster.

Depuis plusieurs années, le Journal of Film Preservation couvre deux importants festivals, tous les deux en Italie: Il Cinema Ritrovato, à Bologne et Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, à Sacile. Les comptes rendus de ces deux événements majeurs sont écrits par Antti Alanen, programmateur à Helsinki, et par Hillel Tryster, membre du Comité de rédaction.

Léonce Perret (1880–1935) was a distinguished director of 388 films in France and the USA; 350 of them he directed for Gaumont in 1909–1917. Bologna’s Perret retrospective, in collaboration with Cinémathèque Gaumont and Cinémathèque française, focused on the years 1911–1913. Mariann Lewinsky writes in her introductory notes about the “warm and affectionate gaze” with which Perret’s films reflect the visible world of the Belle Epoque on the eve of the Great War. The brilliant prints did justice to this vision in films like the featurette La Lumière et l’amour (1912), which is constructed around the motifs of eyesight, the sea, the wind, the flowers – and light. A major rediscovery of Mary Pickford (1892–1979), one of the most undervalued giants of film history, is taking place. Main culprit for her oblivion was Pickford, herself, who prevented access to her films and actually planned to destroy them. Based on some film titles and stills she seemed hopelessly old-fashioned. Of the Bologna selection, Stella Maris (1918), Daddy-Long-Legs (1919), Heart O’ the Hills (1919), and Sparrows (1926) were all excellent. The only weak link was Rosita (1923), a case of a bad match of star and director. Merit Pickford, though, with bringing Lubitsch to Hollywood. Pickford had scope. She mastered comedy and tragedy. She revealed the secrets of childhood with sensitivity. She paid attention to authentic detail in milieux and manners. There is passion, spiritual force and a profound social conscience in her films. She found talented men like Marshall Neilan to helm, but really her films are star-directed. Of the original German Der Blaue Engel (1930) no good prints exist, and the negative has been destroyed. Thus, it was a privilege to see the

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

American version, The Blue Angel, printed from the American negative, in which many scenes have fine photographic quality. The soundtrack, too is interesting, and digitally remastered by L’Immagine Ritrovata, even German dialogue in the ambient background became more clearly intelligible. But in English, Marlene’s voice lacks the sense of humour and the mother / predator ambiguity of her mythic German Lola. The American version lacks also bits that enrich humour, imagery and complexity of character. It is more straightforward and tragic; the German one is richer and more nuanced. An interesting parallel was provided by The Last Laugh, the American version of Der letzte Mann (1924). Murnau himself edited this version, which has long been lost. The screening on the Piazza Maggiore, with a live performance of the original US score by Hugo Riesenfeld, made the best sense ever for me of the film. Not a subtle film, not a subtle score: The Last Laugh is drawn with broad strokes but with a firm sense of movement, structure and composition. This screening made it all come together. The discovery of the Festival was a ten-part serial called La Maison du mystère (1923), episodes of which caused a stir at the start of each day. This tour de force of the magnificent Albatros team is one of the alltime best serials. Directed by Alexandre Volkoff and starring Ivan Mosjoukine, the talent involved cinematographers like Mundviller, Bourgassoff and Toporkoff and designers like Lochakoff and Gosch. We are here in the land of cinematic invention which is close, indeed, to the visions of Napoléon vu par Abel Gance. Beautiful restoration from the original negative was performed by Renée Lichtig for la Cinémathèque française. Comedy favourites of national cinemas do not usually travel well, but some of them would deserve to. Four artists were showcased in Bologna: the Englishman Richard Massingham, the Bavarian Karl Valentin, and the Czech duo Voskovech and Werich. All different, all make us laugh.

Peter von Bagh, Artistic Director of Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna

The reconstruction-in-progress of the Orson Welles heritage by Münchner Filmmuseum has been tracked by Il Cinema Ritrovato during the last years, and Bologna’s Renaissance ambience is perfect for celebrating the great Cervantesian and Shakespearian. This time, we saw some of the very treasures of the posthumous Welles legacy. Portrait of Gina (1958), one of Welles’s best TV movies, shows the essay style of the late Welles already in bloom. Filming The Trial by Orson Welles (1981) sounds like the least promising title of the catalogue, but turns out to be an excellent summing-up of the Welles heritage. In this extended discussion with USC students, there is never a dull moment as we witness Orson making “an art form of the interview”. A recommended companion piece to the book “This Is Orson Welles”.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Antti Alanen constata que mientras que Le Giornate del Cinema Muto emprendieron la épica misión de reevaluar sistemáticamente la historia del cine mudo, Il cinema Ritrovato de Bologna desempeña un rol más cinéfilo y flexible de ”redescubridor de películas”, transformándose en una importante vitrina de películas restauradas. Organizadas por 16a vez por la Cineteca del Comune di Bologna y el Netherlands Filmmuseum, Il Cinema Ritrovato, bajo la dirección artística de Peter von Bagh, propuso una triple programación en el Cinema Fulgor, el Cinema Lumiere (3-D, etc.) y la Sala Cervi (proyecciones video, etc.). Sólo era, constata con cierta aflicción, posible de ver un tercio de la totalidad del programa... Como restauraciones, se destacaron dos retrospectivas: la de Leonce Perret y la de Film d’Art Italiana. La retrospectiva de Perret estuvo a cargo de la Cinémathèque Gaumont y la Cinémathèque Française, y se concentró en los años 1911–1913. Se destaca en ella La Lumière et l’amour (1912), construída en torno a la mirada, el mar, el viento, las flores – y la luz.

The oddest theme of the festival was Pars pro toto: remnants of lost treasures like The Patriot by Lubitsch, Satanas by Murnau, The Tokyo March by Mizoguchi. We even saw the Holy Grail of Mizoguchi, Aienkyo (The Straits of Love and Hate, 1937), perhaps never before screened in Europe. More precisely, we saw the ghost of it, as the visual quality bordered on the unwatchable and the sound on the inaudible. The Miracle of the 3-D theme included an emotional screening of Louis Lumière’s films, where he again films the train coming to La Ciotat and the gardener being showered - “40 years after”, in the 1930s, in 3-D.

Gian Luca Farinelli, Director of the Cineteca del Comune di Bologna

Un redescubrimiento mayor fue el de las películas de Mary Pickford, uno de los gigantes de la historia del cine casi condenada al olvido por... ella misma. Se destacaron Stella Maris (1918), Daddy-Long-Legs (1919), Heart O’ the Hills (1919), y Sparrows (1926). Un privilegio fue ver Der Blaue Engel (1930) del cual no queda el negativo original alemán. La versión americana, The Blue Angel, conserva cualidades fotográficas excelentes. La pista sonora, restaurada con tecnología digital por L’Immagine Ritrovata, permitió reconocer fragmentos perdidos de la pista sonora original alemana. En inglés, sin embargo, la voz ambigua de Marlene y el humor de los personajes pierden parte de sus matices y riqueza originales. La proyección de Der letzte Mann (1924) en Piazza Maggiore, con acompañamiento original de Hugo Riesenfeld, fue un acierto. Uno de los descubrimientos del festival fue la serie en diez partes de La Maison du mystère (1923), de Alexandre Volkoff, con Ivan Mosjoukine, a la que cada mañana se

The Cine Fulgor, in Bologna

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

As a rule, the screenings were introduced by specialists, and none had more passion and insight than Bertrand Tavernier in his selections of French film noir. La Vérité sur Bébé Donge (1952) surprised us on the eve of the Georges Simenon centenary, although Tavernier claims that the screenwriter Maurice Aubergé enhanced the source immeasurably. Quai des Orfèvres (1947), “the first free film” of Henri-Georges Clouzot was preceded by Tavernier’s passionate rehabilitation of Clouzot and his role during the Occupation in the German-controlled Continental Films, subject of Tavernier’s recent film Laissez-passer. This year was one of “Qual der Wahl”, painful choices, and most was necessarily missed by all. Especially by them who had also meetings and seminars scheduled. To single out are the excellent Archimedia Seminars: after the great “Vinegar Syndrome” (2000) and “Digital” (2001)

precipitaban los espectadores. Provocaron la risa de numerosos participantes las performances cómicas del británico Richard Massingham, del bávaro Karl Valentin, y del duo checo Voskovech y Werich. Este año también se descubrieron algunos tesoros del legado póstumo de Orson Welles, reconstruído por el Münchner Filmmuseum: Portrait of Gina (1958), una de sus mejores películas de TV, Filming The Trial by Orson Welles (1981) que resultó ser una excelente ilustración del legado de Welles. El milagroso tema del 3-D comprendió la proyección del tren que entra en la estación de La Ciotat 40 años más tarde, en 3-D. Emocionante. En general, las películas fueron presentadas por especialistas. El más convincente fue Bertrand Tavernier, quién introdujo La Vérité sur Bébé Donge (1952) , Quai des Orfèvres (1947) e intentó rehabilitar a Henri-Georges Clouzot y su rol en Continental Films, durante la Ocupación. 2002 fue el año de las crueles alternativas de la programación. Todos debieron renunciar a importantes secciones, especialmente los que quisieron asistir a los encuentros y seminarios. El seminario de Archimedia sobre el tema “El cine también es sonido”, comprendió varias presentaciones de valor, como la de Andrew Wedman sobre la Deutsche Grammophon. Nicola Mazzanti presentó la restauración de las bandas sonoras de The Blue Angel, y Limelight.

seminars, this year’s The Cinema Is Also Sound was more tentative, but included excellent contributions and discoveries like Andrew Wedman’s presentation of the work of the Deutsche Grammophon. Nicola Mazzanti demonstrated two sound restorations of films screened during the Festival: the very difficult The Blue Angel, and Limelight, the latest achievement of The Chaplin Project. With a huge volume on Limelight, an ambitious series of books was also launched by the project. Pour Antti Alanen, alors que le Giornate del Cinema Muto de Sacile entreprenait l’épique mission de réévaluer systématiquement l’histoire du cinéma muet, Il cinema Ritrovato de Bologna embrassait le rôle plus cinéphile et flexible de « redécouverte des films ». Ce festival est devenu une importante vitrine de films restaurés. Organisé pour la 16ème fois par la Cineteca del Comune di Bologna et le Netherlands Filmmuseum, Il Cinema Ritrovato, sous la direction artistique de Peter von Bagh, proposait cette année une triple programmation; au Cinéma Fulgor, au Cinéma Lumière (3-D, etc.) et dans la Sala Cervi (projections vidéo, etc.). Il n’était donc possible de voir qu’un tiers de la programmation... On présentait cette année deux rétrospectives de restaurations: celle de Leonce Perret et celle de Film d’Art Italiana. La rétrospective de Perret a été préparée par la Cinémathèque Gaumont et la Cinémathèque française, qui se sont concentrés sur les années 1911–1913. Le point fort de cette rétrospective était La Lumière et l’amour (1912), film construit autour du regard, de la mer, du vent, des fleurs et… de la lumière. Il était également possible de redécouvrir les films de Mary Pickford, une des géantes de l’histoire du cinéma condamnée à l’oubli… par sa faute. On notera entre autre Stella Maris (1918), Daddy-Long-Legs (1919), Heart O’ the Hills (1919), et Sparrows (1926). Les spectateurs ont eu le privilège de voir Der Blaue Engel (1930), un film dont on n’a pas retrouvé le négatif original allemand. Sa version américaine, The Blue Angel, conserve une excellente qualité photographique. La piste sonore, restaurée à l’aide de la technologie digitale par L’Immagine Ritrovata, a permis de retrouver des fragments perdus de la piste sonore originale allemande. En anglais, la voix ambiguë de Marlène et l’humeur des personnages perdent néanmoins de leur nuance et richesse originale. La projection de Der letzte Mann (1924) à la Piazza Maggiore, avec un accompagnement original de Hugo Riesenfeld, fût un succès. On a pu également decouvrir la série en dix parties de La Maison du mystère (1923), de Alexandre Volkoff, avec Ivan Mosjoukine, pour laquelle les spectateurs se pressaient tous les matins. Les performances comiques du Britannique Richard Massingham, du Bavarois Karl Valentin, et du duo tchèque Voskovech et Werich Provocaron ont provoqué le rire d’un très grand nombre de participants. On a pu également découvrir cette année quelques trésors du legs posthume d’Orson Welles, reconstitués par le Münchner Filmmuseum: Portrait of Gina (1958), un de ses meilleurs films pour la télévision, Filming The Trial by Orson Welles (1981) qui s’est révélé une excellente illustration de l’héritage de Welles. La programmation 3-D comprenait la projection du train qui entre en gare de La Ciotat. 40 ans après sa sortie, l’émotion était encore présente. En général, les films étaient présentés par des spécialistes. Le plus convainquant a été Bertrand Tavernier, qui a introduit La Vérité sur Bébé Donge (1952) , Quai des Orfèvres (1947) et qui a essayé de réhabiliter Henri-Georges Clouzot et son rôle à la Continental Films, durant l’Occupation. L’année 2002 a été celle des cruelles alternatives de la programmation. Tout le monde devait renoncer à des sessions importantes, tout particulièrement ceux qui voulaient assister aux rencontres et aux séminaires. Le séminaire d’Archimedia, qui avait pour thème « Le cinéma, c’est aussi le son », comptait quelques présentations très intéressantes, comme celles de Andrew Wedman sur la Deutsche Grammophon. Nicola Mazzanti a, quant à lui, présenté la restauration des bandes sonores de The Blue Angel, et de Limelight.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, 2002 Hillel Tryster

Bologna & Sacile

David Robinson, Artistic Director of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Sacile

On the opening night of the 2002 edition of “Le Giornate del Cinema Muto,” the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Sacile, a few seconds after I realized how I ought to begin this review, Festival Director David Robinson mentioned precisely what I had had in mind. We had just watched La Flamme, a two-minute short film made in 2000 that wrings hilarity from film’s propensity to burn. Robinson reminded us that earlier that day there had been a genuine incident of a frame melting in the projector gate. The sounds emitted by the audience then could not have been further from laughter. With every year that passes, the talk about the final curtain coming down on film stock production grows louder and the pained howl that went up as the image on the screen was replaced by an amber rash was surely informed by an increasing appreciation of the material’s value. In the same way, the value of the event as a whole increases annually, providing, as it does, a living link to a means of communication whose origins grow ever more distant. Happily, a light-hearted theme was this year’s main programme. “Funny Ladies” celebrated the comediennes and female comics who enlivened the silent screen with their antics. The work of over 150 individuals was represented, though one could sometimes quibble about precisely which women appearing in comedies actually qualified as “funny ladies.” The programme notes were candid enough to admit that Edna Marion in The Sting of Stings couldn’t really compete with Charley Chase, though by way of compensation they also suggested that Ernest Thesiger in The Vagabond Queen was somewhat of a “funny lady” himself. There were other such cases: the best gag in the 1924 Czech comedy Chyt’te Ho!, a variation on the classic mirror routine, did not involve star Anny Ondra, and Florence Vidor didn’t get as many laughs as co-star Adolphe Menjou in The Grand Duchess and the Waiter. The range, both chronological and national, of films selected was impressive, bringing to mind a great many undeservedly obscure names, and there can have been nobody present who didn’t make some new discoveries alongside familiar favourites. In my own case, I experienced yet again the expected delights of 1913’s Blood and Bosh, but was unprepared, immediately afterwards, for the laughter-induced choking fit occasioned by 1914’s Daisy Doodad’s Dial. Oh, Mabel Behave, a film apparently shot quite a few years before its 1922 release, could not do justice to the talents of Mabel Normand, who could be seen to better dramatic effect in the Griffith retrospective. An early appearance by Carol Lombard in The Campus Vamp was the catalyst for spontaneous applause. While it may have been possible to question the wisdom of selections like the Normand film, the programmers never put a foot wrong with the big comedy features that were the highlights of most evenings. Dead art form or no dead art form, Bea Lillie in Exit Smiling, Louise Fazenda in Footloose Widows,

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Clara Bow in It (the opening night event with Carl Davis conducting the Camerata Labacencis), Gloria Swanson in Stage Struck and everyone in Ladies’ Night in a Turkish Bath were pure and simple crowd-pleasing entertainment. “Entertainment” was the operative word when it came to The Great Nickelodeon Show Programme that mixed pre-World War One short films with illustrated songs and a death-defying piece of live performance that will not be described in these lines. The opening, recreating Winsor McCay’s personal appearances with Gertie the Dinosaur, set the stage for all that followed and, while there may be a point to criticism of the fact that the films chosen were of vintages too disparate ever to have played on the same bill, the period flavour was lovingly preserved. Festival regulars were most thrilled by the stage debut of longtime senior staff member Marina Mottin as Italian interpreter (replete with amazingly professional facial expressions).

