Janna Jones
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813041926
- eISBN:
- 9780813043906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813041926.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter is an investigation of what film restorationists do and how they think and talk about their work. Current restoration discourse and practices literally assemble and help to shape cinema ...
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This chapter is an investigation of what film restorationists do and how they think and talk about their work. Current restoration discourse and practices literally assemble and help to shape cinema history and reveal how the moving image archive influences the ways that a film history is understood. Focusing on several film restoration case studies and in-depth interviews with some of the country's foremost film restorationists, and the analysis of restoration commentary on the DVD version of Lost Horizon, my aim is not to critique the current methods of film restoration, but to interpret the way restorationists and the archival community both conceptualize film restoration and practice the piecing together of history. This knowledge helps us to better understand how restorationists regard the cinematic object as historical artifact and how the contemporary culture of the archive engages its relationship with the past. The work of restorationists and their particular kind of film-remaking show us the trench work of (re) constructing cinematic history. The restored film should be understood as new type of film born from the cinematic and archival sensibilities at the turn of the twenty-first century.Less
This chapter is an investigation of what film restorationists do and how they think and talk about their work. Current restoration discourse and practices literally assemble and help to shape cinema history and reveal how the moving image archive influences the ways that a film history is understood. Focusing on several film restoration case studies and in-depth interviews with some of the country's foremost film restorationists, and the analysis of restoration commentary on the DVD version of Lost Horizon, my aim is not to critique the current methods of film restoration, but to interpret the way restorationists and the archival community both conceptualize film restoration and practice the piecing together of history. This knowledge helps us to better understand how restorationists regard the cinematic object as historical artifact and how the contemporary culture of the archive engages its relationship with the past. The work of restorationists and their particular kind of film-remaking show us the trench work of (re) constructing cinematic history. The restored film should be understood as new type of film born from the cinematic and archival sensibilities at the turn of the twenty-first century.
Heather Norris Nicholson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719077739
- eISBN:
- 9781781704547
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719077739.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Amateur film: Meaning and practice 1927–77 traces the development of non-professional interests in making and showing film. It explores how amateur cinematography gained a following among the ...
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Amateur film: Meaning and practice 1927–77 traces the development of non-professional interests in making and showing film. It explores how amateur cinematography gained a following among the wealthy, following the launch of lightweight portable cine equipment by Kodak and Pathé in Britain during the early 1920s. As social access to the new hobby widened, enthusiasts began to use cine equipment at home, work, on holiday and elsewhere. Some amateurs made films only for themselves while others became cine club members, contributors to the hobby literature and participated in film competitions from local to international level. The stories of individual filmmakers, clubs and the emergence of an independent hobby press, as well as the non-fiction films made by groups and individuals, provide a unique lens through which contemporary responses to daily experience may be understood over fifty years of profound social, cultural and economic change. Using regional film archive collections, oral testimony and textual sources, this book explores aspects of family life, working experience, locality and social issues, leisure time and overseas travel as captured by filmmakers from northern and northwest England. This study of visual memory, identity and status sets cine camera use within a wider trajectory of personal record making, and discusses the implications of footage moving from private to public spaces as digitisation widens access and transforms contemporary archive practice.Less
Amateur film: Meaning and practice 1927–77 traces the development of non-professional interests in making and showing film. It explores how amateur cinematography gained a following among the wealthy, following the launch of lightweight portable cine equipment by Kodak and Pathé in Britain during the early 1920s. As social access to the new hobby widened, enthusiasts began to use cine equipment at home, work, on holiday and elsewhere. Some amateurs made films only for themselves while others became cine club members, contributors to the hobby literature and participated in film competitions from local to international level. The stories of individual filmmakers, clubs and the emergence of an independent hobby press, as well as the non-fiction films made by groups and individuals, provide a unique lens through which contemporary responses to daily experience may be understood over fifty years of profound social, cultural and economic change. Using regional film archive collections, oral testimony and textual sources, this book explores aspects of family life, working experience, locality and social issues, leisure time and overseas travel as captured by filmmakers from northern and northwest England. This study of visual memory, identity and status sets cine camera use within a wider trajectory of personal record making, and discusses the implications of footage moving from private to public spaces as digitisation widens access and transforms contemporary archive practice.
Janna Jones
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813041926
- eISBN:
- 9780813043906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813041926.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
The film archive that has sought to preserve the filmic world of the twentieth century is a project that is as nearly complicated as modernity itself. While critics and theorists have necessarily ...
