New Light Cast on The White Shadow
posted October 11, 2011
"The White Shadow" went missing from screens in the mid-1920s, but now it's back – at least, half of it is. A restoration of the early feature, one of the first film projects featuring Alfred Hitchcock, was a highlight of the just-completed 2011 Pordenone Silent Film Festival. Caylin Smith reports.
Archivist Guilty of Stealing and Selling National Sound Treasures
posted October 5, 2011
A former long-time United States National Archives audiovisual archivist has admitted in federal court that he stole almost 1,000 sound recordings from the Archives and sold some of them on the online auction site, eBay, in September and October, 2010.
The Gumshoe Was a Lady
posted September 27, 2011
Not all film detectives have been hardboiled men. The woman gumshoe has a history, too. Philippa Gates has canvassed the women of film – and the men – who have broken the cases and put away the crooks.
More Books, Always More Books
posted September 25, 2011
In MIAN’s book pages, this week, you’ll find descriptions of heaps of new publications relating to film, video, television, and moving-image archiving – Zaprudered: The Kennedy Assassination Film in Visual Culture by Øyvind Vagnes (University of Texas Press, September), Chinese Women’s Cinema: Transnational Contexts, edited by Lingzhen Wang (Columbia University Press, August), Masculinity and Film Performance:
3,000 Hours Of 9/11 Television Coverage
posted September 7, 2011
The Internet Archive, a California-based organization that collects audio, moving images, and Web pages for historical purposes, has built a site collecting more than 3000 hours of television coverage by American networks and others from cities around the world. Titled Understanding 9/11: A Television News Archive, the site is designed as a resource for scholars,
Portraits of San Francisco Movie Theatres
posted September 7, 2011
From the Rediscovered in Old Email File comes word of this outstanding book from way back in October 2010: Rebecca McBride’s Left in the Dark: Portraits of San Francisco Movie Theatres (Charta Books) features 59 photographs and 11 essays by curators and writers, including Gary Meyer, a programmer for the Telluride Film Festival and owner
Polish Star Rises Again
posted September 7, 2011
Pola Negri's early vehicle, "Mania," Rediscovered and fully restored. She dazzled audiences in her day – even Chaplin and Valentino. Hardly a household name, now, Pola Negri was nonetheless one of the most exotic stars of the silent-film era, famed in the United States and Europe.
A Century of Sooner Cinema
posted September 3, 2011
Shot in Oklahoma: A Century of Sooner State Cinema by John Wooley (University of Oklahoma Press) A former entertainment writer with the Tulsa World and author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books traces the history of cinema in Oklahoma since 1904, when a Thomas Edison crew came from New Jersey to film cowboys
What the DVD has done for the study of film.
posted September 2, 2011
In their recent book, The DVD and the Study of Film: The Attainable Text (Palgrave Macmillan), Mark Parker, a professor of English at James Madison University, and Deborah Parker, a professor of Italian at the University of Virginia, consider how the study and reception of film has changed with the advent of movies on DVD
Symposium: Digital Film Restoration within Archives
posted August 31, 2011
September 21-23 2011 Austrian Film Gallery, Krems, Austria In cooperation with Filmarchiv Austria and the Austrian Film Museum, Austrian Film Gallery, Krems, is holding a symposium that offers panels and discussions on various subjects, from restoration ethics to documentation, as well as on practical challenges of new digital technologies. Participating archives & institutions include George