Michel Simon in La Vocation d’André Carel, Jean Choux, 1925. Source: Cinémathèque Suisse / Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2002

The Giornate has, since last year, become infested with a breed whose very existence was, till recently, inconceivable: Mitchell and Kenyon fans. The discovery of hundreds of films by the same company from the turn of the century has had its effect on our perception of what early film really was. The research into their production and presentation has helped to clarify much of their original context and this year’s sequel to the original unveiling, presented by Vanessa Toulmin of the National Fairground Archive at the University of Sheffield and the NFTVA’s Patrick Russell, was attended by what one could already describe as “hard-core M&K buffs.” The images are almost shockingly clear and at times the effect is as of looking into a one-way mirror; we see our ancestors and they look back at us, unseeing, into a future they could never have imagined. “Hard-core” is the cue to mention a couple of the “Goodnight, Silents…” offerings that followed in the sometime tradition of putting things on the big screen that were never intended for mixed audiences. Though the programme notes did not identify the makers of Le Canard and Miss Butterfly, it has been claimed that they were produced by (and even featured, as a performer) Bernard Natan, whose film career was already controversial enough in its other aspects. A point for further clarification, if ever there was one (and the greatest imaginable contrast to the “Jerry the Tyke” cartoons that opened every day’s screenings).

Thaïs, Anton Giulio Bragaglia, 1917. Source: Cinémathèque Française / Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2002

The men of Lobster Films, Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange, from whose collection the above

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

emanated, were on hand to pitch an unusually ambitious project, dedicated in memory of the Luxembourg Cinematheque’s Fred Junck: to restore the 1919 serial “The Wolves of Kultur” as a collaborative venture between 15 archives worldwide. Nobody, least of all Lobster Films, is claiming “Wolves” is a masterpiece. On the strength of the episode screened, one can say that it seems typical of its genre and period. The collaborative restoration, should Lobster succeed in its plan, will be its least conventional aspect.

A Feud in the Kentucky Hills, D. W. Griffith, 1912. Source: Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2002

The national cinema explored this year was that of Switzerland. Given the French and German influences and connections involved, defining the retrospective’s boundaries seems to have been a major question for the programme’s curators. Opening with La Vocation d’Andre Carel, directed by Jean Choux, helped to dispel, as promised, the purely Alpine, William Tell-ish fare one might have been led to expect (though that was also forthcoming as the programme progressed). Earnest, sometimes even turgid, Andre Carel remains a challenging film, with motivations frequently less clear than its memorable imagery. Heavier and less ambiguous, in this writer’s opinion, was Hanns Schwarz’s Petronella, a dramatic saga involving a missing church bell and a grimly determined performance by Wilhelm Dieterle. The better-known non-fiction aspect of Swiss filmmaking was well-represented with numerous newsreels that pleasantly decorated each of the sessions.

The major question facing viewers of the Italian Avant-Garde programme was whether, as the programmers themselves had mused, it was appropriately named. To put it another way, was not all early cinema avant-garde by definition? Or, to ask it in yet another way, do D.W. Griffith’s experimentation and innovations in film language not qualify as avant-garde only because they ended up as the dominant film grammar? Leopoldo Fregoli’s early film records of acts he performed on stage, must, for all their freshness, still be considered within the context of other early exploitations of theatre by film. La Storia Di Lulu and Amor Pedestre, both of which told their stories exclusively through shots of feet, may come closer to what is more usually perceived as avant-garde in their obvious determination to strike out in a new direction, but can the same be said of Lucio D’Ambra’s whimsical Le Moglie e le Arance or Febo Mari’s lyrical Fauno? That the question has been asked is surely, in and of itself, not a bad thing.

The Mitchell and Kenyon retrospective. Source: Mitchell and Kenyon BFI Collections / Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2002 Le programme principal de la 21ème édition des Journées du cinéma muet de Pordenone abordait un thème léger ; “Les femmes comiques”. Il couvrait largement la filmographie de ces femmes comiques tant au niveau chronologique que national, certaines étant encore dans les mémoires, d’autres malheureusement tombées dans l’oubli. Les points forts de ce programme étaient particulièrement divertissants et très appréciés du public, on retiendra notamment la reconstitution d’un spectacle Nickelodeon des années 1910 comptant plusieurs numéros sur scène. Tout comme l’année dernière, la présentation des films produits par les Britanniques Mitchell et Kenyon a également attiré les amateurs. Les séances étaient chaque jour ouvertes

More like Ol’ Man River with every passing year, Griffith keeps rolling along. By 1912, it seems safe to say, he is shaping up into a director who may indeed one day be worthy of such a complete retrospective. The

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

par un film d’animation de “Jerry the Tyke” (séances qui se sont terminées à deux reprises par des films pornographiques de Lobster Films, qui restaure actuellement la série “The Wolves of Kultur”). Cette année, la rétrospective nationale était consacrée à la Suisse, ce qui donna au public la possibilité de non seulement découvrir des longs métrages surprenants, mais aussi de redécouvrir la production plus connue de documentaires suisses. L’avantgarde italienne et Griffith étaient également à l’honneur, tout comme l’étaient les films plus récents projetés dans le cadre du projet “Saving the Silents”. Hiroshi Komatsu et Donata Pesenti Campagnoni ont reçu le Prix Jean Mitry et Haghefilm a présenté les films préservés dans le cadre de son Prix et de son “Fellowship”. La deuxième salle, le cinéma Ruffo, a abrité le Collegium Sacilense et les projections videos. Neil Brand a prononcé le premier d’une longue série de discours à la mémoire de Jonathan Dennis, fondateur de la New Zealand Film Archive. Le coup de coeur de l’auteur de cette critique, Hillel Tryster, est sans conteste la performance hilarante de Marion Davies dans The Patsy.

number of titles that are still well-known has increased, while abominable print quality appears to be on the wane. Griffith’s own artistic confidence, emerging through the many banal plot elements, also appears to be markedly on the increase, a point vividly brought home when he permits his camera to pan beyond his protagonists and rest unhurriedly on a space empty of human beings. The benefit of the ongoing retrospective is that when we see him take such a step, we’ve also seen all the more tentative and primitive work that led up to it. A favourite from this year’s “Saving the Silents” programme was The Mollycoddle, with Douglas Fairbanks and Wallace Beery. Packed with the best Fairbanksian spirit and featuring an unusual animated expository sequence, it will certainly be much in demand wherever silent films are shown. It was preceded by a bizarre short, The Ageless Sex, that can scarcely have had more appeal in 1914 than it does now. Is it a “modern” film? Probably not. It’s just that some things apparently never change. Some regular Festival features cannot be omitted. The Jean Mitry Award was received by Japanese film historian Hiroshi Komatsu and by Donata Pesenti Campagnoni, who was surprised by some just-restored early footage of Turin, screened unannounced before the award was presented. Longtime Festival supporter Haghefilm was again represented by the Haghefilm Award (Jeno Janovics’ highly melodramatic Transylvanian feature The Last Night) and the Haghefilm-Selznick School Fellowship (Sonia Genaitay’s restoration of Camille de Morlhon’s sentimental L’Histoire d’une Rose), as well as a digitally-assisted preservation of the 1910 Edison A Christmas Carol from the rare three-strip 22mm format. The digital buzzword was also in evidence in the restoration of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s charming, though incomplete, fairy tale Once Upon a Time and in a special session of the Collegium Sacilense given by Giovanna Fossati and Paul Read that vividly demonstrated just how much can already be done, as well as how it is also possible to do too much. The “Out of Frame” preservations/restorations included Gerhild Krebs’ surprising 1911 Hepworth find, Exceeding His Duty, and Nachtgestalten, an Anglo-German coproduction directed by Hans Steinhoff that contained all the elements required for a cliched underworld melodrama, but turned out to be a lot better. Meanwhile, over at the Ruffo (the second venue, considerately used this year for more repeat screenings), there were also video presentations, notably among them Rick Schmidlin’s reconstruction (using stills) of the

Clara Bow in It / Cosetta, Clarence Badger, 1927. Source: The Kobal Collection / Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2002

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

El programa principal de la 21a edición de las Jornadas del cine mudo de Pordenone fue dedicado a un tema ligero: “Las mujeres cómicas,” cubriendo una amplia filmografía tanto del punta de vista cronológico que nacional, algunas aún vivas en nuestras memorias, otras caídas en el olvido. Los puntos fuertes del programa fueron la reconstitución del espectáculo de un Nickelodeon de los años 10. Se destaca también la proyección de películas de los británicos Mitchell y Kenyon, las películas de animación de cada mañana de “Jerry the Tyke” y las curiosidades “eróticas” de Lobster Films, que actualmente restaura “The Wolves of Kultur”. Este año, la retrospectiva nacional Suiza brindó al publico la posibilidad de descubrir algunos largometrajes sorprendentes y de redescubrir la producción de los clásicos de su producción de documentales. El programa de la vanguardia italiana, la retrospectiva Griffith y la proyección de películas del proyecto “Saving the Silents” tuvieron el éxito de los años anteriores. Hiroshi Komatsu y Donata Pesenti Campagnoni recibieron el Premio Jean Mitry y Haghefilm presentó las películas preservadas por los beneficiarios del Premio y del “Fellowship”. En la otra sala, el cine Ruffo, tuvieron lugar las reuniones del Collegium Sacilense y las proyecciones video. Neil Brand rindió homenaje a Jonathan Dennis, fundador del New Zealand Film Archive, fallecido el año pasado. La obra preferida del autor de la presente crítica es sin duda la performance de Marion Davies en The Patsy.

long-lost London After Midnight and Kevin Brownlow’s fascinating look at the Chaplin-Hitler complex, The Tramp and the Dictator. Also at the Ruffo, a chance to compare surviving prints of Buster Keaton shorts in side-by-side synchronous format. All head coverings must again be removed in honour of the musicians without whom the Silent Film Festival would actually be horrifyingly silent: Phil Carli, Tama Karema, Donald Sosin, John Sweeney, the toolong absent Gabriel Thibaudeau, and a special mention to Romano Todesco, whose accordion beautifully complemented Neil Brand’s piano and Guenter Buchwald’s violin for the closing event, Exit Smiling. There is stiff competition for closing spot in these lines. Runner-up is the Jonathan Dennis Memorial Lecture, named for the late founder of the New Zealand Film Archive. Neil Brand’s “Where Does the Music Come From?,” apart from being a most fitting tribute to Jonathan Dennis’s life and work, was a remarkable tour de force. Entertaining, moving, thoughtprovoking, none of the adjectives do justice to Brand’s bold attempt to get to the bottom of one particular aspect of creativity, the one Gloria Swanson in The Danger Love / Love on Skates, that has made the Clarence Badger, 1916. Giornate tick for the Source: The Kobal Collection / Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2002 last twenty-one years. But if there was one moment that was still more special than all the others, I think my personal choice must be that in which Marion Davies, in The Patsy, gives her impressions of three of her contemporaries. It wasn’t just a moment of talent, humour (excruciating hilarity is a little more to the point) and fun. It was a moment of unity in which several hundred people, whether consciously or not, must have realized that very few others in the world today outside the walls of the Zancanaro Theatre know enough to get the joke anymore and that, while others may consider them odd or even obsessed, they actually share a secret that, literally, cannot be told in words.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Rochester Reflections – The 10th FIAF Summer School, and Beyond Ray Edmondson

Training Formation Formación

L’auteur de cet article analyse les 30 années d’existence de la Summer School de la FIAF et ce qu’elle deviendra dans le futur. Il rappelle qu’il avait assisté comme étudiant à la Summer School de la Staatliches Filmarchiv, à Berlin en 1973 et qu’il était également présent à Rochester en 2002, en tant que qu’enseignant cette fois. Il constate que le monde a changé, mais que la passion et le dévouement des archivistes formés par la Summer School n’en ont pas souffert. La 10ème édition de la Summer School de la FIAF a eu lieu à Rochester du 10 au 28 juin dernier. L’origine des étudiants et du corps professoral témoigne de l’internationalité de cette profession : Allemagne, Australie, Burkina Faso, Canada, Corée, Etats-Unis, Finlande, France, Pays-Bas, Irlande, Italie, Macédoine, Mexique, Royaume Uni, Afrique du Sud et Vietnam. La George Eastman House (GEH), aussi connue comme l’International Museum of Photography and Film, est un environnement unique pour ce genre de manifestation. La beauté du lieu, la fonctionnalité des bâtiments et la sophistication des installations, font de la GEH un endroit privilégié pour un apprentissage sur le terrain. Le programme de cette année couvrait les aspects les plus

The Atlantic Ocean and nearly thirty years separates the 10th FIAF Summer School at George Eastman House, Rochester, NY from the first Summer School at the Staatliches Filmarchiv, Berlin in 1973. The world, like the challenges of film archiving and FIAF itself, may have changed much in those three decades. But one thing has not changed: the passion and dedication of the archivists whom the schools have done so much to shape. I can attest to this because I was a participant in both events: in the first as a student, and in this one as a lecturer. The tenth Summer School was held from 10 to 28 June, 2002. The 19 FIAF participants were joined by 8 students of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation, the year-long course which is a fixture at the Eastman House. Like the students, the lecturers were an international group, and the roll call of countries represented in the event were an interesting comment on the global character of the profession today: Australia, Burkina Faso, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Macedonia, Mexico, Netherlands, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam. It’s worth describing the setting, for George Eastman House (GEH), also known as the International Museum of Photography and Film, is an unusual environment. Originally the home of the founder of Kodak, the house proper is a striking and expansive mansion, surrounded by beautiful gardens and maintained as a public museum. Display galleries, theatres, museum and archive facilities have been added over the years, with the Motion Picture Department housed appropriately in the Peristyle, a spectacular below-ground structure which is eerily evocative of a futuristic movie set. The arrangement of these facilities on a single site, with the Archive itself always close at hand, makes GEH an excellent place for hands-on learning. The curriculum covered the major aspects of archive operation: conservation, collection development, cataloguing, access, programming, philosophy, ethics and aspects of general management. The middle week of the School was an extensive field trip, embracing inspections of various collection storage, conservation and laboratory facilities in the north eastern United States. Back in Rochester, Olwen Terris lectured on cataloguing, Peter Brothers, Paul Read and Bob Heiber shared their technical and preservation experience, Mike Mashon covered collection development and management, while John Kirk, Martin Koerber, school director Paolo Cherchi Usai and I spread ourselves over the other topics. If it sounds like a lot to pack into three weeks, it was. But that is the nature of summer schools: they are intensive, a kind of temporary community making the most of a finite opportunity. Everyone is highly motivated, and information exchange seems faster and more acute

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

importants des activités d’une archive : acquisition, conservation, catalogage, accès, programmation, ainsi que des principes d’ordre général comme les problèmes d’éthique et de gestion des archives. Que va devenir la formation dans le futur, après Rochester ? Un petit groupe de participants a débattu de l’avenir. Le modèle traditionnel ( et bien entendu coûteux) de la Summer School est-il encore viable ? Y a-t-il de nouvelles pistes ? En 1973, le modèle de formation était celui de la Summer School de la FIAF. Entre temps, la FIAF s’est diversifiée et d’autres associations se sont incorporées dans le spectre des archives. De nombreuses archives ont vu le jour et les changements technologiques ont été fulgurants. Plusieurs fédérations (FIAT, SEAPAVAA) ont dès lors étudié de nouvelles pistes : ateliers plus courts dans le cadre de leurs conférences, « ateliers itinérants », etc. L’idée d’une « Summer School itinérante » est née de la nécessité de régionaliser la formation, de diminuer les coûts de déplacements et de modeler des programmes « sur mesure » selon les différents besoins des archives. Le Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archive Associations (CCAAA) est le cadre approprié pour la réalisation de ces objectifs. La formation restera néanmoins une activité coûteuse mais le véritable défi est de continuer à proposer des cours dispensés par des enseignants spécialisés. Le futur ne verra pas l’adoption « d’un modèle ou l’autre », mais « d’un modèle et l’autre ». Le futur de cette formation dépendra de sa capacité à passer d’un modèle unique à un modèle multiple. El autor analiza aquí cómo se reflejan hoy 30 años de FIAF Summer School y cuál será su proyección hacia el futuro. Recuerda que en 1973 él había asistido como estudiante en la Summer School del Staatliches Filmarchiv, en Berlín y que en 2002 participó como docente en la de Rochester. Constata que el mundo ha cambiado, pero que la pasión y dedicación de los archivistas que la Escuela de verano ha forjado no han menguado. La 10ª edición de la FIAF Summer School tuvo lugar en Rochester del 10 al 28 de junio. La proveniencia de los

than the normal rhythm of daily life. And it is their nature as a communal experience that makes them so special and effective: three weeks provides long enough to form bonds and networks that will enrich the professional lives of all participants. These will, in many cases, continue for the rest of their careers. Those networks, in turn, will be vital to archive building and the long term growth of the profession around the world. (I know this to be true: I still keep in touch with colleagues I met at that first summer school in 1973, just as I have since shared the email exchanges among the 2002 participants.) If the spirit evident in the graduation ceremony on the last evening was a measure of the success of the School – and it surely was – then I felt this representative group of the new generation of archivists had been well chosen, and well served by the experience. I have no doubt that they will treasure their certificates as proudly as I still treasure mine. Like the other lecturers, I felt I gained more than I gave through the time spent among such keen minds and such personal commitment. What comes next? For some of us the School also provided the opportunity for reflection about the future of archival training. Is this now traditional summer school model still valid? Is its high cost still justifiable? Are there better approaches? What difference should the emergence of permanent training courses for audiovisual archivists, a phenomenon of the last decade, make to this pattern? When the first FIAF Summer School was held in 1973 it was an innovative idea in a still rather youthful and unique federation. It was then, so to speak, the only show in town. Today FIAF is much larger and more diverse, and it has been joined by newer federations within the audiovisual archiving spectrum. Archives have proliferated worldwide, and the sometimes desperate need for training has expanded exponentially, just like the dizzying speed of technological change in the audiovisual media themselves, and hence in the challenges and complexity of archiving. Even if Summer Schools were held annually they would come nowhere near meeting the needs that are now evident. Other federations, such as FIAT and SEAPAVAA, have tried different approaches, such as shorter workshops on specific topics, sometimes linked to other events like conferences in order to amortise travel costs. SEAPAVAA has successfully tried the concept of the “travelling workshop” – a week-long course on a particular theme, run sequentially in several countries for local participants in each. These are relatively cheap, because the main cost is that of importing the one or two teachers or resource persons – not the participants. The workshops are able to include field visits to the local archives and anchor the training to local conditions. The permanent training courses provide an advanced academic qualification and, because of their duration, can impart a greater depth of information and experience, along with a holistic frame of reference. They are crucial to the long overdue recognition of audiovisual archiving as a distinct discipline. They are gradually growing in number, along with the increasing presence of audiovisual topics in regular

