Spotlight on... Pop Culture Documentaries Revisited!

The Documentary Film channel strikes again! I saw another fascinating pop culture documentary late last night that warrants yet another blog post. Keepers Of The Frame (Mark McLaughlin, 1999) is a heartbreaking plea for the conservation, restoration, and preservation of fading cinematic memories.

Much of the documentary describes the fragility of film media. Leonard Maltin fondly recalled watching a black and white movie that brilliantly lit up the screen; he discovered that the bright light that black and white enthusiasts adore is achieved through a certain amount of silver content in the film itself. As the film deteriorates, that light darkens with each viewing.

Pictures made using nitrate film were once extremely common, but now only one-third of all nitrate films survive. These include not only movie films but also newsreels, historical films, cartoons, advertising, and slice-of-life candid films capturing real and irreplaceable images of the way we once lived. Silent movies, displaying a breadth of talent the like of which we will never see again, are all on nitrate. Ninety percent of all silent movies that were made are gone. Nitrate films are extremely volatile; they are flammable, explosive, and extremely unstable. The conservationists interviewed pointed out that nitrate films basically have the 'seeds of its own destruction' built right in, and, to make matters worse, the chemicals used to prevent further deterioration to the nitrate film is toxic and has contributed to the deaths of conservationists who have worked closely with them. To make matters worse, rotting nitrate acts like a catalyst. One rotten spool of film can spread to, and destroy, nearby films that are in mint condition. Often these films are lost due to negligence on the part of the people who have them in their possession. Films need to be stored in a temperature and humidity controlled environment. MGM has their archives stored in the Kansas City salt mines.

The next variety of film, safety film, appeared to be a solution to the fickle acetate of yore; however, conservationists have discovered that even this improved media has its own set of problems. Many safety films suffer from something that conservationists have coined 'vinegar syndrome,' an acidic deterioration that warps the film and destroys the picture. Then, there are the early talkies that had accompanying sounds recorded to a separate 33 1/3 rpm record. There are many cases of either the film or the record existing without its companion piece.

Color fading is yet another major problem affecting films. The sparkling, glorious technicolors that pop off the screen fade to a greenish hue and, eventually, the image disappears from the film entirely.

The documentary also touches on preserving films shot in formats that are not in use any longer. It highlighted an archivist who modified his living room to facilitate one of the last Cinerama theater systems, which requires three separate projectors.

Keepers Of The Frame shows a lot of rare clips of movies that have been rescued. It also shows clips of movies that are beyond recovery: great splotches obscure the faces of the actors and color fading makes it impossible to watch. Then there are the talkies that have become separated from their records. The documentary played a sound byte with a screen that was blank except for these words: 'The film for this Vitaphone no longer exists.'

The documentary discusses why film preservation is so important (in a far more passionate and effective way than my last post that touched on the subject). Quite simply, there is no more thorough document of who we are, or who we once were, than the motion picture. For all its faults, film captures our stories more indelibly than any other medium. They are artifacts that reflect on a time that is no more and that help us to understand the past and ourselves. 'The films now being made will be seen as curiosities...to the men and women of the future.' This is certainly how I feel about the films of the last century. I thrill to see the fashions and fads, the designs and architecture, and, most especially, both the reality and Hollywood's interpretation of everyday life. For this reason, it is equally important to preserve personal home movies, which were often shot on Super 8. Home movies are completely unique in the way that they preserve personal and social history.

Film preservation is nothing short of a labor of love. There is neither money nor glamour in the job. The equipment is quite expensive, and the process is extremely tedious and time consuming. Thanks to the combined efforts of the George Eastman House, the UCLA Film and Television Archive [2], the Museum of Modern Art [2], and other private archives, a great amount of films have been saved for future generations. The Library of Congress has the largest collection of nitrate films, and, perhaps of even greater value, a collection of paper prints that cannot fall victim to acid deterioration. These paper prints are actual copies of original movie negatives printed on paper rolls. Some of these paper prints have proved to be invaluable to restoring lost or damaged films.

The most devastating revelation that this documentary unearths is that there is no permanent solution. What's lost is often lost for good, and the triumph of recovered films is bittersweet. Every bit of film will need to be retransferred to the latest medium. Digital media is not archival as its lifespan is often as short as ten years. It cannot replace the source material, and analog is seen as superior.

If you would like to see the documentary, I've found this link, but my computer doesn't do video very well, so I don't know whether it actually links to a watchable copy of the video. According to its page on the Documentary Film site, it will be aired again on Sunday, September 19 at 4:00 PM. I highly recommend viewing this well-made documentary.

(Notes: All factoids were gleaned almost entirely from the documentary. Any inaccuracies are either my own or, possibly, from the documentary itself. I accepted everything I saw as fact. Also, on a side note, my interest in preservation isn't just in film; I'm passionate about all varieties of pop culture, art, and historic preservation.)

