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| Lost and Found: American Treasures from the New Zealand Film Archive | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 24 2013, 11:08 AM (1,286 Views) | |
| The Batman | Aug 26 2013, 12:47 PM Post #16 |
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Mr P, no worries, I just feel we need to support these silent releases. Especially with the effort they put into them. And a commentary on everything in the set is an exceptional bonus. RR - well said |
| Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman! | |
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| Frank Hale | Aug 26 2013, 12:47 PM Post #17 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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I'm confused, fellows. You're saying this is part of the "Treasures from American Film Archives" series? I thought it was a stand-alone release. Or is there some "Lost and Found" series of which I am unaware? Saved From the Flames; Undercrank's Accidentally Preserved: a lot of good work being done, but hard to keep up with it all (not a complaint). |
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| JazzGuyy | Aug 26 2013, 04:13 PM Post #18 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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No, the Lost and Found part is just in the title they use for the set but the packaging clearly shows it is an American Treasures entry. Its being put out by the same people who did the other sets. http://www.filmpreservation.org/ The thing I find a little odd is the Hitchcock material, which is hardly American. |
| TANSTAAFL! | |
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| JazzGuyy | Aug 26 2013, 04:19 PM Post #19 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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BTW, from looking at the group's website, they may be source for a similar set of films rediscovered in Australia and the recently discovered lost Orson Welles film at some time in the future. |
| TANSTAAFL! | |
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| The Batman | Aug 26 2013, 04:19 PM Post #20 |
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But we'll gladly let them slide it into the set. I suspect it's being used as a hook, to lure others who may not have purchased the set otherwise. |
| Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman! | |
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| Frank Hale | Aug 26 2013, 04:53 PM Post #21 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Ah-ha. Thanks guys for the link and the comments. My take is that they're simply launching a new series: "Lost and Found", so nothing need be specifically American. More power to them, but I hope they'll also continue with the "American Archives" collection. |
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| The Batman | Aug 26 2013, 05:12 PM Post #22 |
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You may be right there, Frank, as they are working on a cache of "lost" films found in Australia, as well. I believe the films are mostly American, but I just skimmed the article. I agree about the "American Archives", some of my favourite DVDs in the collection. |
| Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman! | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 27 2013, 08:31 AM Post #23 |
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Mouth Breather
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I certainly agree that they are doing a better job these days, but wicked damage has been done. The majority of silents are lost, some say about 85% of them. I'd love to see the missing W.S. Hart and Rin Tin Tin pictures. Comedies and cartoons seem to have the best survival rate, presumably because they were affordable to many collectors because of their short length. I paid $20 for Keaton's COPS in 1962 -- first film I ever bought. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| Frank Hale | Aug 27 2013, 09:04 AM Post #24 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Years ago Jon Mirsalis did quite a few posts over at alt.movies.silent on the survival rates of silent pictures. His hobby was to go through all the film archive holdings and create a database of what was lost and extant. It was fascinating reading, and there was quite a spread. The films of some studios like Vitagraph are almost completely lost, while those of others, like MGM, are in relatively good shape. Anyway, as I recall he came up with an overall silent survival rate of 20 - 30%, which is higher than most of the anecdotal estimates. |
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| riddlerider | Aug 27 2013, 11:51 AM Post #25 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Over the years I supplied Jon with some of the titles on his list. Many of us were doing research along similar lines back then. The percentage of surviving silent-film "masterpieces" roughly tracks with the percentage of those made. In other words, 80 to 90 percent of the existing silents are major-studio program pictures and Poverty Row indies. As some of you guys know, we owe the survival of many of the latter to pirates. A majority of independent producers and distributors, believing their films had no further commercial value once talkies became the range, eventually defaulted on their payments to the labs that had stored their negatives and supplied them with release prints. The Horsley lab was among the first to recoup those lost storage costs by making 16mm optical reduction prints from the original nitrate negatives and offering them to rental libraries and the home-movie market. They started this practice in the late Thirties and continued through the Fifties. At that time the original copyrights were still in force, but even when producers chose to bitch about the piracy (as Denver Dixon did), the lab owners reminded them that they were in arrears on their storage fees. That usually ended the conversation, as those producers either lacked resources to pay up or bring suit, or were on the verge of leaving the industry anyway. The bottom line is that many of those little movies — Westerns, melodramas, Mountie films, crime pictures — survive today because the labs struck 16mm prints on safety stock. Many of those prints have since been transferred to video and are available from grey-market outfits like Grapevine Video and Sinister Cinema. |
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| Barcroft | Aug 27 2013, 12:37 PM Post #26 |
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RR: Thanks for the info............... Barcroft |
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| The Batman | Aug 27 2013, 12:45 PM Post #27 |
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Yes, thanks, RR, fascinating stuff. And thanks to those enterprising lab rats, we owe them much. |
| Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman! | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 27 2013, 06:49 PM Post #28 |
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Mouth Breather
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No kidding. The so-called pirates preserved more movies than the archives. This has always been a sore spot. The archive folks, especially MOMA, have been so uncooperative and condescending to collectors that I really wonder what they think their mission is. Even in this Archive series we're discussing, MOMA contributions are minimal. Check it out for yourself. Eastman House has become more open in recent years, but for decades they kept a tyrannical hold on their films. Basically, you had to to Rochester and see what they wanted to show you. Then there was the Cinematheque Francaise's strange excision of intertitles on silent films, which gave rise to the weird jump cuts in New Wave pictures. Private collectors may have been technically breaking the law by preserving what the studios weren't willing to preserve, but thank the good Lord they did it. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| JazzGuyy | Sep 22 2013, 07:01 AM Post #29 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Dave Kehr's review which also provides information about some of the short items in the set: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/movies/homevideo/silent-treasures-from-the-new-zealand-film-archive.html?ref=arts |
| TANSTAAFL! | |
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| Laughing Gravy | Sep 22 2013, 10:22 AM Post #30 |
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Well, it is worth pointing out that funds for restoration ARE, unfortunately, not unlimited, and choices had to be made, and not everything could be saved, and I for one would have to make difficult choices on the side of major films, well-known stars, important directors and producers, and the like. That said, of course it's also true that it's sad and frustrating that many films we want to see exist but aren't available for viewing to us nebbishes out here. But it's also true that there are thousands and thousands and thousands of A and B movies, and serials, cartoons, shorts, and other good stuff available to us for home viewing, something unparalleled in the history of time and space. |
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11:36 AM Jul 11