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

estudiantes y del cuerpo docente es signo del carácter global que fue adquiriendo la profesión: Alemania, Australia, Burkina Faso, Canada, Corea, Estados Unidos, Finlandia, Francia, Holanda, Irlanda, Italia, Macedonia, México, Reino Unido, Sudáfrica, Vietnam. La George Eastman House (GEH), también conocida como el International Museum of Photography and Film, constituyó un entorno excepcional. La belleza del lugar, la funcionalidad de los edificios, la sofisticación de las instalaciones, hacen de GEH un lugar privilegiado para aprender practicando. El programa cubrió los aspectos más importantes de las actividades de un archivo: adquisición, conservación, catalogación, acceso, programación, así como principios generales, de ética y gestión de los archivos. ¿Cómo se desarrollará la formación en el futuro, después de Rochester? Es lo que se discutió en un círculo reducido de participantes. ¿Sigue vigente el modelo – por cierto costoso - de la Summer School tradicional? ¿Se dispone de nuevos enfoques? En 1973, el modelo de la Summer School de la FIAF era el único disponible. Entre tanto, la FIAF se diversificó. Otras asociaciones se fueron incorporando al espectro de los archivos. Se crearon numerosos archivos y los cambios tecnológicos fueron espectaculares. Consecuentemente, varias federaciones (FIAT, SEAPAVAA) intentaron adoptar nuevos enfoques (talleres de menor duración, en el marco de sus conferencias, “talleres itinerantes,” etc.). La idea de una “escuela de verano sobre ruedas” surgió de la necesidad de regionalizar la formación, de abaratar costos de viaje y de modelar los programas “a la medida” de las necesidades diferenciadas de los archivos. El Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archive Associations (CCAAA) ofrece el marco adecuado a la realización de esta variedad de objetivos. La formación seguirá siendo ciertamente una actividad costosa. Sin embargo, el desafío consistirá en conseguir el personal docente especializado idóneo. El futuro estará en la adopción no tanto de “un modelo u otro” sino de “uno y otro”. De la capacidad de pasar de un modelo único a un modelo múltiple depende el futuro de la formación.

archival and library science courses. However, such courses and components are not necessarily anchored to particular archives, communities or federations like FIAF. By definition, they are also expensive - so they are not equally available to everyone. The idea of a FIAF “summer school on wheels” is one concept that emerges from comparison and reflection: something more regionally focussed and less costly in terms of travel and accommodation, something of varying duration which can be tailored to more localised needs and agendas, something which might involve partnerships among a group of archives or even between federations, rather than reliance on a single institution – and of course something which can happen much more frequently than just once every three years. Our field is now complex and expanding, and has long outgrown the “one size fits all” solution. If we are going to meet training needs adequately in future we will require a variety of approaches and partnerships. With the emergence of the CCAAA (Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archive Associations) we have a potential framework in which these needs can be approached comprehensively, cooperatively and strategically. Of course, expanded training programs, no matter how cost effective, will in the end cost more than they do now, and the funds will need to be found. Yet the biggest challenge is not money. It is the availability of trainers. How many archives will be willing to release their most highly skilled people for extensive blocks of time to train and mentor others? The challenge will only be met if the more developed archives are willing to regard the training of others as a professional obligation and a proper charge on their budgets: perhaps to become in some cases (as GEH already is) “teaching” archives, adapted to a constant flow of trainees in their normal work. The medical profession has long done this: without “teaching hospitals” we would soon run out of trained doctors and nurses. The same, I suspect, will be true of archives. Nevertheless, none of this negates the validity of the FIAF Summer School concept as we have known it for thirty years. Assembling the brightest and best from around the globe for a brief but intensive period together still has no substitute, though we might usefully review its curriculum and more deliberately use its strategic potential to develop the leaders of tomorrow’s profession. The future is not “either/or” but “both/and”. The challenge is to expand our view from the success of one model to the possibilities and practicalities of several.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

P.I.P. turns 30! Periodicals Indexing Project (1972-2002) Rutger Penne, Gail Rubenstein

FIAF and Affiliates FIAF et affiliés FIAF y afiliados

L’International Index to Film Periodicals fête cette année ses 30 ans d’indexation de périodiques de cinéma. Le Periodicals Indexing Project (P.I.P.) a été fondé en 1972 par la FIAF dans le but d’aider les archives de la FIAF à conjuguer leurs efforts en matière d’indexation. Au début, les données étaient distribuées sous forme de fiches distribuées chaque année aux affiliés de la FIAF. Il a été ensuite décidé de les publier également dans des volumes reliés pour permettre la diffusion à un public plus large. Les fiches initiales ont été transposées sur microfiches en 1983. Dix ans plus tard, les données étaient publiées deux fois par an sur CD-ROM. Le travail d’indexation est réalisé par des spécialistes du cinéma à travers le monde. Leurs données sont envoyées au bureau du P.I.P. à Bruxelles qui les vérifie avant de les intégrer dans la base de données centrale. Pour assurer une couverture complète des périodiques les plus intéressants, un grand nombre de ceux-ci est également indexé au bureau de Bruxelles. Le P.I.P. a compilé des directives pour une méthode de travail uniforme qui sont révisées régulièrement. Après 30 ans d’existence,

From the beginnings of cinema to the present day, from Lumière to Almodóvar, the International Index to Film Periodicals is a record of 30 years of film journal coverage. The Index began when the International Federation of Film Archives organized the Periodicals Indexing Project (P.I.P.) in 1972 in order to help FIAF archives collaborate and pool their resources. In the past, indexing had been a hit-and-miss affair. A few archives attempted to cover all the major titles, and they could only index selectively those in the less well-known languages. Many of the smaller archives indexed none at all. Every FIAF archive with ambitions to have a documentation service indexed some journals, usually the same ten or twenty of the best-known periodicals, as well as the most useful of their own national journals. It was obvious that there was wasteful duplication of effort and resources. In 1971 it was Karen Jones from the FIAF Documentation Commission who presented the proposal to establish the P.I.P. at the FIAF Congress in Wiesbaden. She became the first editor when the project was launched the following year. Frances Thorpe took over from Karen Jones in 1975. Michael Moulds, who had served as editor in 1973, was appointed editor in 1981 and remained the editor until his retirement in 1998. Initially the service involved sending out batches of 10.000 cards to FIAF affiliates every year. Word got around and institutions outside FIAF began to request subscriptions. The decision was made to publish the data in annual volumes, making it available to a much wider public, including libraries, academic institutions and individual researchers and students. The original card service was replaced by microfiches in 1983. 10 years later the microfiches were in turn replaced by a biannual CDROM edition, containing not only the data from the International Index to Film Periodicals but also several other FIAF databases. Between 1979 and 1998 a limited number of TV periodicals were indexed in the International Index to TV Periodicals. The annual volumes of the International Index to Film Periodicals continue to be produced (vol. 30 in September 2002); the International Index to Television Periodicals is no longer published. However, TV related articles from film journals are still indexed. The ambition of the P.I.P. has always been to maintain high editorial standards. The superior quality of the indexing results from the contributions of specialists based in the countries in which the periodicals are published. The indexers are not only at home in the language in which the articles are written, but they are also knowledgeable about the cinema of that country. Indexing is sent to the P.I.P. office (currently located in Brussels), where it is checked by the editorial staff against the periodical for accuracy and consistency, and then included in the central database. These days most contributors

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

index in a remote version of the database and direct access through the Internet is planned in the near future. To ensure complete coverage, a considerable number of titles are indexed in-house. It’s essential for an international project to adopt uniform standards and working procedures. Guidelines have been compiled by the P.I.P. staff and are regularly revised. A hierarchically ordered controlled thesaurus was established to help indexers and users to achieve consistency and clarity in selecting subject headings when indexing and retrieving periodical articles. Currently more than 20.000 subject terms are included. The list of Subject Headings is available in printed form. 30 years on, the International Index to Film Periodicals contains almost 300,000 article references from more than 300 of the world’s foremost academic and popular film journals. In comparison to other film indexes the International Index to Film Periodicals is unique in the detailed information provided, including a full bibliographic description (author, title of the article, article type: i.e. article/review, citation), an abstract (where necessary), and comprehensive headings (biographical names, film titles and general subjects). For example: Journal Name: Film History

l’International Index to Film Periodicals compte près de 300.000 références à des articles issus de plus de 300 périodiques de cinéma. En 2000, une nouvelle version du CDROM a vu le jour, rapidement suivie par un accès via internet. Ce nouveau CD-ROM, développé par SilverPlatter software, possède une interface conviviale, en plusieurs langues, permettant d’effectuer très facilement les recherches les plus pointues.

ISSN:

0892-2160

Source:

Vol.X nr.4 (1998); p.477-491

Country:

United Kingdom

Language

English

Author:

Lewis, Kevin

Title:

The third force: Graham Greene and Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s The quiet American.

Abstract:

Discusses the film adaptation of ‘The third man’, focusing on the changes made to the story because the film was made by an American company during the Cold War.

Article Type:

Article; Illustrations; Bibliography

Film:

QUIET AMERICAN, THE (US, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1957)

Subject:

ADAPTATIONS. GREENE, GRAHAM; COLD WAR AND THE CINEMA

No history of the P.I.P. would be complete without commenting a little more on the impact the rapid advancement of technology in the past 30 years has had on the project. Demands from our users for improved access and the availability of new technical solutions have led to the release of a revamped version of the CD-ROM in 2000, followed quickly by Internet access. This new version, now called the FIAF International FilmArchive Database, uses SilverPlatter software, which is available in several languages (French, Italian, Spanish, German, etc.) and is used by institutions worldwide. It is user-friendly and designed for optimal

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

El International Index to Film Periodicals celebra este año sus 30 años de actividad de indexación de periódicos de cine. El Periodicals Indexing Project (P.I.P.) fué iniciado en 1972 por la FIAF con el propósito de ayudar a los archivos de la federación a juntar sus esfuerzos en ese campo de actividades. A comienzos del proyecto, los datos se solían distribuir en forma de fichas de cartón a los afiliados de la FIAF. Luego se decidió publicarlos en forma de volúmenes encuadernados con el objeto de facilitar su difusión a un público más amplio. Las fichas iniciales fueron pasadas a microfichas en 1983. Diez años más tarde, se comenzó a publicar los datos en un CD-ROM.

search effectiveness with minimal user training. Currently it is possible to search across multiple databases simultaneously, to use Boolean and proximity operators and to refine searches by using the thesaurus of controlled subject terms. The new technology provides powerful networking solutions and also supports a choice of links to electronic full-text articles and library holdings information. The mission of the P.I.P., refined over 30 years, is still to provide an essential service in the area of film study and research. Our goal remains to aid researchers to find material of current and retrospective value, which will be of equal importance now and in 30 years time.

El trabajo de indexación es efectuado por especialistas de todas partes del mundo. Los datos son enviados a la oficina del P.I.P. en Bruselas, donde son verificados antes de su integración en la base de datos central. Para asegurar una cobertura amplia de los periódicos más interesantes, la oficina de Bruselas indexa asimismo varias revistas. El P.I.P. editó un compendio de instrucciones para asegurar y controlar que los métodos de trabajo mantengan su uniformidad. Luego de 30 años de existencia, el International Index to Film Periodicals contiene cerca de 300.000 referencias a artículos publicados en más de 300 periódicos de cine. En 2000, se adoptó una nueva fórmula de CD-ROM, a la que sucedió el acceso a la base de datos por Internet. El nuevo CD-ROM, desarrollado por SilverPlatter software, es de acceso agradable, en varios idiomas y permite efectuar las búsquedas más sofisticadas con mayor facilidad y en menos tiempo que la versión anterior.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Canberra: Big Screen: Touring Films to Regional Australia Kate McLoughlin

FIAF and Affiliates FIAF et affiliés FIAF y afiliados

Introduction In 2001, ScreenSound Australia, the National Screen and Sound Archive, in collaboration with the Australian Film Commission launched a new initiative: a touring festival of Australian cinema to towns in regional Australia. Known as Big Screen 2001, this festival involved contemporary Australian films alongside classics from Australia’s cinema history. It featured a special program of archival shorts, which has struck a chord with regional audiences, and demonstrated the success of non commercial cinema programming to a number of independent or community run cinemas. Background The centenary of Australia’s federation as a nation in 2001 saw funding received from the Council for the Centenary of Federation to support a groundbreaking tour of Australian films to over 20 regional centres around Australia. Big Screen 2001 – a Celebration of Australian Cinema was launched in March 2001 in a small country town, with a historic cinema: Yarram, in the state of Victoria in southeast Australia. The Big Screen Program The program was devised in consultation with each cinema and location, and relied on not only government funding, but also local inkind support and box office from the screenings. The program had five major components:

The Majestic Theatre, Malanda, Queensland

Contemporary Australian films: many regional audiences do not have access to new release Australian films, or may only see them on video. In 2001 films such as Lantana, Innocence, Better than Sex, Mullet, Mallboy, Yolgnu Boy and The Bank were taken to these audiences; in some cases the Big Screen premiere preceded or stimulated a season of the film to follow. Archival gems: a selection of archival film, highlighting a range of short topics, including newsreels, trailers, political pieces, musical numbers, and featuring film footage unique to each region where the screening was held. This was held as a free matinee session for families, with the local footage attracting strong publicity for the program, being used in television and radio advertising.

School children before a free school screening of Storm Boy (1976), at the Majestic Theatre, Malanda, Queensland, 2001.

A classic silent film was also featured, with local or imported musicians supplying musical accompaniment. This music, gave the local community a strong association with the screening, and provided a huge variety in the style of music used, from traditional piano, keyboard to classical guitars and synthesizers. Australian classic features: a film from the Archive’s collection, including restored features from the Kodak/Atlab Cinema Collection of classic Australian features from the 1970’s, and favourite titles from the

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

En 2001, ScreenSound Australia National Screen and Sound Archive, a lancé un nouveau projet en collaboration avec l’Australian Film Commission: un festival de cinéma australien itinérant s’arrêtant aux quatre coins de l’Australie. Connu sous le nom de Big Screen 2001, ce festival programme aussi bien des films contemporains que des classiques de l’histoire du cinéma australien. Un programme spécial de courtsmétrages d’archive a touché la corde sensible des publics régionaux et a prouvé à un grand nombre de cinémas indépendants ou publics le succès que peut avoir une programmation de films non commerciaux. L’article aborde des détails de la programmation de ce festival, de l’accueil réservé à celui-ci par le public ainsi que de quelques problèmes que l’Archive a rencontré en matière de copie ou de format, de difficultés rencontrés en travaillant avec du matériel chaque fois différent, etc. Le succès de ce festival a permis de le reconduire en 2002. Il a également contribué à accroître la diffusion des films australiens et à faire connaître les activités de ScreenSound Australia à travers l’Australie.

forties and fifties including The Shiralee 1957 (featuring Peter Finch), King of the Coral Sea 1954 (featuring Rod Taylor), Newsfront 1978 (directed by Phil Noyce), Sunday Too Far Away 1975, Breaker Morant 1980 (directed by Bruce Beresford) and Mad Max 1979 (starring Mel Gibson). A ‘celebrity guest’ was featured to launch the event, and stay for a question and answer session, and to be available for the media. The guests included actors or directors with an association with one or more of the films screened. The guests contributed to the sense of occasion at the launch of the event, and were quite often very generous with their time in meeting and greeting the public, talking to school groups and the media. They also created a dialogue with the audience about a range of cinema styles and programs. Free school screenings. A popular component of the program was a free school screening, where school children from surrounding districts were offered the opportunity to visit the cinema to see a classic Australian children’s film such as Storm Boy 1976, or a more recent film about young aboriginal Australians: Yolgnu Boy 2000. A web site to support the event was created, to give background and program information, and to support media inquiries. (www.screensound.gov.au/bigscreen2002) Outcomes of the program Audience reaction to the program was excellent and local awareness of the program very strong. Big Screen was set up with a strong publicity framework, employing a publicist for most venues, with a striking set of brochures individually created for each event. Local advertising and publicity comprised: newspaper advertising and stories, coverage by the national radio network, with interviews and give-aways and television advertisements in most locations. Significant national publicity was obtained on national television and radio programs, and press. Opening night functions were held in all venues, usually supported by the local Council. These nights had a great benefit in involving local community leaders, enabling them to meet festival special guests, and giving the town a strong sense of ownership of the festival. Local participation in the screenings was good in all centres with Cinema managers enthusiastic in promoting the program. They provided additional support, such as including Big Screen session times in their own newspaper and website advertising, coordinating schools screenings, organising or liaising on opening night functions and detailed in-cinema promotional displays.

