Much has been written about how Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane so annoyed its quasi-subject, media baron William Randolph Hearst, that he set the dogs on Welles. Peter Rainer, a Bloomberg News arts and culture critic, revisits the sordid response, on the occasion of Warner Home Video’s 70th-anniversary re-issue of the film in ...
Rosebud: Not Just a Sled
posted December 30, 2011
Three Films Unearthed in New Zealand
posted December 30, 2011
The National Film Preservation Foundation is presenting, on its website, three more films preserved through its collaboration with the New Zealand Film Archive. This second round of films includes Won in a Closet (1914), directed by and starring Mabel Normand, a 1917 automobile manufacturing saga from the Dodge Brothers, and the comedic short A Bashful ...
The Birds in “The Birds”
posted December 30, 2011
Why did the birds in The Birds act so crazy? Well, because that suited Hitchcock’s design. But he drew inspiration from an actual ecological phenomenon and mystery that now appears to have been solved. Was it the plankton whodunnit?
Rebirth of a Nation
posted December 30, 2011
D. W. Griffith’s 1915 film The Birth of a Nation was the cinematic supercolliding superconductor of its day. Although odious in many respects, it helped shape film into a sometimes-more-than-middlebrow endeavor in the United States.
Its reissue last month by Kino International in Blu-Ray ($39.95) and DVD ($29.95) versions prompted the New York Times to look back ...
David Bowie Unearthed
posted December 30, 2011
Dr Who is not the only superhero to turn up in recent days. David Bowie footage, from the Ziggy Stardust period of his meteoric rise to fame, also has been rediscovered.
In 1973, Bowie and band went onto the British hitmaker TV show, Tops of the Pops, to perform “Jean Genie.” The film went to air, ...
New Year: Great Time for New Work
posted December 30, 2011
New Year’s resolution: get a new job.
New Year, New Work?
posted December 30, 2011
The Bay Area Video Coalition is looking for an unpaid preservation intern, to begin in February 2012 and work at least three months. BAVC is a leading vendor in the field of archival video and audio preservation and provides training and access to emerging media technologies for public media producers, independent artists, at-risk youths, and ...
Whither Doctor Who?
posted December 27, 2011
Since 1993, BBC officials assisted by amateur volunteers have been trying to retrieve missing episodes from the early days of British television. Among their quarries have been some of the earliest episodes of the cult favourite, Dr Who.
The early episodes were just as hallucinogenic as today’s, although in black and white that looks rather murky ...
Archival Film of the Day: The Shakers
posted December 7, 2011
The Shakers (1974), Tom Davenport Films
Source: Folkstreams.net: A National Preserve of Documentary Films about American Roots Cultures
Duration: 29′ 59″
The Christian sect, The Shakers, adopted a singular approach to propagating their faith and their creed – it included a vow of celibacy that ensured the group would likely cease to exist. It was only due to conversions ...
Learning to Preserve Moving Images in Amsterdam
posted December 2, 2011
Caylin Smith, a North American student in the master’s program in Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image at the University of Amsterdam, reports on her experience there.
I am usually met with a puzzled expression when I tell people that I am pursuing my master’s degree in moving image archival studies, since it is not ...