moving image archives-past and future (daniel j. leab, 2000)

7/25/2019 Moving Image Archives-Past and Future (Daniel J. Leab, 2000)

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Moving Image Archives: Past and FutureAuthor(s): Daniel J. LeabSource: Film History, Vol. 12, No. 2, Moving Image Archives: Past and Future (2000), pp. 131-133Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3815366.

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2/4

Film

History,

Volume

12,

pp.

131-133,

2000.

Copyright

John

Libbey

&

Company

ISSN:

892-2160. Printedn

Malaysia

Moving

Image

Archives

ast

n d

uture

I

f,

istory

s

a vast

storehouse',

according

to Voltaire, fromwhich we take what

we

need'. Butwe must

chose

'wisely':

as the

1

8th-century

Frenchman of let-

ters

argues,

'we must

select'. The need

for

selec-

tion holds

especially

true for

archives

(official

or

otherwise)

which

mustdeal

with

he veritable

lood

of

moving-image

material

generated

during

the

20th

century,

and

massivelyproliferating

s

you

read

these words. The

ongoing

miraclesof

mod-

ern

technology

n

termsof

warehousing

and cata-

loguing this material as well as a generous

expansion

of

facilities

notwithstanding,

he

neces-

sary

institutional

pace

and

capability

falls far

short.1

Archives,

which

always

eem to

have had such

problems,

have

been withus for

a

very

ong

time.

The

historian,

Donald

McCoy,

recalls that 'the

word

archives

derives from the

Greek

word

archeion,

whichmeantboth

records

and their tor-

age places

...'.

But uch

functions

ctually

predate

the Greeksbymanyyears.Thereare instancesof

archival

record-keeping

hat

date back to

the

Sumerians,

before

2000 BC.2

Moving-image

archives,

or

obvious

reasons,

are a

much

more recent

phenomenon.

Whilevari-

ous

technological

innovations,

which

created the

illusionof

movement

what

has

been

describedas

a

'continuum'of

'early experiments

and

devices

aimed

at

presenting mages

in

sequence')

existed

during

the

1

9th

century,

he

movies as we

know

themcame intobeingduring hemid-i 890s. Dur-

ing

the recent

celebrationsof

'the

centenary

f

the

cinema'

various

national

irstswere

claimed

orthe

initial

showing

of motion

pictures,

commercially

and

artistically.3

Towhatever

ountry

cholarship

inallygrants

the accolade of beingfirst,alreadyover a century

ago

withthe movies

barely

n

swaddling

clothes,

some

people stronglyargued

for the need to

ar-

chive the

moving mage.

William

Kennedy

Laurie

Dickson,

an

Englishman

who

while

working

under

the

'supervision'

f

the

American

nventor,

homas

Edison,

played

a

key

role

in

the

development

of

motion

pictures

t

Edison's

West

Orange

NJ

labo-

ratories,

argued

for

the

validity

nd

usefulness

of

such

an archiveas

early

as

1894. He

maintained

that 'instead of dry and misleading accounts,

tinged

with the

exaggerations

of

the

chronicler's

mind,

our archives

will

be

enriched

by

the vitalised

pictures

of

great

national

scenes,

instinct

with

all

the

glowing personalities

which characterise

them'. Justa

few

years

later

n

1898,

on the other

side of

the

Atlantic,

Boleslaw

Matuszewski,

Paris-

based Polish

inematographer,

n

a

pamphlet,

Une

nouvelle

source de

I'histoire,

alled for 'the crea-

tion of national

film

archives

hat

would

identify,

collect, describe,andpreservehisnewsource...'.

He well

understood

he

problems

nvolved,

assert-

ing

'I

have no

illusions

hat

my

project

will

quickly

be

made effective ..'.4

History

ore

him

out. The first uccessful

ilm

archives

were

not

establisheduntil

hree

decades

later.

And not until

1938

did

film

archives

n the

United

States,

Great

Britain,

rance

nd

Germany

come

together

o

form

an

International ederation

of

Film

Archives

FIAF).

or

he next

wo decades

film archivingwas influencedstronglyby Henri

Langlois,

the

legendary

creator

of the

Cinematheque

Francaise,

who has been charac-

terised

aptly

as 'one of the

most

remarkable

nd

controversial

igures

ever to

grace any

profes-

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3/4

132

Daniel J.

Leab

sion ...'.

Langlois's

many

contributionso

moving-

image

archiving

notwithstanding,

hat world

ulti-

mately

turned

against

his

secretive,

exclusionary

policies.