Moth of Moonbi, Charles Chauvel, 1926, excerpt was screened at Malanda in Queensland for Big Screen 2001.

Local Councils in all venues provided assistance and in-kind sponsorship to varying degrees. Support included paying for newspaper advertising, mailing out programs, securing sponsorship for accommodation, inviting guests to opening nights, organising and hosting opening night receptions and providing general advice and support.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

En 2001, ScreenSound Australia National Screen and Sound Archive, lanzó un nuevo proyecto de cooperación con la Australian Film Commission: un festival de cine australiano itinerante por los cuatro puntos cardinales del continente. Conocido bajo la denominación de Big Screen 2001, este festival ofrece programas tanto de películas contemporáneas como de clásicos del cine australiano. Un programa especial de corto-metrajes de archivos suscitó un gran interés en los públicos regionales y permitió demostrar a numerosas salas independientes y públicas el éxito que puede tener una programación de películas no comerciales. El artículo aborda los detalles de la programación del festival, de su percepción por parte del público y de los problemas que tuvo que enfrentar el Archivo en materia de disponibilidad de copias, de formatos, de multiplicidad de materiales, etc. El éxito obtenido por este festival logró que se repitiera en el 2002. También contribuyó a incrementar la difusión de películas australianas y a conocer las actividades de ScreenSound Australia a través de toda Australia.

The Big Screen concept, which involves a mix of Australian new release and older Australian films, was a great success, providing many different angles for promotion and a selection of films that had ‘something for everyone’. The films screened varied between venues, with a few sessions in common, but most programs being modified to suit the audience involved, and to fit in with past or future cinema programming. Generally though, new release films were the most popular, while the selection of ‘classic’ films attracted a smaller but very enthusiastic audience. The silent film was a consistent success, and the schools screenings were overwhelmingly popular. The Gems from the Archive program attracted a good audience in all centres with the Regional Treasures component the most popular aspect. It was clear that those cinemas which regularly programmed Australian or ‘art house’ films or ran some sort of ‘film club’ or specialty program, did better than venues which normally only select the American blockbusters. Issues for the Archive Some of the issues for the Archive touring such a program included: having prints made for the program; assisting some smaller cinemas in dealing with a range of film formats over a short time, and the wide variation in audience expectations and cinema knowledge across the centres in Australia. Dealing with film formats Most of the prints were supplied from the Archive’s existing collection, or from commercial cinema sources. However many short films from the gems program were specially created. It was decided that the whole program would be shown on film, and in the early stages programs were put together in both 16mm and 35mm format, as many short films were made on 16mm. However in selecting venues for the event, most cinemas only had facilities for 35mm. While we were able to supply a 16mm projector in many cases, it soon became apparent that having the entire program on 35mm was much simpler. The gems program comprised a 60 – 70 minute program of around 20 short films. Putting together a program comprising silent, academy frame and some wide screen material is no easy matter. With enthusiastic projectionists, in cinemas with equipment that could cope with the varying formats, the program was screened very successfully. In other situations the formats posed a problem. In order to assist the projectionists Archive technical staff were available to give advice (usually over the phone), and practice reels and written assistance were provided enabling many cinemas to modify their setup in order to get the best possible outcomes for screening full frame or academy films. A few of the cinemas had variable speed projectors, but most could only screen films at 24 frames per second, so we needed to ensure that the silent films we screened could still be appreciated at that speed. While the audience reaction to the films was very strong, and in most cases they looked good on the screens, some compromises were made to ideal viewing standards. However such a program would not have

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

been delivered to many of these venues without compromises. One of the solutions to dealing with varying formats has been to make a wide screen version of the films selected in the short film program. While incurring additional time and cost from our internal film laboratory, this solution has proved very successful in enabling the venues to easily screen a program of varying archival formats. Audience reactions The variation in audience expectations and reactions was one of the joys of the program, as well as one of the occasional frustrations. Some centers had no regular cinema program, and the audience was probably mostly television watchers. The gems program, particularly where local footage was featured, was billed as a free family event, and tended to have quite a buzz of chatter and recognition from the audience as they watched. Other venues, where independent cinema owners had been able to maintain a good variety of programming, had strong cores of appreciative cinemagoers.

Ron Brent, Director of ScreenSound Australia, Sabina Wynn, Australian Film Commission and Ray Lawrence, director of Lantana (2001) at the Albury Cinema Centre for the closing night of "Big Screen 2001".

One of the venues for the festival was Malanda in Queensland, which has the oldest continuously screening cinema in Australia. The timber cinema building still features canvas seats and very early projectors. The cinema owners were enthusiastic promoters of the event, and the opening night featured a screening of the surviving excerpt from the film which opened the cinema in 1926: The Moth of Moonbi, shot by pioneering Australian director Charles Chauvel. A wonderful electronic keyboard, accompanied the silent excerpt with music composed by a local musician, and oration by a member of the historical society, to give the film excerpt context. Conclusion The program has been so successful that it is now in its second season, with continued support from the Australian Film Commission, as well as from the Archive’s home department. The combination of archival film and contemporary cinema has proved a winning formula, and the Australian Minister for the Arts and Sport who launched the event, welcomes the exposure of regional audiences to Australian cinema culture. The program is a flagship Outreach program for the Archive, and has increased access to our collection and visibility around Australia.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Dublin: The Irish Film Archive Kasandra O’Connell

FIAF and Affiliates FIAF et affiliés FIAF y afiliados

2002 is an auspicious year for the Irish Film Archive; it sees the completion of our first ten years, a decade of salvage, discovery and hard work and the beginning of our second decade complete with a new set of challenges. That is not to say there have not been moments of great satisfaction, but as any archivist will attest, in many ways, the creation and maintenance of an archive is an act of faith and a labour of love. From humble beginnings the Irish Film Archive has attained a level of professionalism that was officially recognised last year when the IFA attained full membership of FIAF, a particularly proud moment for those who had seen the Archive through its various stages of development. History Ireland was a late starter in the field of film preservation and acutely aware that it was amongst the last country in Europe to set up a national film archive. The need for a national film archive to preserve the nation’s moving image heritage had been mooted for several decades, indeed the first recorded call for such a body was published in 1917. In 1986 the first step on the road to achieving this aim occurred when the Irish Film Institute established an archive section and began to archive Irish material from its library. Although there were no climate controlled vaults in which to house the isolated material, the archive section of the Institute was admitted as a provisional member of FIAF in 1989. This was in some ways a cruel honour as increased communication with established FIAF archives, while inspiring and helpful, also served to highlight the enormity of the task ahead of us. Our late start also had advantages; it allowed us to learn from the mistakes and successes of our longer established colleagues and also to avail from the beginning of new technologies such as computer data -bases and specifically designed numbering and cataloguing systems.

The Irish Film Archive

The material held in the Library of the Irish Film Institute provided a rich basis for the establishment of an embryonic national film collection. The Irish Film Institute had developed from the National Film Institute, which was founded in 1943 under the auspices of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid 1. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s it produced public information and safety films and functioned as a distributing library until the 1980s, thereby giving the newly formed archive section an

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

La Irish Film Archive (IFA) fête cette année son 10ème anniversaire. Issu du National Film Institute, son rôle est de préserver et de rendre accessible le patrimoine cinématographique irlandais. Admise à la FIAF en 1989, elle est membre de la FIAF depuis 2001. La IFA rassemble une collection de quelques 20.000 rouleaux et organise régulièrement des séances de projection. Financée par le Irish Arts Council, l’Archive emploie 5 personnes à temps plein et 5 personnes à temps partiel. La politique de l’Archive ne permettant pas de payer pour acquérir une œuvre, l’IFA dépend également de dons de sources privées et de sociétés de production pour enrichir ses collections. La Irish Film Archive fournit des copies aux festivals de film irlandais, tant au niveau national qu’au niveau international. La plupart des films nitrate de la collection ont étés transférés en acétate récemment et les responsables de l’IFA espèrent prochainement stocker la collection d’originaux dans un entrepôt plus vaste. L’Archive a mis sur pied il y a peu un Comité de pilotage composé de personnes issues du monde de l’archivage en Irlande pour discuter de problèmes tels que le statut des films en dépôt et la construction de nouvelles installations.

important and varied core collection. 1992 the next step was taken and the Archive section of the Film Institute of Ireland became the Irish Film Archive proper. This coincided with the Film Institute of Ireland’s move to new premises (the Irish Film Centre) which allowed for the commissioning of four purposebuilt vaults and the provision of public facilities. Current activities The Irish Film Archive’s main objective is to acquire, preserve and make available Ireland’s moving image heritage and the Archive’s holdings include an extensive collection of film, Inside the Irish Film Archive magnetic tape, film stills and posters. The Irish Film Archive’s collection is broad, aiming to reflect all aspects of indigenous film production. It incorporates fiction, features, public information films, amateur material, documentary, newsreel, experimental film and animation. The oldest film held is the Lumiere Frere’s 1897 footage of Dublin and the oldest script is the Informer from John Ford’s film made in 1929. These collections are held in custom built vaults, where temperature and humidity are controlled at optimal levels for long- term preservation. The Archive currently holds approximately 20,000 titles in three film vaults, two of which store master material, acquired solely for preservation and not available for viewing. The third is a larger viewing vault which houses all access material, both film and tape, which is available to be viewed by researchers and for screening by festivals. The Archive also has a climate controlled paper vault, housing documents, posters, stills, scripts, press packs, production related correspondence and other film related paper material. The IFA provides a valuable public service and its public facilities include the Tiernan Mac Bride Library of books and periodicals relating to Irish and world cinema, a reference collection of VHS tapes and public viewing facilities. The establishment of the Archive in 1992 coincided with the reestablishment of the Irish Film Board and an increased interest in Irish cinema; there has been a proliferation of media studies and courses on studying Irish film nationally and internationally over the last ten years. The Archive has proven to be a valuable resource for anyone interested in Ireland’s moving image heritage. Academics, students, teachers, film- makers, researchers and film enthusiasts all avail of our facilities. The library and paper archive are in constant use by film students and the media, production

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

El Irish Film Archive (IFA) celebra este año su 10° aniversario. Creado a partir del National Film Institute, su mandato comprende promover el acceso al acervo cinematográfico irlandés. El IFA ingresó en la FIAF en 1989 y solicitó el estatuto de Miembro de la FIAF obteniéndolo en el 2001. El archivo conserva una colección de aproximadamente 20.000 rollos de película, organiza regularmente proyecciones y ofrece todos los servicios de un archivo completo. Financiado por el Irish Arts Council, el archivo emplea 5 personas a tiempo completo y 5 a tiempo parcial. Su política de adquisición no le permite adquirir materiales pagando por ellos; por consiguiente el enriquecimiento de sus colecciones depende de la obtención de materiales de fuentes privadas y donaciones. El IFA suministra copias de películas irlandesas a festivales de cine nacionales e internacionales. La mayor parte de las películas en nitrato han sido copiadas a material acetato recientemente y los responsables del IFA esperan poder instalar próximamente un depósito de almacenamiento más amplio para la conservación de su colección de originales. El archivo ha constituido un Comité de consulta compuesto de especialistas de archivos de Irlanda con el objeto de tratar temas tales como el estatuto de las películas en depósito y la construcción de nuevas instalaciones.

companies and filmmakers make constant use of our extensive holdings, frequently using Archive footage, held and supplied by the Film Archive, in documentary programmes. Staff and Funding The bulk of the Irish Film Archive’s funding comes from the Irish Arts Council and as with many archives that are not financed directly by the exchequer, funding is a major concern. As most archivists will relate, the budget made available to archives and the ethical aspirations and professional sensibilities of the film archivist are often diametrically opposed. Necessity is said to be the mother of invention and as with many smaller film archives the staff of the IFA have ensured the resources available to them have been effectively employed. As is common in many cultural institutions the Archive has been understaffed and under-resourced for much of its existence. However, despite these difficulties the IFA has been fortunate to have had an energetic and highly experienced staff, who have ensured that the Archive has developed professionally to the extent that it was made a full member of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) last year. We have benefited from the advice and support of our FIAF colleagues as well as from FIAF training programmes, especially the Summer School, which is ideally suited to small archives such as the Irish Film Archive. At present the Archive employs 5 full-time staff, the Head of the Archive, a Collections Archivist, Curator, Librarian with responsibility for the paper archive and a full-time cataloguer. In addition to this there are 5 part-time staff, funded by FAS, a government work scheme, who process incoming material and address the cataloguing backlog, as well as undertaking administrative duties and servicing requests from the public. It is unfortunate that due to the terms of FAS employment schemes part-time employees can only be employed for limited periods of time. It is hoped in the near future that the Archive will receive sufficient funding to allow it to retain these part-time staff on a more permanent basis. This would allow us to reap the long-term benefits of our investment in human resources and provide the Archive with a more permanent staff structure. Acquisition and Exhibition The Irish Film Archive has a non-purchase acquisition policy and acquires donations from private sources as well as from production companies and professional bodies. The Irish Film Archive is fortunate in that there are no regional film Archives in Ireland competing with it for the acquisition of collections. The Irish Film Board is a valuable source of material, as it requires production companies to deposit in the Archive, a preservation copy of all films, which they have helped to finance. Negotiations continue between the Archive and relevant government departments to ensure the deposit of a comprehensive collection of Irish material under a system of statutory deposit, as outlined in the 1997 Cultural Institutions Act. This will of course have both spatial and resource implications for the Archive. It is unclear at what stage statutory deposit will become a reality (if ever) as a number of sections of the Act have yet to be put in place. The Archive takes seriously its mission to make Ireland’s moving image heritage available through exhibition and endeavours to promote and

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

create an audience for Irish film nationally and internationally. In order to provide access to the collections and to draw attention to its vital work, the Archive undertakes an extensive programme of exhibition. This year sees a special 10th anniversary Archive programme that includes a regional Archive tour, a national film search, outdoor screenings of music related film from the Archive collection and Archive related lectures. This programme is in addition to regular activities such as free monthly public Archive screenings, Cinemobile screenings2 and the facilitation of national and international festivals of Irish Film. This level of usage of access copies (which are often exdistribution prints and therefore have a reduced life span to begin with) inevitably leads to print fatigue. The Archive does not currently have the resources to strike new copies of these titles. In practical terms this means the IFA must be very strict regarding the number of times we allow prints to be shown in order to prolong the life span of the prints. The Irish Film Archive‘s relationship to our parent body the Film Institute of Ireland has been beneficial in that it has ensured a high profile for the Archive, has given us access to cinemas and projectionists, who facilitate regular screenings of archive material and has ensured constant communication with film-makers who regularly visit the Irish Film Centre, from which the Film Institute of Ireland operates. Preservation Activities The Irish Film Archive undertakes an active preservation policy, within its means. The Archive does not have laboratories and major restoration work is sent abroad. The expensive nature of film preservation combined with the budget constraints of the Archive demands careful consideration of value and vulnerability when prioritising material for preservation. Recent preservation projects have included, ‘Once Upon a Tram’, a 1959 film about the last tram from Howth Co. Dublin. The Archive had this title restored to the 16mm combined optical colour print the Directors had intended but could not afford, by marrying the 16mm Kodachrome mute reversal with sound taken from a 35mm black and white print. The sound was digitally remastered and stretched to correspond with the 16mm material to produce a combined optical print, which was exhibited at a special screening for European Heritage week. A successful application to the Irish Heritage Council for funding to convert the Archive’s nitrate film (which is currently stored in the UK due to its volatile nature) has allowed the Archive to have the bulk of the nitrate backlog converted to safety film. This has allowed the material be repatriated and made available to researchers for the first time in decades. However, the Archive still has a relatively large collection of small- gauge material that needs to be transferred when funds become available. At present the vaults at Eustace Street are almost full, which has prevented the Archive’s acquisition policy from being as proactive as we would like. A recent donation of 250,000 dollars from Spyglass Entertainment and World 2000 Entertainment has allowed us to commission an architect’s report and feasibility study for Archive development. The anticipated relocation of master material to an off

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

site store will enable the Archive to extend the Library, viewing facilities and access vaults at the Eustace Street site. Public access will remain at the city centre location and will be upgraded, while the master collection will be stored at a site less vulnerable to urban hazards and with room to accommodate future growth. Conclusion The Archive is working to highlight the importance of the work we do and to raise public awareness of our existence. We must continue our work to ensure full recognition of the Archive as an important cultural resource and of film as a valuable social and historical document, a uniquely accessible record of the development of modern Ireland. Our goal is that the Irish Film Archive will receive recognition equal to other national cultural institutions such as the National Museum, Library and Gallery, thereby recognising that our film heritage is as valuable as any manuscript held in a paper archive or artefact in a museum. In addition to membership of FIAF and UK FAF (Film Archive Forum) the Archive will continue to engage with relevant Irish bodies such as the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, the broadcasters and other archives to ensure the protection of Irish film heritage for future generations. The Irish Film Archive recently put together a Steering Committee of individuals from the heritage sector to examine the need for a national policy on moving image archiving in Ireland. We will continue to lobby for adequate legal, funding and staffing mechanisms to allow the next 10 years to be even more fruitful and to ensure that the Archive is afforded the tools to enable us to continue to adhere to FIAF guidelines for best practise. The accomplishments of the last decade are testament to the to commitment and belief of the Archive staff, in particular Archive Curator Sunniva O’Flynn who has been dedicated to the preservation of Ireland’s moving image heritage since the formative days of the IFA and was largely instrumental in its establishment. The journey thus far has been interesting and worthwhile. The staff of the Irish Film Archive have accomplished much since 1992, but we are aware that there is much left to achieve and we are looking forward to the challenges of the next ten years.