AND.... Rewind America (also by Mark McLaughlin and mentioned in my last post) will be on the Documentary channel again! Thursday, September 16 at 11:00 AM! Set your devices and MAKE SURE YOU WATCH IT! It's worth it to see the behind-the-scenes story of the Liberace Museum and Forrest J Ackerman's horror and science fiction collections!

Spotlight on... Pop Culture Documentaries

Recently, I watched an exciting documentary on the Documentary Channel about the preservation of American popular culture that spotlighted several incredible museums and collections. The documentary was called Rewind America (2002), and it featured several segments, including a collection of burlesque memorabilia, the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas, and Forrest J Ackerman's legendary collection of science fiction and horror collectibles. The segment on the Liberace Museum was dazzling, but it was the breadth of the sci-fi and horror collection that was really awe-inspiring. The collection took up the entirety of Forrest J Ackerman's house, and it was jam-packed. He would have been a good contender for one of those programs about hoarders had it not been for the uniqueness and collectibility of the huge mass of stuff. Every inch of space was crammed full of movie memorabilia, including original movie posters and props from well-known films of the genre. He even had a special type of shelving system installed to allow for maximum storage of all his science fiction books! I couldn't help but admire both the completeness of the collection and his generosity in sharing it.

The engrossing documentary may have centered on these collections that were vital to, perhaps, fringe interests, but it said a lot about our national identity as a whole. It emphasized the accessibility of the collections; these were collections to be shared with the general public, to celebrate bygone personalities and subjects in the rich legacy of American twentieth-century popular culture. The thing that I love most about pop culture documentaries is that they delve into an aspect (or aspects, as the case may be) of ourselves that we often take for granted: that we love the cheap thrills of crappy b-movies, the campy decadence of celebrity, unhealthy convenience foods. No topic is too low-brow or mundane. They may not be gems, objets d'art, or priceless dinosaur bones, but, at least at one time in our lives, toys and fads, food, advertising, movies, pop music, and our favorite shows were just as vital (or more so) than relics in a museum. And, most importantly, all of these topics are as fun to read and write about as they are to experience first-hand. I was perusing a very dry academic book about the study of popular culture, and the only thing of merit that I took away from it was a very apt and wonderful definition for popular culture: it is the study of having fun. And that's just what pop culture should be. I don't know if I'm merely biased, but when I look at today's pop culture, I find it boring, and I have a hard time believing that I'll look back on the past decade with any sort of nostalgia or affection.

The past can be a dangerous thing to wallow in because it can be very distressing when a beloved aspect of your past fades into oblivion, or, inevitably, is completely snuffed out to make way for 'modernity' and 'progress.' The younger set (not that I'm much older than they) seem to be of the attitude that anything that happened before their birth is not worth knowing about or preserving. As the world is inexorably changing, we need documentarians, be they filmmakers; writers; or archivists (collectors, historians, librarians) to collect, maintain, and distribute our collective memories. Whether these are professionals working in actual libraries, archives, or film preservation labs or just a person with a pile of ephemera and a scanner, I believe this is Very Important Work, and I appreciate their efforts and contributions to preserving any and every aspect of twentieth-century popular culture. I believe we're in danger of losing all the things that made us who we were in the last century, and that, as time passes, so too will our memories of the past wash away. I suppose this can be seen as the mission statement for my blog(s) and Flickr, as well as what I really hope to devote the rest of my life to. I would love to spend the rest of my life preserving and writing about pop culture, and I admire (and envy!) those people who have been able to make a living out of it. Jim Heimann is, especially, a hero of mine. I know nothing about him as an individual, but when I look at the amazing collection of work that he's done for Taschen and Chronicle books (two of the best publishers of pop culture references -- please hire me!), I'm just so grateful for his work (as well as his keen eye for design). His books are works of art. I salute all the other bloggers, writers, archivists, and guardians of the past who feel the same way and who have devoted time, effort, and money into sharing their collections and writing about these precious tokens of the past.

Check out pop culture documentarian Mark McLaughlin's website, which includes, not only Rewind America, but also Hollywood Singing And Dancing (which I saw on PBS) and a few other titles that sound very promising. I know I'm going to be checking out his other works, too! I don't know if this is a link for Rewind America as I can't get it to load. Maybe. Maybe not.

Other pop culture documentaries that I highly recommend:
- Sandwiches That You Will Like (2002) [another link]
- A Hotdog Program (1999)
- An Ice Cream Show (1996)
- Things That Aren't There Anymore (1990)
- Every other documentary by Rick Sebak
- Philly's Favorite Kids Show Hosts (WHYY's Ed Cunningham is responsible for this one.)
- Drive-in Movie Memories (2001)

Many of these are Pennsylvania and Philadelphia-centric, but they're all very entertaining.

Of course, besides PBS, there are excellent shows on the Food Network, the Travel Channel, and the History Channel in this tradition, as well. Can you recommend any other pop culture documentaries (museums, collections, roadside attractions, foods, regional culture, etc.)?