In

the 1

960s and

the

1

970s

FIAF

which

untilwell afterWorldWarIIhad grownonlya bit

beyond

the

original founding

four

archives)

at-

tracted a

significant

membership

from

Eastern

Europe

nd the

Third

World,

s a

flourishing

movie

culture ed to

the

organising

of

moving-image

ar-

chives around he

globe.5

These

fledgling

organisations

often did not

have an

easy

time.

All

of these

archives,

even the

more

successful,

aced

a

series

of

difficult

hoices.

What,

or

example,

should be saved? The

historian

Nicholas

Pronay

put

it well: 'Filmand television

provide

.. records

of what

people/places

looked

and

sounded

like;

recordswhichare

always

evoca-

tive

and

valuable

...,

entirely rrespective

f

the

artistic

quality,

f

any,

which

hey

possess'.

Moreto

the

point,

who shall do

the

saving?

As was well-

summarised

n

1996

by

Winston

Tabb

then

Asso-

ciate

Librarianor

Library

ervices

at the

Library

f

Congress),

whatare the technical

preservation

..

problems?

How

do we ensure

that

they

are ad-

dressed?Andmost

mportant,

erhaps,

howdo we

fund all of the above.'6

The

extraordinary

echnological

innovations

constantly aking

place

means that issues such as

access,

funding,

and

storage

must

continue

n

flux.

Consider

access,

for

example.

In

the

early

1990s

RobertRosen director

of the Filmand

Television

Archives t

the

University

f

California,

Los

Ange-

les

-

observed

that

'some video

stores

probably

hold

bigger

stocks han some archives'.Now there

are available both laser discs and DVDs

with

ex-

tras'

hat offer

more

in

terms

of

viewing

han could

any

archive.

TV

hannels

such

as

AmericanMovie

Classics

and Turner

Classic

Movies,

as well as

pe-

riodic

offerings

of

less

recent

movies on various

'premium'

able channels

have transformed ur

TV

sets

into

a comfortable

cinematheque

-

and

thanks

o 'time

shifting',

ne

where

access

is at our

convenience.7

The Internet

now has become a

significant

player,

making

ess

commercially

iable materials

available.

TheAmerican

Memory

Collection

of the

Library

f

Congress (http://www.memory.loc.gov/

ammem/film.html)

ncludes

among

its

offerings

some

fascinatingearly

American

animation and

'The

Spanish-American

War

in

Motion Pictures'.

The

current

Head

of

Research

&

Study

t the

UCLA

archivehas

put

it

very

well: 'From

he Vaults o the

World'.

The Web

also offers an

opportunity

or

organisationsto make their

holdings

available

easily

and

inexpensively,

s well as

offering

inks

that

lead to

a

more traditionalutilisationof re-

sources:

thus

the Latin

AmericanVideo Archives

have

created

an 'on-line

searchabledatabase

and

ordering

ervicewhich ncludes

housands

of Latin

American itles

and unitesthe collections

of

hun-

dredsof US

and

foreign

distributorsnd individual

film/video

makers

nto a

central,

on-line location'

(http://www.lavavideo.org/LAVA/

bout.cfm).8

The future reatment

by

archivesof materials

from

the

past

and the

present

remains

unclear,

subject

o

varying

actors.

Quantum

eaps

in

tech-

nology, exponentiallydeveloping

sources,

con-

stantly ncreasing

costs,

growinggovernment

and

private

restrictions

all need to be dealt

with

by

archivesand their

managers

over and

over

again.

This ssue of

Film

History

eals

with

some

aspects

of current rchival

developments.

The late

film

di-

rector,

Stanley

Kubrick,

nce said

'if

you

can talk

brilliantly

bouta

problem,

tcan create the con-

soling

illusion

hat it

has been

mastered'.The arti-

cles

in

this

issue offer no set solutions but do

provide

some

milestones

on the

long

road

to

un-

derstanding.9

Ray

Edmondson

s no

strangerto

his

journal's

pages.

In

his 1995

article,

'Is

Film

Archiving

a

Profession',

e

presented

an

intriguing

verview

of

the

debates

among

film

archivistsabout

goals,

practices

and

philosophies

-

the article

is

well

wortha

re-read.70

In

this

issue

he

presents

rom

his Australian

erspective

a

report

on

moving-im-

age

archives

n

Southeast

Asia,

raising

ome chal-

lenging questions

about

the Western-oriented

profession'sresponse

to

archives

n

that area.

Its

increasing

mportance

s

well demonstrated

by

the

July

2000

joint

conference,

the first

of

its

kind,

of

the International Association

of Sound

and

Audiovisual Archives

and

the

Southeast

Asia-

Pacific

AudioVisual

Association,

hosted

by

he Na-

tionalArchives f

Singapore.