1 John Charles McQuaid was Archbishop of Dublin from 1940 to 1972 and facilitated the establishment of the National Film Institute in 1943, as a body, which would advise on the potential of cinema for good and for evil and its use for educational purposes. 2 The Cinemobile is Ireland’s moving cinema that tours rural locations country wide, exhibiting a range of cinematic genres and giving those audiences who may not have access to a local cinema the opportunity to experience the magic of the big screen. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Film Institute of Ireland, the Irish Film Archive ‘s parent body

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Düsseldorf Film Museum Sabine Lenk

FIAF and Affiliates FIAF et affiliés FIAF y afiliados

The roots of the Düsseldorf Film Museum go back to 1956, when city school officials established the Düsseldorf Cinematograph of Culture and Youth. The real boost of the Cinematograph happened in the 1970’s when most of Germany’s Volkshochschulen (VHS, continuing-education institutions) started holding films forums, meeting places for film buffs. Düsseldorf’s VHS began sponsoring premieres or presenting regular screenings of films preceded by a lecture and followed by a discussion. This was the Film Forum of the Düsseldorf VHS, founded in 1972 and so successful that in March 1979, it was transformed into the Film Institute of Düsseldorf. The new institution had four sections of activity: training (seminars, conferences, workshops, lectures, guided tours, etc.); the Filmwerkstatt (production office, providing technical equipment for films); screenings in what was named the Black Box (its walls were entirely black); and collection management.

Les origines du Musée du Cinéma de Düsseldorf remontent à 1956, lorsque les autorités scolaires ont créé le Cinéma de la culture pour la jeunesse. Dans les années 70, les Volkshochschulen (VHS, institutions de formation continue) organisaient des forums, des groupes de discussion, etc. Les projections étaient alors précédées de présentations et suivies par des discussions. Grâce au succès rencontré par ces VHS, le Film Forum de Düsseldorf, créé en 1972, est devenu l’Institut de Cinéma de Düsseldorf en 1979. Dans les années 80, cette institution a commencé à proposer une exposition permanente, au cœur de la ville. Elle a été inaugurée en 1993. Depuis lors, parallèlement aux expositions permanentes, de nombreuses expositions temporaires ont été mises sur pied : Piel (1993), Murnau (1996), Wenders (1995), Knef (1997), George (1997), Werner (1998), Hitchcock (1999), Anschütz (2000) Marylin Monroe (2001) et Klaus Kinski (2002) En 2001, la collection se composait de 4.500 films, 14.000 livres et périodiques, 200.000 photographies et 20.000 posters, ainsi que de dessins et de textes originaux,

In the early 1980’s, the institution began the planning for a permanent exhibition of the objects collected for years, both before and after the founding of the Film Institut. In the heart of the old city. The opening was in summer 1993. At the same time, the Filmwerkstatt became independent as a non-profit association. Finally, a few years later, THE RENAMED film Museum was forced by municipal financial orders to rent its screening room to an independent exhibitor. In other words, film programming, which used to be one of the museum’s main activities, has at least temporarily been reduced to a minimum for budgetary reasons. Themes in the permanent display can be developed in temporary exhibitions. Thus, the “Principles of Cinema” section was complemented by “Light Dreams and Shadows Images” in 1989 and “The Magic of Shadows” in 1999; the “Stars and Directors” theme has been built upon in temporary exhibitions on Harry Piel (1993), Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (1996), Wim Wenders (1995), Hildegard Knef (1997), Götz George (1997), Ilse Werner (1998), Alfred Hitchcock (1999), Ottomar Anschütz (2000) Marylin Monroe (2001) and Klaus Kinski (2002)1 As of 2001 the collection comprised 4,500 films, 14,000 books and journals, 200,000 photographs and 20,000 posters, along with drawings and writings, technical equipment, costumes, the shadow theatre puppets of the Bührmann-Kemper Collection, and works by such posthumous figures as Hans Albers, Guido Bagier, Harry Piel, Lotte Reiniger and Wolfgang Staudte. In a reading room opened in the summer of 2000, much of this material can be consulted. In November 2000, financed by the town of Düsseldorf and the state Culture Ministry, the Film Museum officially opened a 1,000-square-

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

d’appareils, de costumes, de marionnettes de théâtre d’ombre de la Collection Bührmann-Kemper, et de travaux de Hans Albers, Guido Bagier, Harry Piel, Lotte Reiniger et de Wolfgang Staudte. Beaucoup de ces éléments peuvent être consultés dans une salle de lecture inaugurée à l’été 2000. Cette année, on a inauguré un dépôt de 1000 m2, idéalement climatisé et équipé de cabines de visionnage. Financé par la Ville de Düsseldorf et par le Ministère de l’Etat de NRW, le musée entretient également des relations avec de grandes entreprises qui déposent leurs collections dans les locaux du musée. En 2003, le Düsseldorf Film Museum célèbrera son 10ème anniversaire en se préparant à relever le défi du remplacement de la vidéo par le DVD.

meter climate-controlled film vault and new viewing rooms. By request of the ministry, the Film Museum buys works by RNW filmmakers every year so as to conserve them. In addition, it receives films produced with funding given by North Rhine Westphalian institutions like the Filmstiftung. Businesses such as Mannesmann, Rheinmetall and the historical archive Krupp, have deposited their cinematic treasures is sections set aside for them. With its permanent collection and special exhibitions, the Film Museum is part of the cultural diversity of the city. It has an interregional role as the state depositary and is, indeed, the only Film Museum in RNW. German and English. Guided tours in French are available. In 2003, the Düsseldorf Film Museum celebrates its 10th anniversary in Schulstrasse. In the meantime, much remains to be done. We foresee many changes until that event. The replacement of video by DVD is imminent; certain sections of the museum, such as The Myth of the Present, will be equipped with computers to increase interactivity: visitors will be able to choose an image and program the display of their own taste. And, if there are enough volunteers, short screenings of films will take place in the Film Museum’s travelling cinema section to enhance the permanent display.

Los orígenes del Museo del cine de Düsseldorf remontan a 1956, cuando fue fundado el “Cine de la cultura para la juventud” por las autoridades escolares. En los años 70, las Volkshochschulen (VHS, instituciones de formación continua) organizaron foros, grupos de discusión, etc. Los estrenos empezaron a ser introducidos por presentaciones y seguidos por discusiones. Gracias a su éxito, el Film Forum de Düsseldorf, creado en 1972, se convirtió en el Instituto del cine de Düsseldorf en 1979. En los 80s, esta institución comenzó a planificar una exposición permanente, en el corazón de la ciudad. La inauguración tuvo lugar en 1993. Desde entonces, paralelamente a las exposiciones permanentes, tuvieron lugar numerosas exposiciones temporarias: Piel (1993), Murnau (1996), Wenders (1995), Knef (1997), George (1997), Werner (1998), Hitchcock (1999), Anschütz (2000) Marylin Monroe (2001) y Klaus Kinski (2002) En 2001, la colección comprendía 4,500 películas, 14,000 libros y periódicos, 200,000 fotografías y 20,000 posters, así como dibujos y textos originales, aparatos, vestuarios, los muñecos del teatro de sombras de la Colección Bührmann-Kemper, y trabajos de Hans Albers, Guido Bagier, Harry Piel, Lotte Reiniger y Wolfgang Staudte. Muchos de estos elementos pueden ser consultados en una sala de lectura abierta en el verano del 2000. En ese año, también se inauguró un depósito de 1000 m2, adecuadamente climatizado y equipado de cabinas de visualización. Financiado por la ciudad de Düsseldorf y el Ministerio del estado de NRW, el museo también entretiene relaciones con grandes empresas que depositan sus colecciones en él. En 2003, el Düsseldorf Film Museum celebra su 10° aniversario y se prepara a enfrentar los desafíos que representa el remplazo del video por el DVD.

1 Catalogs on Piel, Hitchcock and Anschütz extend the life of these exhibitions, which were on view for an average of three months.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Hong-Kong: Waves of Generosity Mable Ho

FIAF and Affiliates FIAF et affiliés FIAF y afiliados

The Hong Kong Film Archive’s collection, comprising an extensive range of films and film-related materials, has been growing with each passing day since its inauguration in January 2001, drawing primarily from voluntary donations and our own acquisition initiatives. To many members of the public, the permanent Archive building serves as a hamlet of viewing, exhibitions, research, and participation in various activities through which they discover for themselves the Archive’s efforts in the classification, restoration and preservation of our cultural heritage. It is requisite for us to continue seeding the notion of the preservation of our legacy by reaching out to film organisations, filmmakers, and film lovers alike to whom our roles and facilities remain largely oblivious. Therefore, the first and foremost task of the Acquisition Team is to disseminate our mission to the community. Only then will trust and support come along. Having accomplished that, there remains the one and only encounter to be envisaged: that of moved like-minded individuals who will generously donate their prized collection to the Archive for the benefit of all. Our ‘First’ Thanks The chilling winter winds had not put a damper on our fervent spirit as we headed off to First Organisation Limited to retrieve the collection of film copies and materials held and donated by its entrepreneur, Mr Wong Cheuk-hon. Our thanks to Mr Wong’s son, Mr Wong Hoi, for arranging this trip.

The vast collection of First Organisation was transported to the Archive by experienced archival personnel

King Hu’s classic Legend of the Mountain (1979) left vivid imprints in the memories of my youth. Such aura of lofty romanticism still strikes me as strongly today, and so it was with indescribable pleasure that I salvaged this treasured piece from its dusty hibernation. Of course without the support of Mr Wong Cheuk-hon, this masterpiece, which took two years to make, would not have made its onscreen appearance. The production of such classic films is undoubtedly the result of hard work by a team of professionals not the least of which the producer bears the major bulk. Our gratitude to the Wong family for their generous contribution to the Archive in making it possible for the invaluable assets of Liberty Film, Lan Kwong and First Organisation, operated by Mr Wong, to be resuscitated and admired for years to come. A rough estimation of the inventory from this trip totals some two hundred films and tens of thousands of other valuable artefacts such as posters, stills and clippings from the 1950s to 1980s, all being the pinnacles of these three companies. Mr Wong was a multi-talented entrepreneur whose dedication was a testament to the film development of his time. Not only was he a

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Depuis sa création en 2001, la Hong Kong Film Archive n’a cessé de se développer, et cela grâce aux généreux donateurs. Cette jeune institution entend bien continuer à développer ses collections grâce à sa politique d’acquisition dynamique.

producer and director, he also nurtured a staple of great directors and talented actors — Chun Kim, Jeanette Lin Cui, Patrick Tse Yin, Ting Ying — to name but a few. After rearrangement, the warm images of such classics as Sweet Seventeen (1954), Taps Off, Down Stairs! (1954), Madam Kam (1963), Factory Queen (1963) and Legend of the Mountain can once again be admired by a new generation.

Dans cet article, Mable Ho remercie M. Wong Cheuk-hon, qui a fait don de son importante collection de copies de films et de différents objets ainsi que M. Yonfan, réalisateur et fervent défenseur de l’Archive. M. Yonfan dépose non seulement régulièrement des copies de ces films à l’archive, mais il y lègue également ces publications et des négatifs photos.

May Beauty Live On Of the directors active in the industry, Yonfan can be said to be a most ardent supporter of the Archive. Having already donated a number of film prints of his works, Director Yonfan continues to enrich our cache with his publications and photo negatives. This is no light statement, as his collection never fails to capture the radiance and essence of many a celebrity throughout his career starting as a professional photographer. His recent film Peony Pavilion (2001) is an international success, garnering the Best Actress award for lead actress Miyazawa Rie at the Moscow International Film Festival. Yonfan’s intention to donate a copy of the film print, major pieces of costumes and props to the Archive has left us all with breathless anticipation. It is a well-known fact that Yonfan is an avid collector and perfectionist; this film is a showcase of these qualities as he gently portrays the silent longing, captivating each moment with minute details. Indeed, the period costumes that so elaborately depict its era in the film are from his personal collection. His rendering of these definitive masterpieces means that their true glory will be preserved in the most ideal environment and appreciated by the public for years to come.

L’auteur remercie également deux habitués de l’archive ; Mr Tse Sui-kay, qui a fait don de ces mémoires témoignant de plus 80 ans de cinéma hong kongais, and Mr Pang Lok, qui a également légué son importante collection de vieux périodiques de cinéma.

A Friend Indeed I’ve recently had the good fortune to meet two passionate members of the public. Mr Tse Sui-kay has kindly donated his precious memoirs on some eighty years of Hong Kong cinema. Writing since his six-year-old experience at a theatre in Guangzhou of Orphan Rescues Grandfather (1923), this detailed journal touches upon local and international celebrities as well as noted classic films. I believe the importance of collecting cinematic artefacts is that each artefact encapsulates the spirit, memories and efforts of the many who have worked on it. Mr Tse’s memories so entwined with cinematic influence prove that he’s truly a connoisseur of the arts.

Director Yonfan unfolds to us the stories behind his donations.

Another now retired gentleman, Mr Pang Lok has become a frequent visitor to the Archive. Since the kick-off of Panorama of Great Wall, Feng Huang & Sun Luen, Mr Pang has been a regular patron of our cinema once every few days. Mr Pang would make full use of the Resource Centre even in between shows. One day, he finally summoned the courage to ask us whether we would like to accept his collection of old movie magazines. Mr Pang once took the dream profession of many die-hard movie fans — an usher. Apart from a few theatres on the outskirts of town, Mr Pang has visited over ninety theatres throughout Hong Kong.

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Desde su creación en 2001, el Hong Kong Film Archive está en pleno crecimiento, gracias en particular a numerosos donantes. La joven institución esta resuelta a continuar desarrollándose y proseguir con su política dinámica de adquisición. En este artículo, Mable Ho agradece al Sr Wong Cheuk-hon, quien donó su importante colección de películas y otros objetos y al Sr Yonfan, director de cine e importante defensor del Archivo. El Sr Yonfan no sólo deposita regularmente copias de películas, sino que también hizo entrega de importantes colecciones de publicaciones y negativos de fotografías.

The film show has not only re-ignited Mr Pang’s passion for the movies but has also touched him profoundly, so much so that in an article, he wrote: In this recent year, the establishment of the Film Archive has once again bridged the distance between me and the films. It is in their cinema that I rediscover the beauty of films from the 1940s and 1950s. I am pleased to learn that there is no shortage of like-minded folks out there. Among them, audience from a younger generation. My earnest hope is that people from the film industry will bring back the production of movies to the right track and produce entertaining yet educational films for the benefit of the society and our young generation.

