Film Archive

From July 1, 1934, to November 1, 1968, the Production Code Administration (PCA) oversaw the creation of American motion pictures, in order to improve Hollywood’s moral standing. To assist in this endeavor, the studios produced film adaptations of classic literature, such as the plays of William Shakespeare. In the first two years of the Code’s inception, two Shakespearean films were produced by major studios: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935) and Romeo and Juliet (1936). But were these classic adaptations able to avoid the censorship that other films endured? With the use of archived collections, film viewings, and an in-depth analysis of the plays, multiple versions of the scripts, and other available surviving documents, I was able to see how these productions were affected by the enforcement of film censorship and what it said about the position of Shakespeare’s work in society.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream tended to use self-regulation, so as to avoid the censorship of the PCA. However, the film did not escape without some required changes. In spite of the filmmakers’ efforts, there were a few textual changes and the fairy costumes required revisions to meet the PCA’s standards.

In the case of Romeo and Juliet, the PCA was far more involved in all stages of the film’s production. There were many documented text changes and even a case in which the censors objected to how the actors and director executed a scene on film. The motion picture was created as if it were of the greatest importance by all involved. And, as it were, the existing archives paint a picture of a production that was a sort of battleground in a sociopolitical war between the censors and the filmmakers.

As both films arrived on the international stage, this sociopolitical campaigning did not end. During international distribution, the films were each accepted, rejected, and forced to endure further censorship, in order to become acceptable for public screening. This censorship often relayed a message about the location’s societal views and its contrast to American society.

In the absence of a national film archive in Turkey, it is difficult to accumulate a meaningful study about the past events of early and silent cinema history. Archives are the sites of history. Archives offer scholars multiple visions of bygone times and actors. State archives are chiefly the spaces of national and collective memory. So then, why is there not a national film archive in Turkey? Does it mean that the Turkish state does not pay attention to its own heritage? How difficult is it to manage a database of cinematic memory?
Most of the early/silent films have been reported lost or destroyed. One of the main reasons is the combustible nature of nitrate films themselves. Auspiciously, Mimar Sinan University’s Cinema and TV Department restored a number of early/silent films in collaboration with the Turkish Armed Forces’ Photo Film Centre (Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri Foto Film Merkezi) and these institutions still store them at their premises. Unfortunately, these institutions are not archives, either materially or symbolically. Questions of the accessibility of films still remain unsolved. Although Mimar Sinan University’s Cinema and TV Department Archive has been  a  member of the internationally recognized FIAF (the International Federation of Film Archives) since 1967, unfortunately the institution does not follow FIAF’s regulations (i.e. open sharing, offering a catalogue publicly).Thus scholars mostly carry out research in  national state archives (Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü/General Directorate of State Archives of the Prime Ministry) and libraries which eventually leads to the examination of written documents and visual materials in the form of ephemera, photographs and postcards.
This point brings us to the film holdings of TRT Archives (Türkiye Radyo Televizyon Kurumu). As a case study, this paper will explore the early/silent films that TRT Archives host currently. The database of TRT Archives reveals important information about the contents of fragmented versions of early/silent films, film enlargements and clips. These also include fictions and documentaries from the early/silent period which were used in TRT’s own productions. TRT Archives offers an ample opportunity to scholars, yet a series of problems are still afoot. The paper will explore the representation of TRT Archives, its significance, contents of the collection, its virtual and material research possibilities. This case study in relation to the examination of the nature of early/silent cinema heritage and the necessity of a national film archive can open multiple points to discussion.
Now, it is time for a joint collaboration network. State officials, academics, filmmakers and archivists can search, compile and unite early/silent films from the late Ottoman period in national and international arenas. Private and state collections can be joined together with the holdings of national universities, TRT and the Photo Film Centre and other civic and commercial organizations. This dialogue then would lead to the preservation, restoration, circulation and sharing of films as historical artefacts.

Keywords: film archive, film museum, early and silent cinema, TRT Archives.

My thesis is an investigation into the period of history surrounding the introduction of synchronised sound to film. The intention is in part to redress the current position that sound practice and theory holds in film today, but also to discover a method for understanding film as an audiovisual medium; ontologically necessitating an interplay between sound and image. Prioritising sound is not the intention of this thesis, as to do so would negate the ability to understand film as both sound and image. Theoretical concepts from the deconstructionist philosopher, Jacques Derrida, are appropriated to create a new model that can be used for film analysis. This model attempts to treat film as audiovisual, and uncover specifically, a way in which sound and image can be understood and examined together, resulting in a proliferation of available readings and meanings from the film text. Two ‘transitional’ films from 1927, The Jazz Singer, and Sunrise, along with synchronised sound tests fr...

Les années 1950 et 1960 apparaissent comme deux décennies d’intense effervescence dans le champ du cinéma thaï. L’adoption, à l’issue de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, du format 16mm par une nouvelle génération de cinéastes donna lieu à l’essor d’une production cinématographique très populaire dans le royaume. Alors que les comédies musicales réalisées par les fondateurs pionniers de la compagnie Phaphayon Siang Si Krung jusqu’en 1941 semblaient promettre la pérenne hégémonie d’un véritable « Hollywood du Siam », ces fictions joyeusement rhapsodiques, filmées avec des moyens de fortune et accompagnées en direct par la légendaire faconde de doubleurs professionnels, rencontrèrent un vaste public de Bangkok aux plus lointains villages de province, dans le cadre de projections en prolongement direct avec les spectacles mixtes d’antan. La disparition accidentelle, le 8 octobre 1970, de l’acteur Mit Chaibancha au cours du tournage d’Insi thong [« L’aigle d’or »] mit cependant un brusque ter...

In this paper I explore the different ways in which digital projection has been adopted by the cinema distribution and exhibition industries in the UK, the European Union (EU) and the United States, arguing that whilst in America digital projection has largely been embraced on a commercial basis, in Europe, where there was initially a slower take up of digital distribution, there has been a tendency for governments to subsidize the technology for cultural reasons. I examine the current state of digital projection, investigating why it has taken longer for digital technologies to permeate into distribution and exhibition (as opposed to image capture and post production), and looking at the aesthetic and economic drivers and challenges which have delayed the full-scale conversion to digital cinema (D-cinema). The essay ends by exploring the dilemma of digital distribution for the viability of the 35mm release print, the impact of this on film stock production, and how this will affect film preservation,even of those films that are born digital.

This is the published version of a talk I gave at Watershed Media Centre, Bristol at 'The Look: From Capture to Display - Digital Cinema Aesthetics and Workflows' Symposium organised by Terry Flaxton. You can view a video of my presentation at:
http://www.dshed.net/content/look-exhibition-and-display