Archives of the Motion Picture: A General View

Abstract

made to record its history systematically. During the early years of the film, little effort was made to acquire and preserve those records, artifacts, and films that were involved in its development. Even today, at a time when the art of the film is being studied in more than 200 American colleges and universities, it is difficult to acquire archival materials in the field. The reasons for this difficulty are numerous, but principal among them is the fact that film makers, unlike workers in the other arts, have never been encouraged to take their art very seriously. Every year, every day, valuable papers, drawings, photographs, and films are destroyed by artists and technicians in the motion picture industry because they do not realize their historical, artistic, or pedagogic value. The job of the archivist is to acquire the remaining materials before they disappear, to make them accessible to film scholars, and to create an environment in which members of the film industry will be encouraged to aid in a program of continuing archival preservation. The Nature of the Film Of the many ways in which the motion picture can be described, at least five are of real interest to the archivist. 1. 77 is an art. Since it is an art, all the biographical materials that are useful in the study of the other arts are useful in the study of the film, too. Papers, letters, diaries, memos - all provide insights into the personality of the film maker and help reveal the educational, social, political, and psychological elements out of which that personality was fashioned. With respect to particular motion picture productions, these same documents help reveal the intentions of the film artist, the frustrations that he experienced in the realization of his work, and the extent to which the finished products reflect his original schemes.