El autor también agradece al Sr Tse Sui-kay, quien hizo donación de sus memorias sobre 80 años de cine de Hong Kong, y al Sr Pang Lok, quien donó una importante colección de periódicos cinematográficos al archivo.

The Federation’s main periodical publication in paper format offers a forum for general and specialised discussion on theoretical and technical aspects of

Journal of Film Preservation

moving image archival activities. La principale publication périodique de la Fédération, sous forme d’imprimé, offre un forum de discussion - aussi bien générale que spécialisée - sur les aspects théoriques et techniques de l’archivage des images en mouvement. Published twice a year by FIAF Brussels. Subscription 4 issues: 45€

For more information: FIAF Rue Defacqz 1 1000 Brussels - Belgium Tel. +32-2 538 30 65 Fax +32-2 534 47 74 [emailprotected] www.fiafnet.org

2 issues: 30€ Publication semestrielle de la FIAF à Bruxelles. abonnement 4 numéros: 45€ 2 numéros: 30€ Back volumes: 15€

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Monterrey: La Cineteca de Nuevo León Roberto Escamilla

FIAF and Affiliates FIAF et affiliés FIAF y afiliados

El entorno Monterrey es una ciudad industrial situada en el noroeste de la República Mexicana, cerca de la frontera con los Estados Unidos. Junto con la Ciudad de México y Guadalajara, las dos mayores en número de habitantes pero con una serie de características físicas y de asentamiento populares muy similares, forman el triángulo clave de ciudades en desarrollo de México. La revolución industrial de Monterrey, se inicia a finales del Siglo XIX, justo muy cerca de la fecha de nacimiento del cine. Aparte de fábricas de hilados y de cemento, dos industrias fueron los ejes de su crecimiento: una enorme cervecería y una gran siderúrgica, pionera en el procesamiento del acero en América Latina. Una fundidora de fierro que, como todas les empresas de altos hornos, trabajaba de día y de noche. Una poderosa burguesía, y a la vez, un enorme sector de trabajadores y empleados se formó al amparo de sus instalaciones. El calor es una constante en la vida diaria de los habitantes de Monterrey, conocidos por todos y por ellos mismos como los “regiomontanos”. Cada jornada, desde que sale el sol hasta que se oculta, salvo en los contados meses de invierno, o en épocas de lluvia, es difícil la actividad en el exterior. Muchos refugios, aparte del hogar, han sido favoritos de los regiomontanos desde siempre. Entre ellos, las tabernas refrigeradas y las salas de cine con aire acondicionado. El regreso a casa después del trabajo diario, contemplaba siempre una u otra de estas diversiones, no todos los días, por supuesto; tanto como sentarse, por las noches, a conversar en mecedoras colocadas fuera de los domicilios, en las banquetas de la calles. Monterrey, ciudad laboral, cruce de caminos entre México y los Estados Unidos, ha estado siempre muy cerca de las últimas novedades técnicas. El descubrimiento de la fotografía, la aparición del cinematógrafo, la primera transmisión de radio en América Latina, la salida de la televisión y todas las novedades producto de la llegada de un mundo digital, estuvieron casi a la orden del día tan pronto las innovaciones se sucedieron en el vecino país del norte. Los kinetoscopios de Edison, proyectados en pantalla grande, rivalizaron en Monterrey con las primera y entusiastas proyecciones de los cortos de los hermanos Lumiere que debutaron en el Distrito Federal y luego se difundieron por todo México en jornadas itinerantes. Pronto las primeras salas se construyeron y siguen hasta hoy, con igual o mayor éxito, dentro de los enormes y modernos complejos de entretenimiento colectivo. Los deseos El cine, el gran cine, nunca estuvo lejos de la ciudad. Llegaron de manera puntual a Monterrey, por ejemplo, la película y los técnicos que hicieron del estreno de la obra, ya casi inmortal, de Griffith, “El nacimiento de una nación”, un evento memorable. Igual ocurrió con “El acorazado Potemkin” y hasta la década de los Sesenta del siglo anterior

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Monterrey est une ville industrielle du nord-est du Mexique, non loin de la frontière avec les Etats-Unis. Située au carrefour de ces deux nations, elle a souvent été à la pointe des innovations techniques et, depuis son apparition, le cinéma a toujours été la diversion favorite de ses habitants, attirant tant un public aisé que populaire. Jusqu’en 1970, la majorité des films projetés étaient produits aux Etats-Unis ou en Europe. Or, à l’époque où la vidéo et le DVD n’avaient pas encore fait leur apparition, on ne remontrait plus les classiques. Inspirés de l’exemple parisien, un grand nombre de cinéphiles réclamaient la création d’une Cinémathèque, qui serait avant tout un endroit où l’on projetterait des films différents de ceux proposés par la distribution commerciale. Ce projet se réalisa vingt ans plus tard. Et à ce rêve allait se greffer un autre: celui de créer un endroit de conservation de la mémoire audiovisuelle de la région. La Cineteca Nuevo León est donc née en 1998. La ville était devenue une métropole et plusieurs musées, certains de rang international, s’y étaient déjà installés. La Cineteca a pris ses quartiers dans un des premiers édifices industriels du Mexique, une ancienne aciérie transformée aujourd’hui en parc récréatif. Deux salles, équipées avec du matériel à la pointe de la technologie pour remplir leur rôle de diffusion de la culture cinématographique et deux locaux, conditionnés pour l’archivage de films, de photographies et de vidéos, assurent désormais les missions clé de la filmothèque. Grâce au soutien constant de la Filmoteca de la UNAM et de la Cineteca Nacional, notre jeune institution a grandi rapidement et efficacement. Après quatre années d’existence, la Cineteca est parvenue a récupérer de nombreux films produits dans la région de 1960 à 1980. Alors que nous sommes occupés à sauver de l’oubli des films nationaux qui ont déjà intégré le panorama du cinéma mexicain des dernières années, nous attendons encore l’arrivée d’un lot de IMCINE. Une photothèque a été inaugurée récemment dans le but de garantir une meilleure gestion du futur des images du passé.

la programación de las salas comerciales incluía una buena proporción de material europeo junto al de origen norteamericano. La “Nueva Ola” francesa y la salida del cine moderno, entre ellos Antonioni, se exhibieron de forma tan puntual como en sus países de origen. Lo que no regresó, en una época sin video ni DVD, fueron los filmes clásicos. Después, desde 1970 y hasta hace unos pocos años, por desgracia, el cine de los Estados Unidos fue casi el único en proyectarse en las pantallas de todo el país. Ver a los grandes maestros era para los cinéfilos serios una necesidad primordial. Gracias a esta necesidad surgieron en la ciudad los primeros Cine-Clubes, inspirados siempre en la gran leyenda de Henri Langlois y de la Cinemateca Francesa que contaban los entonces becarios en Paris que regresaban a la ciudad narrando las maravillas que habían visto en la sala del Museo Pedagógico o en el Trocadero; y de figuras tan fuera de serie y difíciles de conocer en América Latina como Dreyer, Bergman o Jean Renoir. Había que tener en Monterrey una cineteca, para poder admirar estos materiales fuera de serie. Es en esos años Sesenta, cuando nace, de manera modesta, la filmoteca de la Universidad nacional; y pasarían otros diez, para que se fundara la Cineteca Nacional. Más de veinte se sucederían en Monterrey para abrir una cineteca. Más de veinte, donde, a la par que crecían las sociedades fílmicas locales, los entusiastas cinecluberos se lanzaron también a realizar en 16mm lo que entonces se llamó el cine “experimental”. Veinte años, donde en salas rentadas, se estuvieron proyectando las Muestras y los festivales de cine que llevaban a cabo en la ciudad de México la Cineteca, la UNAM y otras instancias, que hacían más urgente la necesidad de contar con instalaciones propias. Salas en donde admirar las últimas propuestas fílmicas, mientras las nacientes escuelas de comunicación integraban a sus programas académicos cursos de producción y de apreciación fílmicas, que más tarde provocarían la salida de muchos jóvenes hacia este campo de creación. Un nuevo afán se unía al de ver: el de conservar y preservar. No sólo el patrimonio fílmico regional, que entonces se creía pequeño; sino también el de la fotografía y el del video. Necesidad de salvar y cuidar la memoria visual del noreste de México, en tránsito hacia el olvido y la desaparición en estas áridas tierras fronterizas. Nacimiento de la Cineteca El 29 de Abril de 1998 se inauguró, tras muchos años de terca insistencia ante los sucesivos gobiernos del estado, la Cineteca Nuevo León. Monterrey era ya una ciudad distinta. No sólo había crecido en extensión, sino también sus relucientes edificios se habían disparado hacia el cielo levantados frente a grandes y veloces avenidas. La vida cultural había cambiado y ya una serie de museos, entre los que destacaban el de arte contemporáneo, conocido como MARCO, y el Museo de Monterrey, eran de marcado carácter internacional. El progreso, producto de tecnologías innovadoras, había provocado a su vez una singular contradicción. La fundidora de Monterrey, pionera y figura clave del boom industrial, había cerrado sus puertas desde hacía años; y en su extensa superficie se había instalado un gran parque recreativo que era a la vez museo de sitio, cuidando lo que ahora se conoce como arqueología industrial, y centro de espectáculos. Es en ese

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

entorno de diversión donde se instaló la Cineteca Nuevo León. Y lo más extraordinario, se ubicó en el interior de una elegante y ligera nave fabril llamada “La Maestranza”, del año 1900, sin cambiar una sola línea de su diseño, ni en el interior ni en el exterior. En principio, sólo se abrió una sala de cine: la sala Uno; y un majestuoso escenario de exposiciones. En la sala corrió, ya en su casa definitiva, la XXXI Muestra Internacional de Cine, organizada ahora dos veces por año por la Cineteca Nacional; y en la de imágenes se abrió: “El arte de Gabriel Figueroa”, curada por el hijo del cinefotógrafo, junto a “Cuatro visiones de Fundidora”, testimonio y reconocimiento a la vieja grandeza del lugar que ahora ocupaba la naciente Cineteca, en más de 3,500 metros cuadrados. Para octubre de ese mismo año, el resto de las instalaciones estaba listo y entraron de inmediato en operación la segunda sala de cine, la sala Dos, como la primera, con equipos de 35 mm de la más avanzada tecnología, pero también con el formato 16mm y videoproyección a pantalla; más una tercera, de tamaño menor, para video y conferencias. Y lo más importante de todo, para que la Cineteca fuese una auténtica cineteca: dos bóvedas acondicionadas, una para la conservación y preservación de materiales fílmicos y otra para archivos fotográficos y de video, manteniendo ambas las normas requeridas de manera internacional, en cuanto a control de humedad y de temperatura, para cuidar y estabilizar los documentos guardados en su interior. Es importante insistir en el apoyo brindado siempre por la Cineteca Nacional y por la Filmoteca de la UNAM, pendientes de que la debutante cineteca caminara por donde se debía caminar. Y no olvidara las tareas básicas de difusión e investigación. La tarea educativa Una labor que se inició de inmediato en la Cineteca Nuevo León, junto a las tareas de guardar y cuidar el patrimonio visual, fue la de promover y difundir la cultura del cine en una ciudad que también cuenta con una gran riqueza educativa, si se observa el número de universidades y de estudiantes que existen y aprenden en su contexto urbano. Desde los primeros días de su existencia, la Cineteca se avocó no sólo a difundir junto a las películas más recientes del cine actual las obras claves del cine silente, sino también a enseñar a los públicos las herramientas necesarias para analizar y disfrutar el fenómeno fílmico. Uno de sus primeros y más exitosos cursos, fue el del Diplomado en Historia Mundial del Cine donde los asistentes siguieron, semana tras semana, el tránsito del arte cinematográfico desde su prehistoria hasta la llegada del primer centenario del arte del cine. Este diplomado, cuya duración comprendió un trabajo de dos años de cursos libres, se volverá a ofrecer en el próximo semestre. El mismo esfuerzo se dirigió hacia la historia y el lenguaje de la fotografía, como parte de los programas educativos orientados a la fotografía. Es clave también en esta tarea, la instalación de la Biblioteca-Videoteca, única en el noroeste del país dedicada especialmente a estos temas. El acervo principió con una colección de mil quinientos títulos y un poco más de un centenar de filmes en video, que hoy se ha incrementado a más de cinco mil volúmenes dedicados al cine en sus varias

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Monterrey is an industrial city of the NE of Mexico, close to the border with the USA. Located at the crossroads of the two countries, the city was always ahead of the technological changes and cinema has been, from the beginnings, a popular distraction for poor and wealthy audiences. Until the 70s, most of the shown films were US or European productions. The cinefile audiences who wanted to watch classics (video and DVD weren’t there yet) were dreaming of a cinematheque. Twenty years later the dream went true, and this was also the occasion to add a new goal to the missions of the new archive: to keep the audiovisual memory of the region. The Cineteca de Nuevo León was created in 1998. The town had converted into a metropole and several museums, some of them of international category, had established themselves in Monterrey. The Cineteca was installed in one of the first industrial buildings of Mexico, an old steel factory converted today into a leisure parc. Two movie theatres, with all the necessary equipment for film and video projections, two storage vaults for film, video and photographic materials and appropriate preservation facilities, ensure the functioning of the Cineteca. Thanks to the support of the Cineteca Nacional and the Filmoteca de la UNAM, the new institution has been growing fastly and efficiently. Since its creation, the Cineteca has succeeded in collecting numerous films produced in the region between 1960 and 1980. A large collection of national production is expected to be deposited by IMCINE. A photographic archive has been created in order to guarantee the future management of the images of the past.

especialidades, colocándola como la biblioteca más importante de la zona por disponer con los textos más valiosos publicados en inglés y español sobre el cine y artes afines desde los años cincuenta, aparte de contar para su revisión inmediata con las películas claves de la historia del medio. Poco a poco, los trabajos de muchos estudiantes de los centros de estudios superiores se empiezan a enfocar, gracias a esta herramienta, hacia investigaciones dedicadas a áreas específicas del cine y de la fotografía. Aspecto central en este esfuerzo es el armado de ciclos de conferencias donde muchos directores de cine se enfrentan junto con la visión de una de sus películas, en ocasiones todavía sin estrenar, con la mirada atenta de los cinéfilos asiduos a la Cineteca. La experiencia, sumamente enriquecedora, se incrementa con talleres que se ofrecen para estudiantes más exigentes, como los impartidos en dirección de cine o en la creación de guiones.“Ven y mira”, la publicación que la Cineteca lleva a cabo desde su fundación, es, por último, un magnífico testimonio impreso de esta labor de enseñanza; que se complementa con la presentación de festivales dedicados en exclusiva a la difusión de lo último producido en cortometraje en las escuelas de cine del mundo y otros festivales. A cuatro años de trabajo Una de las primeras tareas de la Cineteca en el campo de la preservación fílmica fue integrar una colección de materiales del llamado “Cine experimental regiomontano”, seleccionados por la comisión de Programación y Acervo del mismo Consejo consultivo de la cineteca. Ya se encuentran en su bóveda, cuidadas, no sólo los originales, sino las nuevas copias de estas películas realizadas con la participación y asesoría de la UNAM, ahora el lugar más importante de rescate en Latinoamérica. El pasado mes de abril del 2002, al cumplir sus cuatro años de existencia, la Cineteca Nuevo León presentó su Primer Festival de Cine Regiomontano donde se exhibieron los filmes medios y cortos más importantes producidos de 1960 a 1980, en 35 y 16 mm, en la región. La ayuda de la Cineteca Nacional también fue inestimable para formar la primera colección de acervo de cincuenta películas de largometraje en 35 mm. Se están también firmando convenios para recibir de IMCINE, el instituto oficial del cine mexicano, una colección de más de cien largometrajes que representan una selección de las mejores películas producidas por nuestro cine mexicano desde la década de los Setenta a la década de los Noventa. A este fondo, se le suma un desusado rescate de una serie de películas, más de cien títulos, que habían quedado abandonadas al cerrar una de las distribuidoras de películas oficiales en la ciudad de Torreón, Coah. Gracias al celo e interés de un amante del cine de esa región, Max Rivera, que las cuidó durante muchos años, fue posible trasladar esas latas del estado vecino a Monterrey. Entre esas películas se localizan varias copias de muchas de las producciones que dieron cierta fama al cine comercial mexicano, también producido en la mismos años del lote de IMCINE; con lo cual, de lo que se pueda salvar del segundo grupo, se podrá tener una colección representativa de esa época. Este salvamento plantea nuevas exigencias a la Cineteca. Entre ellas preparar a los técnicos y armar los cuartos de trabajo y revisión para analizar y estudiar el estado de cada