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The film archive that has sought to preserve the filmic world of the twentieth century is a project that is as nearly complicated as modernity itself. While critics and theorists have necessarily looked to cinema as a way to make sense of temporal and spatial shifting taking place in modernity, focusing on how and why archivists and film preservationists have attempted to save cinema sheds new light on how modern people imagined and then created a way to confront, reveal, confine and hold on to the recent past. In other words, this is a study of how modern people apprehended the past and conceptualized and enacted history making, by way of the film archive. It details archivists' and preservationists' perceptions and methodologies for securing artifacts that they deemed culturally and cinematically significant so to understand how they negotiated the present and imagined the future, while laying claim to the past.Less
The film archive that has sought to preserve the filmic world of the twentieth century is a project that is as nearly complicated as modernity itself. While critics and theorists have necessarily looked to cinema as a way to make sense of temporal and spatial shifting taking place in modernity, focusing on how and why archivists and film preservationists have attempted to save cinema sheds new light on how modern people imagined and then created a way to confront, reveal, confine and hold on to the recent past. In other words, this is a study of how modern people apprehended the past and conceptualized and enacted history making, by way of the film archive. It details archivists' and preservationists' perceptions and methodologies for securing artifacts that they deemed culturally and cinematically significant so to understand how they negotiated the present and imagined the future, while laying claim to the past.
Janna Jones
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813041926
- eISBN:
- 9780813043906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813041926.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, archivists work professionally and diligently to contain their collections, but the sheer amount of materials make containment nearly impossible. Today's ...
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At the beginning of the twenty-first century, archivists work professionally and diligently to contain their collections, but the sheer amount of materials make containment nearly impossible. Today's curious researchers who access the film archive have the potential to have a far more adventurous and liberating archival experience than their predecessors. The massive amounts of material, the collections that represent nearly every facet of the twentieth century experience, and scanty documentation create practically perfect conditions for those bold researchers who desire to build their own corridors through the past. Certainly, there are practical problems. Too much material with too few guideposts can make archival wandering frustrating. But the frontier conditions of the contemporary film archive may quite possibly represent the future of history making, and if we stop resisting its somewhat chaotic nature, we might begin to better understand its capacity to reshape the way we make sense of the past. Put another way, to accept that the film archive doesn't resemble or function like any other sanctioned storehouse of cultural memory, we have a better chance of understanding how the film archive can better foster innovative methods of accessing and narrating the past.Less
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, archivists work professionally and diligently to contain their collections, but the sheer amount of materials make containment nearly impossible. Today's curious researchers who access the film archive have the potential to have a far more adventurous and liberating archival experience than their predecessors. The massive amounts of material, the collections that represent nearly every facet of the twentieth century experience, and scanty documentation create practically perfect conditions for those bold researchers who desire to build their own corridors through the past. Certainly, there are practical problems. Too much material with too few guideposts can make archival wandering frustrating. But the frontier conditions of the contemporary film archive may quite possibly represent the future of history making, and if we stop resisting its somewhat chaotic nature, we might begin to better understand its capacity to reshape the way we make sense of the past. Put another way, to accept that the film archive doesn't resemble or function like any other sanctioned storehouse of cultural memory, we have a better chance of understanding how the film archive can better foster innovative methods of accessing and narrating the past.
Dominique Nasta
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231167451
- eISBN:
- 9780231536691
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231167451.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter focuses on the 1960s, which offered the Romanian film industry a unique opportunity to develop and diversify, thanks to the considerable increase in film production, the establishment of ...
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This chapter focuses on the 1960s, which offered the Romanian film industry a unique opportunity to develop and diversify, thanks to the considerable increase in film production, the establishment of a National Film Archive, the issue of a monthly film journal, the generalization of professional training in all related areas and the possibility to team up with West European partners. Film production in the mid-1960s amounted to 15 fiction films, 25 cartoons, 76 newsreels, 150 documentaries, mostly stereotyped comedies, mysteries, antifascist tales about the unflinching heroism of Romanian soldiers. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, almost half the film production consisted of adaptations of established literary authors such as I. L. Caragiale, Liviu Rebreanu and Mihail Sadoveanu, as well as more recent ones such as Mihail Sebastian and Ion Ag â rbiceanu.Less
This chapter focuses on the 1960s, which offered the Romanian film industry a unique opportunity to develop and diversify, thanks to the considerable increase in film production, the establishment of a National Film Archive, the issue of a monthly film journal, the generalization of professional training in all related areas and the possibility to team up with West European partners. Film production in the mid-1960s amounted to 15 fiction films, 25 cartoons, 76 newsreels, 150 documentaries, mostly stereotyped comedies, mysteries, antifascist tales about the unflinching heroism of Romanian soldiers. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, almost half the film production consisted of adaptations of established literary authors such as I. L. Caragiale, Liviu Rebreanu and Mihail Sadoveanu, as well as more recent ones such as Mihail Sebastian and Ion Ag â rbiceanu.