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Posted: |
Jun 8, 2010 - 7:39 AM
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By: |
msmith
(Member)
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A cache of 75 long-lost silent films uncovered in the New Zealand Film Archive vault, including the only known copy of a drama by legendary director John Ford, is being sent back to the United States to be restored.
Among the movies found in storage are a copy of Ford's "Upstream," the earliest surviving movie by comic actor and director Mabel Normand and a period drama starring 1920s screen icon Clara Bow. Only 15 percent of the silent films made by Ford, who won four Oscars, have survived.
New Zealand Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Christopher Finlayson said the find is important as there are no prints of the films remaining in the U.S.
"These important films will be preserved and made available to both U.S. and New Zealand audiences to enjoy," he told The New Zealand Herald newspaper Tuesday.
Film Archive corporate services manager Steve Russell said the films were discovered when American preservationist Brian Meacham visited last year. Many of them remained in New Zealand because distributors at the time did not think the return shipping costs were worth the expense, he said.
"It's one of the rare cases where the tyranny of distance has worked in our and the films' favor," Russell said.
Finding "Upstream" was "a fabulous discovery, particularly for our American colleagues, but also for ourselves," he told The Associated Press.
Because they were printed on unstable and highly inflammable nitrate film stock, "there are very strict conditions when sending it by air," he added.
Returning the films will cost the U.S. National Film Preservation Foundation more than 750,000 New Zealand dollars ($500,000).
"We're having to ship in U.N.-approved steel barrels, a little bit at a time," said foundation director Annette Melville. "So far, we've got about one-third of the films, and preservation work has already begun on four titles."
"About a quarter of the films are in advanced nitrate decay, and the rest have good image quality, though they are badly shrunken," she added.
The late Ford's 1927 film "Upstream" was being copied onto safety stock in New Zealand to prevent further damage in transit.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hopes to screen the restored Ford movie in September, Melville said.
Copies of the films are to be made available in New Zealand through the Film Archive, and Russell said he expected a "premier" showing of "Upstream" would be arranged at some point.
Russell said that New Zealand Film Archive does not own the recovered movies, which acquired them from private donors and collectors who "have all agreed the original archive material should be returned to the U.S. for preservation work to be done."
Similar film repatriations have occurred with Australian and European archives, including the return to Germany of a nitrate print of the Fritz Lang silent masterpiece "Metropolis" to help in restoring a print of the late 1920s original, he said.
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Wonderful news!! Hearing news like this always puts a big smile on my face. I wonder how many hundreds or thousands of silent films we have lost over the years. I know it's a rather large number, sadly. Film preservation is a cause very dear to my heart and I would love to be able to help out with restorations, I think I would be quite good at it!
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This is great news, thanks for letting us know!
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Wow. This made my day. Thank you!
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Posted: |
Aug 16, 2014 - 12:31 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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I wonder how many hundreds or thousands of silent films we have lost over the years. I know it's a rather large number, sadly. Film preservation is a cause very dear to my heart and I would love to be able to help out with restorations, I think I would be quite good at it!
Here's some updated information on the survival of American silent films.
In December 2013, the Library of Congress published "The Survival of American Silent Feature Films: 1912–1929," the first comprehensive survey of American feature films that survived the silent era of motion pictures. Previous documentation established that nearly 11,000 (10,919) silent feature films of American origin were released from 1912 through 1929. There was, however, no definitive, systematic study on how many of these films still existed and where any surviving elements were located in the world’s leading film archives and private collections.
There is no single number for existing American silent-era feature films, as the surviving copies vary in format and completeness. There are 1,575 titles (14%) surviving as the complete domestic-release version in 35mm. Another 1,174 (11%) are complete, but not the original — they are either a foreign-release version in 35mm or in a 28mm or 16mm small-gauge print with less than 35mm image quality. Another 562 titles (5%) are incomplete—missing either a portion of the film or an abridged version. The remaining 70% are believed to be completely lost..
Commissioned by the National Film Preservation Board (NFPB), the study was written by historian-archivist David Pierce and published by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). It is one of several congressionally mandated studies of the nation’s cinematic and recorded sound patrimony. The report is available as a free download at the NFPB’s website as well as CLIR’s website. As part of the research for the study, Pierce prepared an inventory database of information on archival, commercial, and private holdings—who has custody of the films, how complete they are, the films’ formats and where the best surviving copies can be found. The report concludes that the existence of the database will allow the repatriation of lost American movies. Films initially thought lost have been found and repatriated from Australia, New Zealand, France, and many other countries.
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