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

uno de los rollos encontrados, para poder decidir cuántas de esas películas todavía son recuperables. El video también está produciendo sorpresas. Tanto el utilizado como soporte para transferir filmes estudiantiles en 16mm de las escuelas de comunicación y de grupos de cineastas independientes desde 1970, como los grabados en el renglón del Video-arte, experiencia artística muy frecuentada en Monterrey en la última década del siglo. Igual el depósito en la cineteca de fotomontajes y carteles de películas nacionales y extranjeras por parte de varios coleccionistas. El ingreso a la FIAF, solo añadió una exigente aunque gozosa responsabilidad a las labores cotidianas de la Cineteca Nuevo León. El futuro mediato La fotografía, instrumento de comunicación y de expresión artística, también arribó a tierras neolonesas casi desde su aparición en el Siglo XIX. El interés por este registro visual se multiplicó en este inicial período de trabajo de la Cineteca Nuevo León, a tal grado de formarse, a su lado, una fototeca, que resguarda ya varias colecciones de fotógrafos regiomontanos en su haber y organiza también eventos y festivales. Las instalaciones de la Fototeca han crecido en espacio y personal, con asesoría desde su primera organización por la Fototeca Nacional. Estas colecciones y la ampliación de los trabajos de filmoteca han obligado a un cambio próximo en el diseño de las instalaciones originales. Junto al cumplimiento de los objetivos antes descritos, se han acercado ya coleccionistas de equipo deseosos de donar sus aparatos para que sean cuidados por la cineteca. Por similares razones de espacio, se ha cuidado, hasta ahora, la apertura pública de la institución a materiales guardados en las alacenas familiares, que merecen ser salvadas para seguir conservando la historia gráfica de la región. Una tarea del pasado, indispensable en el futuro mediato de la institución. En el mismo Parque Fundidora y en una nave gemela al de la Cineteca, situados ambos frente a frente, se inauguró otro renovado edificio para la Pinacoteca Nuevo León. Un espacio con las mismas características de almacén, centro de estudio y de exposición que la Cineteca-Fototeca, dedicado a las tareas propias del cuidado y exhibición de las artes plásticas y escultóricas. Entre los dos conjuntos, emerge un dinámico Centro de las Artes. Un Centro de las Artes que aloja en su interior, en la planta misma de la pinacoteca, un teatro y un centro mediático listo para conectarse con los sitios artísticos claves del planeta. Tarea indispensable en la actual y envolvente cultura de información virtual. Como muchos lo señalamos en el momento de su fundación, la Cineteca Nuevo León generaría un disparo cultural en la vida artística de la comunidad y también en el de la misma nación. Eso se ve ahora. Una visión nítida que en lámina, papel, celuloide o pista magnética habla de los regiomontanos y de su empeño creativo. Un empeño que convierte siempre los sueños inventados, sean industriales o artísticos, en arquitecturas prodigiosas. Más de veinte años esperando al pie del Cerro de Silla para vivir una realidad, bajo un hermoso cerro asentado en una ciudad ya inmersa en el Sigo XXI, concientes por fin de que amar y cuidar sus imágenes del pasado significa asegurar su futuro. 93

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

SEAPAVAA Steps Out Ray Edmondson

Regional Groupings Groupements régionaux Agrupaciones regionales La 7ème conférence annuelle de SEAPAVAA, organisée par le Lao National Film Archive and Video Center, a eu lieu en mai 2002 à Vientiane, au Laos. Avec la rencontre conjointe avec IASA à Singapore en 2000, cette conférence est à ce jour la plus importante réunion co-organisée par SEAPAVAA. Le thème était Envisager le futur : un constat des réalités des archives. Plusieurs archives ont exposé une vision très intéressante de ce qui pour eux serait la situation « idéale » dans leur pays, en faisant abstraction des questions budgétaires et autres contraintes. Un nouveau Conseil Exécutif a été élu pour trois ans lors de cette conférence. Jim Lindner, au nom de la société Media Matters, a fait un don de 10.000$US pour la création d’un prix bisannuel qui récompensera, à partir de 2004, les innovations techniques et la recherche dans le domaine de la restauration et de la préservation. Lors de cette réunion, il a également été décidé de mettre sur pied un Secrétariat de SEAPAVAA à temps plein. Ce bureau se trouvera dans les locaux de la Philippine Information Agency, à Manille. D’autre part, SEAPAVAA a été accepté au sein de l’UNESCO en tant qu’organisation non-gouvernementale (ONG) et est

From 13 to 17 May 2002, about one hundred delegates gathered in Vientiane, Laos, at the Lane Xang Hotel, right on the bank of the fabled Mekong River. The seventh annual SEAPAVAA conference was hosted by the Lao National Film Archive and Video Center, and delegates came from all ten countries of South East Asia, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Cook Islands, USA, Canada, Britain and Croatia. During the course of the week, the conference explored the theme Mapping Tomorrow: a Reality Check for Archives and made institutional visits to the Lao National Television and Radio, National Museum and National Library, as well as the host archive. A particular point of interest was the Archive of Traditional Music, housed within the National Library, which – through regular field trips to remote parts of the country – is building an audio and video collection documenting the rich cultural heritage of music and dance which characterises the Lao people. With the exception of the gathering held jointly with IASA in Singapore in 2000, this was the largest SEAPAVAA conference to date. FIAT was represented by the head of its Training Commission, Branco Bubenik, IASA by its President, Crispin Jewitt, and AMIA by JoAnn Watson, standing in for President Sam Kula (who, at the last minute, was unable to come.) Sam’s keynote address, delivered on his behalf by JoAnn, got the symposium off to a good start by reflecting on the changing international landscape of our profession. A feature of the symposium was a segment on dreams and visions: several archives were asked to imagine the “ideal” archival situation in their country - if they could be freed from present budgetary and other constraints - and the visions they presented were a highlight of the conference. There was a logical conclusion drawn from this: no matter how things are at present, it is crucial to have a vision of what might be in the best of all possible worlds. It puts present realities and specific future goals into perspective. And it was recognised that sometimes dreams do come true. SEAPAVAA elects a new Executive Council every three years. This was an election year and the new EC comprised the following members who will serve until 2005: President: Secretary General: Treasurer: Immediate Past President: Councillors:

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Belina SB. Capul (Philippines) Samsiah Muhamed (Malaysia) David Boden (Australia) Ray Edmondson (Australia) Cushla Vula (New Zealand) Bounchao Phichit (Laos) Kannika Chivapakdee (Thailand) Jim Lindner (USA)

devenu membre de CCAAA (Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archive Associations), qui chaque année réunit AMIA, FIAF, FIAT, IASA, ICA, IFLA et SEAPAVAA, ainsi que l’UNESCO en tant que membre observateur.

La 7a conferencia anual de SEAPAVAA, organizada por el Lao National Film Archive and Video Center, se reunió en mayo del 2002 en Vientiane, Laos. Junto con la reunión realizada en Singapur en 2000, se trata de la segunda Conferencia general realizada por SEAPAVAA conjuntamente con otra asociación internacional. El tema fue Encarar el futuro : la realidad de los archivos. Varios archivos expusieron su concepción de lo que seria la situación ideal en su país, haciendo abstracción de las limitaciones presupuestarias y otras contingencias. Un nuevo Consejo Ejecutivo fue electo por tres años. La sociedad Media Matters hizo una donación de $10,000 destinado a la creación de un premio que cada dos años deberá recompensar, a partir de 2004, las innovaciones técnicas y la investigación en el campo de la restauración y la preservación. Durante esta reunión también se resolvió crear un Secretariado permanente de SEAPAVAA. Esta oficina estará alojada en los locales de la Philippine Information Agency, en Manila. Por otra parte, SEAPAVAA obtuvo el estatuto de organización no gubernamental (ONG) en UNESCO y fue admitida como miembro del Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archive Associations (CCAAA), que cada año reúne a AMIA, FIAF, FIAT, IASA, ICA, IFLA y SEAPAVAA, así como a UNESCO en calidad de observador.

On this Council the ex officio role of Immediate Past President is filled for the first time, as Ray Edmondson had completed his second term as President. SEAPAVAA stepped out in some new directions. The conference saw the announcement of SEAPAVAA’s first endowment. Jim Lindner of Media Matters, and previously the founder of the video restoration laboratory Vidipax, donated US$10,000 to be used as a capital base for a permanent biennial prize for technical innovation and research in restoration and preservation. It is expected the first prize will be awarded in 2004. The prize scheme will be managed by a special committee of the Executive Council. In view of the growing limitations of the current part time and voluntary Secretariat arrangements, it was recognised the time had come to establish a full time, staffed Secretariat for SEAPAVAA. With the assistance of a sponsorship commitment to support the salary of a full time administrator, the Secretariat will be located in its own offices within the premises of the Philippine Information Agency in Manila. Concurrently a review of committee structures will be undertaken to ensure that the Association has organised itself effectively. In late 2001, SEAPAVAA held its first workshop in the Pacific. Supported by UNESCO funding, the workshop was held in Suva, Fiji, attracting participants from 13 countries. The presence of two delegates from the Pacific – from Fiji and Cook Islands – brought home to delegates the great needs of the small Pacific countries. Following through on these needs will be one of the challenges to be addressed by the incoming Council. A new three-year plan was adopted which calls for a more outgoing approach to the raising of sponsorship, and to assisting in the establishment of appropriate archival structures in countries where these do not yet exist. A manual for young archives, more active membership recruitment and further training activities are part of the plan. During the year leading to the conference, SEAPAVAA had been accepted into formal operational relations with UNESCO as a nongovernment organisation (NGO), as well as into membership of the CCAAA (Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archive Associations), and these important relationships will be embraced by the new EC. The formal opening and closing ceremonies were presided by senior dignitaries from the Cultural Ministry of the Lao Peoples’ Democratic Republic. The social occasions introduced visitors to the traditions of Lao music and dance, with their intricate movements and spectacular costumes. The relaxed setting of the Lao capital itself added to the sense of occasion, for Vientiane is no frantic metropolis. It is a small city of timeless charm, abounding in museums, temples and ancient treelined streets, where a favourite pastime is to linger on the banks of the Mekong at dusk and watch the sun set into the gold-and-brown water…as the Lao people have done for millennia. A good place to restore perspective, to re-charge batteries, to dream dreams, and to remember, at sunset, that tomorrow is another day. Website: www.geocities.com/seapavaa

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Books Received at FIAF Secretariat in Brussels François Albera, Marta Braun, André Gaudreault, Arrêt sur image, fragmentation du temps – Stop Motion, Fragmentation of Time, Editions Payot Lausanne, French, English, black & white ill., Lausanne, 2002, 351 pages, ISBN 2-601-03298-7 Kevin Brownlow, Come Gance ha realizzato Napoleon, Editrice Il Castoro, Italian, black & white ill., Milano 2002, 320 pages, ISBN 88-8033-214-7 Luciano Caramel and Angela Madesani, Luigi Veronesi e Cioni Carpi alla Cineteca Italiana, Quaderni Fondazione Cineteca Italiana and Editrice Il Castoro, Italian, color and black & white ill., Milano, 2002, 157 pages, ISBN 88-8033-229-5 Ian Christie, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger – Arrows of Desire / Flechas de deseo, Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián – Filmoteca Española ed., Spanish and English, color and black & white ill., San Sebastián – Madrid 2002, 279 pages, ISBN 84-86877-29-6 Denys-Louis Colaux, Nelly Kaplan, Portait d’une Flibustière, Dreamland Editeur, French, black & white ill., Paris 2002, 160 pages, ISBN 2-91002712-0 Christina Corciovescu & Bujor T. Rïpeanu, Cinema… un secol si ceva, Curtea Veche Ed., Romanian, black & white ill., Bucuresti, 2002, 678 pages, ISBN 973-8120-88-8 Frieda Grafe, Luce negli occhi colori nelle mente, scritti di cinema 19612000, Cinetec Bologna, Le Mani, Italian, Bologna 2002, 421 pages, ISBN 88-8012-213-4 Shiguéhiko Hasumi, Yasujiró Ozu, Cahiers du cinéma, French, black & white ill., Paris 1998, 238 pages, ISBN 2-86642-191-4 Antonio Medici, Il Pci e il cinema tra cultura e propaganda 1959 - 1979, Annali 4 / 2001, Archivio Audiovisivo del Movimento Operaio e Democratico ed., Italian, Roma, 2001, 285 pages, ISBN 88-900424-2-7 Rémy Pithon, Cinéma Suisse muet – Lumières et ombres, Ed. antipodes et Cinémathèque Suisse, French, black & white ill., Lausanne 2002, 228 pages, ISBN 2-940146-26-8 Bruce Posner, Unseen Cinema – Early American Avant-Garde 1893-1941, Anthology Film Archives, English, black & white ill., New York 2001, 160 pages, ISBN 0-9628181-7-8 André Stufkens, Passages – Joris Ivens en de kunst van deze eeuw, Museum Het Valkhof / Europese Stichting Joris Ivens, Dutch, color and black & white ill., Nijmegen 1999, 273 pages, ISBN 90-6829-062-2 Teresa Toledo, Made in Spanish – Construyendo el cine (latinoamericano), Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián ed., Spanish, black & white ill., San Sebastián 2002, 243 pages, ISBN 84-88452-26-8 Toimittanut Kai Vase, Lumous, Maisemakuvia suomalaisen elokuvan kultkaudelta, Finnish, black & white ill., Helsinki 2000, 119 pages, ISBN 951-746-198-4

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Thilo Wydra, Volker Schlöndorff y sus películas, Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián – Filmoteca Vasca ed., Spanish, black & white ill., San Sebastián 2002, 277 pages, ISBN 84-88452-25-X La bellezza del mondo – La beauté du monde, Léonce Perret, Jean Renoir, Cinegrafie 15, Cineteca Bologna, Italian and French, no ill., Recco 2002, 431 pages, ISBN 88-8012-212-6 The Cathay Story, Hong Kong Film Archive, Chinese & English, color and black & white ill., Hong Kong 2002, 416 pages, ISBN 962-8050-16-8 Cinema Without Borders – The Films of Joris Ivens, European Foundation Joris Ivens, English, black & white ill., Nijmegen 2002, 96 pages, ISBN 90-804651-4-3 Comma 2001.3-4, International Journal on Archives, International Council on Archives, English, Paris 2001, 288 pages Dino De Laurentiis – The Italian Years and Beyond, Edizioni Olivares Artshorts, English, black & white ill., Italy 2002, 95 pages, ISBN 8885982-63-8 FIAF 58th Congress Seoul 2002, Asian Cinema – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow – Proceedings of the Symposium, Korean Film Archive ed., Korean and English, no ill., Seoul 2002, 348 pages The Films of Jack Chambers, Edited by Kathryn Elder, Cinémathèque Ontario – Indiana University Press ed., English, color and black & white ill., Toronto 2002, 231 pages, ISBN 0-9682969-47 Films of Women Directors in Korea, Women in Film Korea, English, black & white ill., Seoul 2001, 190 pages Fons de Nitrats de la Filmoteca, Volum 1 – Films de Ficció, Filmoteca de la Generalitat de Catalunya, Catalan, Barcelona 2001, 367 pages + CD-ROM Joris Ivens and the Documentary Context, Kees Bakker, Amsterdam University Press, English, black & white ill., Amsterdam 1999, 320 pages, ISBN 90-5356-425-X Korean Cinema 2001, Korean Film Commission, English, color ill., Seoul 2001, 283 pages La Memoria del cinema – Restauri, preservazioni e ristampe delle Cineteca Nazionale, 1998-2001, Fundazione Scuola Nazionale di Cinema Ed., Italian, black & white ill., 208 pages. (Contains an English translation of the introductions and of the informative and technical notes.) Suomen Kansallisfilmografia Vol.10 – 1986-1990, Suomen ElokuvaArkisto ed., Finnish, color and black & white ill., Helsinki 2002, 716 pages, ISBN 951-37-2678-9 The Swordsman and His Jiang Hu, Tzui Hark and Hong Kong Film, Hong Kong Film Archive, Chinese and English, color and black & white ill., Hong Kong 2002, 267 pages, ISBN 962-8050-15-X Periodicals L’art du cinéma, Néoclassiques (2), n°35/36/37, Cinéma Art Nouveau, French, Paris 2002, 160 pages, ISSN 1262-0424

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Comma 2002.1-2, International Journal on Archives, International Council on Archives, English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Arab, Japanese, no ill., 276 pages, 3-598-01355-8 Moveast - 7, 2002, Hungarian Film Institute ed., English, black & white ill., Budapest 2002, 176 pages, ISSN 1215-234X Moveast - 8, 2002, Hungarian Film Institute ed., English, black & white ill., Budapest 2002, 180 pages, ISSN 1215-234X Zeuxis, Films sur l’art – Film on Art N°1, French and English, color and black & white ill., Paris 2000, 64 pages Zeuxis, Films sur l’art – Film on Art N°2, French and English, color and black & white ill., Paris 2001, 64 pages Zeuxis, Films sur l’art – Film on Art N°3, French and English, color and black & white ill., Paris 2001, 72 pages Zeuxis, Films sur l’art – Film on Art N°4, French and English, color and black & white ill., Paris 2001, 64 pages Zeuxis, Films sur l’art – Film on Art N°5, French and English, color and black & white ill., Paris 2001, 64 pages Zeuxis, Films sur l’art – Film on Art N°6, French and English, color and black & white ill., Paris 2002, 64 pages Zeuxis, Films sur l’art – Film on Art N°7, French and English, color and black & white ill., Paris 2002, 64 pages Videos V. Espagnole, Les Soldats de la Mémoire, ECPAD, VHS NTSC, 40 min DVD’s Norwegian Mood – 23 Short Films through 15 Years, Norwegian Film Institut, Film&Kino and FilmTeknikk Norge AS

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

E-mail: [emailprotected] http://www.haghef ilm.nl

Tel. +31(0)20 - 568 54 61. Fax +31(0)20 - 568 54 62.