The

Smither

and Webb articledeals

withas-

pects

of the

history

f the

Film

Department

t

the

Imperial

War

Museum,

one of

the

most-utilised

and best-known rchives

anywhere.Footage

from

132

Daniel J. Leab




4/4

Moving

Image Archives:Past and Future

133

thisarchive s

to be found

constantly

n

a

multiplic-

ity

of

TV

documentary fferings.

Wilson ervesas a

fine

cicerone o a

collection hathas much nterest-

ing

material.He deals with a little-known

ocu-

ment/manuscriptollectionat a library otknown

for its

holdingsdealing

with

motion

pictures.

The

Library

f

Congress

certainly

s better

known.For

all

thathas been written

bout its

holdings,

one

can

always

learn more.

Loughney

has

penned

a

thor-

ough

and

up-to-date

overview

hat is also a

good

read.

Crippsonly tangentially

ouches on the

film

holdings

of the International

Olympic

Committee

but

engagingly

draws attention

to

holdings

that

should

be betterknown. Bertrand

ffers

an

inter-

esting

and useful fsomewhatconvoluted ale that

challenges

set

concepts.

Greg

Lukow

presents

a

substantial,

nforma-

tive

overviewof the

newlydeveloping

possibilities

forthose who wish

o trainas

moving-image

rchi-

vists.

Understandably

e includes a

plug

for

the

programme

t

his

school,

but he

does deal intelli-

gently

and

comprehensively

with

other

pro-

grammes.

It

s

clear

fromLukowhat he

training

f

moving-image

archivists s a

burgeoning

field.

Abigail

Leab Martindeals withan ambitiousat-

tempt

by

the

Associationof

Moving

Image

Archi-

vists

(AMIA)

o

solve the

cataloguing

problems

faced

by

all

moving-image

archivists s a

result

of

differing,

sometimes

contradictory

practices

at

various

nstitutions. he

lays

out

what

AMIA

oped

to

achieve:

its

Cataloging

and

Documentation

Committee

formed a

subcommittee o

create a

Compendium

f

Cataloging

Practices

y

surveying

institutions

n how

they

currently

atalogued

and

stored

their

moving-image holdings

in

order

to

provide

some

solutions

based on

common

prac-

tices. Martin

was

a lead

player

n

writingup

this

survey,

which

s

anticipated

o

appear

in

hard

copy

and/or

on-line

by

the

end

of

the

year.

Notes

1.

Colin

Bingham,

ed.,

Men and Affairs: A

Moder

Miscellany Sydney:CurrawongPublishing

Co.,

1967),

237.

2. Donald R.McCoy,The NationalArchives:America's

Ministry

of

Documents,

1934-1968

(Chapel

Hill:

University

f North Carolina

Press,

1978),

3.

3. Paolo Cherchi

Usai,

'The

Early

Years:

Origins

and

Survival',

n

Geoffrey

Nowell-Smith,

ed.,

The

Oxford

History

of World

Cinema

(Oxford

& New

York:

Oxford

University

Press,

1996),

6.

4.

Dickson,

quoted

in Daniel J.

Leab, 'Introduction',

HistoricalJournal of

Film,

Radio and

Television,

16

(No. 1),

1996, 5;

Sam

Kula,

'Film Archives

at the

Centenary

of

Film',

Archivaria, #40, Fall, 1995,

210;

Matuszewski

quoted

in

Penelope

Houston,

Keepers of the Frame: The FilmArchives (London:

British

Film

Institute,

1994),

12.

5.

Kula,

p.

211.

6. Nicholas

Pronay,

Archive

Film/Television

Preserva-

tion: The Historian's

Perspective',

The

Audiovisual

Librarian,

5

(Winter

1979),

24;

Tabb

in

Television

and Video Preservation

1997: A

Study

of the

Current

State of

American Televisionand Video Preservation

-

Report

of the Librarian f

Congress,

Vol

2,

'Hear-

ing,

6 March

1

996,

Los

Angeles,

California'

(Wash-

ington,

DC: Government

Printing

Office,

1997),

2.

7.

Rosen

quoted

in

Kula,

221.

8.

Steven

Ricci,

'From the Vaults to

the

World',

paper

presented

at

infog

99,

a 'Conference on the latest

digital developments

in screen culture

&

research',

(http://www.cinemedia.net/AFI/randi/infog99/

ricci.html).

9.

Terry

Eastwood,

'Reforming

he Archival

Curriculum

to Meet

Contemporary

Needs',

Archivaria,

#42,

Fall

1996,

80.

10. Film

History,

Autumn,

1995,

245-255.

Daniel J.

Leab

Moving Image

Archives: Past and

Future

133