The Netherlands.

Postbus 94764, 1090 GT Amsterdam.

Willem Fenengastraat 39.

Haghef ilm Conservation B.V., A CINECO COMPANY

The highest quality and innovation in Film Preservation

Bookshop / Librairie / Librería List and order form on page 82 and the FIAF Website Liste des publications bulletin de commande sur page 82 y le site FIAF Lista de publicaciones y formulario de pedidos en p 82 y en el sitio FIAF www.fiafnet.org • [emailprotected] • T: +32-2-538 30 65 • F: +32-2-534 47 74

FIAF publications available from the FIAF Secretariat

General Subjects / Ouvrages généraux

Cataloguing - Documentation / Catalogage - Documentation

Periodical Publications / Publications périodiques

Cinema 1900-1906: An Analytical Study Proceedings of the FIAF Symposium held at Brighton, 1978. Vol. 1 contains transcriptions of the papers. Vol. 2 contains an analytical filmography of 550 films of the period. FIAF 1982, 372p., 43.38€

Glossary of Filmographic Terms This new version includes terms and indexes in English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Dutch, Italian, Czech, Hungarian, Bulgarian. Compiled by Jon Gartenberg. FIAF 1989, 149p., 45.00€

The Slapstick Symposium Dealings and proceedings of the Early American Slapstick Symposium held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, May 2-3, 1985. Edited by Eileen Bowser. FIAF 1988, 121p., 23.55€

International Index to Television Periodicals Published from 1979 till 1990, containing TVrelated periodical indexing data. / Publication annuelle de 1972 à 1990, contenant l’indexation de périodiques sur la télévision. Volumes: 1979-1980, 1981-1982 (each volume): 49.58€ 1983-1986, 1987-1990 (each volume): 123.95€

Journal of Film Preservation The Federation’s main periodical publication in paper format offers a forum for general and specialised discussion on theoretical and technical aspects of moving image archival activities. / La principale publication périodique de la Fédération, sous forme d’imprimé, offre un forum de discussion - aussi bien générale que spécialisée - sur les aspects théoriques et techniques de l’archivage des images en mouvement. Published twice a year by FIAF Brussels. subscription 4 issues: 45 €/ 2 issues: 30 € Publication semestrielle de la FIAF à Bruxelles. abonnement 4 numéros: 45€ / 2 numéros: 30€ FIAF International FilmArchive Database Contains the International Index to Film/TV Periodicals offering in-depth coverage of the world’s foremost film journals. Full citations, abstracts and subject headings for nearly 300.000 records from over 300 titles. Also includes Treasures from the Film Archives. Standing order (2 discs per annum, internet access). Networking fees are based on number of concurrent users. For more detailed information and prices, please contact the editor: [emailprotected] International Index to Film Periodicals Published annually since 1972. Comprehensive indexing of the world’s film journals. / Publication annuelle depuis 1972, contenant l’indexation de périodiques sur le cinéma. Standing order: 160.00€ Single order: 2001, vol. 30 (latest published volume): 180.00€ Back volumes: 1982, 1983, 1986-2000 (each volume): 150.00€ Annual Bibliography of FIAF Members’ Publications Published annually since 1979: 11.16€ (each volume) FIAF Directory / Annuaire FIAF Brochure including the complete list of FIAF affiliates and Subscribers published once a year: 4.96€ / Brochure contenant la liste complète des affiliés et des souscripteurs de la FIAF publiée une fois par an: 4.96€

Manuel des archives du film / A Handbook For Film Archives Manuel de base sur le fonctionnement d’une archive de films. Edité par Eileen Bowser et John Kuiper. / Basic manual on the functioning of a film archive. Edited by Eileen Bowser and John Kuiper. FIAF 1980, 151p., illus., 29.50€ (either French or English version) 50 Years of Film Archives / 50 Ans d’archives du film 1938-1988 FIAF yearbook published for the 50th anniversary, containing descriptions of its 78 members and observers and a historical account of its development. / Annuaire de la FIAF publié pour son 50ème anniversaire, contenant une description de ses 78 membres et observateurs et un compte-rendu historique de son développement. FIAF 1988, 203p., illus., 27.76€ Rediscovering the Role of Film Archives: to Preserve and to Show Proceedings of the FIAF Symposium held in Lisboa, 1989. FIAF 1990, 143p., 30.99€ American Film Index, 1908-1915. American Film Index, 1916-1920 Index to more than 32.000 films produced by more than 1000 companies. “An indispensable tool for people working with American films before 1920 ” (Paul Spehr). Edited by Einar Lauritzen and Gunar Lundqvist. Volume I: 44.62€ - Volume II: 49.58€ - 2 Volumes set: 79.33€

100

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Subject Headings The lists of subject headings incorporate all the terms used in the International Index to Film and TV Periodicals. Subject Headings Film (7th Ed. 2001): 123p., 24.79€ Subject Headings TV (1992): 98p., 22.31€ International Directory of Film and TV Documentation Collections A publication of the FIAF Documentation Commission, this 220 pages volume describes documentation collections, held in 125 of the world’s foremost film archives, libraries, and educational institutions in fifty-four countries. The Directory is organized by country, indexed by city and special collections. Edited by René Beauclair and Nancy Goldman. 1994, 74.37€ FIAF Classification Scheme for Literature on Film and Television by Michael Moulds. 2d ed. revised and enlarged, ed. by Karen Jones and Michael Moulds. FIAF 1992, 49.58€ Bibliography of National Filmographies Annotated list of filmographies, journals and other publications. Compiled by D. Gebauer. Edited by H. W. Harrison. FIAF 1985, 80p., 26.03€ Règles de catalogage des archives de films Version française de “The FIAF Cataloguing Rules of Film Archives” traduite de l’anglais par Eric Loné, AFNOR 1994, 280 p., ISBN 2-12484312-5, 32.23€

Reglas de catalogacion de la FIAF para archivos Traducción española de “The FIAF Cataloguing Rules of Film Archives” por Jorge Arellano Trejo. Filmoteca de la UNAM y Archivo General de Puerto Rico, 280 p., ISBN 968-36-6741-4, 27.27€

Technical Subjects / Ouvrages techniques Technical Manual of the FIAF Preservation Commission / Manuel technique de la Commission de Préservation de la FIAF A user’s manual on practical film and video preservation procedures containing articles in English and French. / Un manuel sur les procédés pratiques de conservation du film et de la vidéo contenant des articles en français et en anglais. FIAF 1993, 192p., 66.93€ or incl.”Physical Characteristics of Early Films as Aid to Identification”, 91.72€

Programming and Access to Collections / Programmation et accès aux collections

conservation of film, video, and sound, Berlin, 1987, 169 p., DM45. Available from Deutsche Filmmuseum, Schaumainkai, 4,1D-60596 Frankfurt A.M., Germany

Manual for Access to the Collections Special issue of the Journal of Film Preservation, # 55, Dec. 1997: 15€

Archiving the Audiovisual Heritage: Third Joint Technical Symposium Proceedings of the 1990 Technical Symposium held in Ottawa, organised by FIAF, FIAT, & IASA, Ottawa, 1992, 192p., 40 US$. Available from George Boston, 14 Dulverton Drive, Furtzon, Milton Keynes MK4 1DE, United Kingdom, e-mail: [emailprotected]

The Categories Game / Le jeu des catégories A survey by the FIAF Programming Commission offering listings of the most important films in various categories such as film history, film and the other arts, national production and works in archives. Covers some 2.250 titles, with several indexes. Une enquête réalisée par la Commission de Programmation de la FIAF offrant des listes des films les plus importants dans différentes catégories telles que l’histoire du cinéma, cinéma et autres arts, la production nationale et le point de vue de l’archive. Comprend 2.250 titres et plusieurs index. FIAF 1995, ISBN 972619-059-2, 37.18€

Handling, Storage and Transport of the Cellulose Nitrate Film Guidelines produced with the help of the FIAF Preservation Commission. FIAF 1992, 20p., 17.35€

Available From Other Publishers / Autres éditeurs

Preservation and Restoration of Moving Image and Sound A report by the FIAF Preservation Commission, covering in 19 chapters, the physical properties of film and sound tape, their handling and storage, and the equipment used by film archives to ensure for permanent preservation. FIAF 1986, 268p., illus., 43.38€

Newsreels in Film Archives Based on the proceedings of FIAF’s ‘Newsreels Symposium’ held in Mo-i-Rana, Norway, in 1993, this book contains more than 30 papers on newsreel history, and on the problems and experiences of contributing archives in preserving, cataloguing and providing access to new film collections. Edited by Roger Smither and Wolfgang Klaue. ISBN 0-948911-13-1 (UK), ISBN 0-8386-3696-9 (USA), 224p., illus., 49.58€

Physical Characteristics of Early Films as Aids to Identification by Harold Brown. Documents some features such as camera and printer aperatures, edge marks, shape and size of perforations, trade marks, etc. in relation to a number of early film producing companies. Written for the FIAF Preservation Commission 1990, 101p., illus, new reprint, 30€

A Handbook for Film Archives Basic manual on the functioning of a film archive. Edited by Eileen Bowser and John Kuiper, New York, 1991, 200 p., 29.50€, ISBN 0-8240-3533-X. Available from Garland Publishing, 1000A Sherman Av. Hamden, Connecticut 06514, USA Archiving the Audiovisual Heritage: a Joint Technical Symposium Proceedings of the 1987 Technical Symposium held in West Berlin, organised by FIAF, FIAT, & IASA 30 papers covering the most recent developments in the preservation and

101

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

Image and Sound Archiving and Access: the Challenge of the Third Millenium: 5th Joint Technical Symposium Proceedings of the 2000 JTS held in Paris, organised by CNC and CST, CD-ROM 17.7€, book 35.4€, book & CD-Rom 53.1€, available from JTS Paris 2000 C/O Archives du Film et du Dépôt légal du CNC, 7bis rue A. Turpault, F-78390 Bois d’Arcy, [emailprotected] Il Documento Audiovisivio: Tecniche e metodi per la catalogazione Italian version of “ The FIAF Cataloguing Rules of Film Archives ”. Available from Archivio Audiovisivo del Movimento Operaio e Democratico, 14 Via F.S. Sprovieri, I-00152 Roma, Italy

Order Form / Bulletin de commande / Pedidos Journal of Film Preservation:

I would like to order the following publications:

Subscription for: ■ 1 year: 30.00€ ■ 2 year: 45.00€

Other Purblications:

Name: Institution: Address:

Phone:

Fax:

E-mail: Invoices are established in euro ■ Please send me an invoice ■ Please charge my credit card ■ American Express ■ Diners Club ■ Visa ■ Eurocard/MasterCard Cardholder: FIAF Rue Defacqz 1 1000 Brussels, Belgium Tel. +32-2 538 30 65 Fax +32-2 534 47 74 [emailprotected] www.fiafnet.org

Card Number: ________—________—________—________ Expiry date: Signature: . Date:

102

Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002

The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation

An International Program in Archival Training

A one-year intensive course providing prospective film archivists with a comprehensive knowledge of the theories, methods, and practices of motion picture preservation. The curriculum covers all aspects of motion picture archiving, including: •Conservation and Storage •Legal Issues and Copyright •Laboratory Techniques

•Motion Picture Cataloguing •Curatorial Work •New Digital Technologies

•Film History •Access to Archival Holdings

For applications and information, please contact:

Jeffrey L. Stoiber George Eastman House Motion Picture Department 900 East Avenue Rochester, NY 14607-2298

Phone: (716) 271-3361 ext. 333 Fax: (716) 271-3970 E-mail: [emailprotected]

http://www.eastman.org/16_preserv/16_index.html George Eastman House is a member of FIAF, International Federation of Film Archives

International FilmArchive Database

Now available in a new version with web access and quarterly updates A RANGE OF COMPREHENSIVE DATABASES The International Index to Film/TV Periodicals contains almost 300,000 article references from more than 300 periodicals. It offers in-depth coverage of the world’s foremost academic and popular film journals. Each entry consists of a full bibliographic description, an abstract and comprehensive headings (biographical names, film titles and general subjects). It is also the only database offering film periodical indexing using a hierarchically ordered controlled thesaurus, which contains more than 20,000 subject terms. Other FIAF databases included are the Treasures from the Film Archives, containing unique information about silent film holdings in film archives, the Bibliography of FIAF Members Publications and the International Directory of Film/TV Documentation Collections.

USER-FRIENDLY SOFTWARE

For more information: FIAF Rue Defacqz 1 1000 Brussels - Belgium Tel. +32-2 534 61 30 Fax +32-2 534 47 74 [emailprotected] www.fiafnet.org

The new version uses SilverPlatter software designed for optimal search effectiveness with minimal user training. The FIAF Database provides powerful networking solutions and Internet access through flexible ERL (Electronic Reference Library) technology, which is used by thousands of institutions worldwide. ERL also supports a choice of links to electronic full-text articles and library holdings information. Z39.50 access is available.

A FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH TOOL The FIAF International FilmArchive Database brings together contributions from experts around the world dedicated to film preservation, cataloguing and documentation. It is a fundamental reference tool for any film researcher.

December / décembre / diciembre 2002

Get the cleaning power of a deep tank machine with the non-immersion film cleaner,

Prista

Cover: Lola Montes, Max Ophülo (1955)

FIAF Award / Prix FIAF / Premio FIAF The 2002 FIAF Award for Manoel de Oliveira Iván Trujillo

Quelques repères sur la Communauté asiatique dans le cinéma français Eric Leroy

Silent Japanese Films: What Was the Right Speed? Yoshiro Irie

Estudio e identificación de películas de los primeros años del cinematógrafo. La collección Sagarmínaga Encarni Rus, Camille Blot

Recuperación y restauración de nuestra Alma provinciana Rito Alberto Torres, Jorge Mario Durán

In Memoriam Maryann Gomes Janet McBain, Roger Smither

Bologna & Sacile Notes from Il Cinema Ritrovato 2002. Bologna, 29 June – 6 July Antti Alanen

Prista occupies a small footprint of .33 sq. meters/3.5 sq. feet. Readout displays of key mechanical functions are located at eye level.

Prista

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, 2002 Hillel Tryster

SLS San Lab Systems Inc.

CAMILLE BLOT-WELLENS investigadora colaboradora en la Filmoteca Española (Madrid)

KATE MCLOUGHLIN Manager of Outreach Programs, ScreenSound Australia, audio-visual archivist (Canberra)

PAOLO CHERCHI USAI Senior Curator of the Motion Picture Department of the George Eastman House (Rochester)

KASANDRA O’CONNELL Head of the Irish Film Archive (Dublin)

STEFAN DROESSLER Director of the Filmmuseum Muenchner Stadtmuseum (München)

RUTGER PENNE Editor of the FIAF International FilmArchive Database and the P.I.P. (Brussels)

JORGE MARIO DURÁN Director Departamento de Cine (Bogotá)

GREGORIO ROCHA Writer, producer, director (New York)

RAY EDMONDSON Founder of SEAPAVAA, President of Archve Associates (Kambah)

GAIL RUBENSTEIN Assistant Editor of the FIAF International FilmArchive Database and the P.I.P. (Brussels)

ERIC LEROY Chercheur, Archives du film et du dépot légal du Centre national de la cinématographique (Bois d’Arcy)

65 • FIAF 12/2002

SABINE LENK Director at the Film Museum (Duesseldorf)

ENCARNACÍ RUS AGUILAR investigadora colaboradora en la Filmoteca Española (Madrid)

12 / 2002

Revue de la Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film

ROBERTO ESCAMILLA Director de programación y acervo de la Cineteca Nuevo Leon (Monterrey)

Revista de la Federación Internacional de Archivos Fílmicos

JANET MCBAIN Curator at the Scottish Screen Archive (Glasgow)

Published by the International Federation of Film Archives

ANTTI ALANEN Head of Programming at the Finnish Film Archive (Helsinki)

Journal of Film Preservation

Dans ce numéro... In this issue... En este número...

Journal of Film Preservation