Saving Cinema

The importance of media preservation has in recent years achieved much broader public recognition. From the vaults of Hollywood and the halls of Congress to the cash-strapped museums of developing nations, people are working to safeguard film from physical harm. But the forces at work aren't just physical. The endeavor is also inherently political. What gets saved and why? What remains ignored? Who makes these decisions, and what criteria do they use? Saving Cinema narrates the development of the preservation movement and lays bare the factors that have influenced its direction. Archivists do more than preserve movie history; they actively produce and codify cinematic heritage. At the same time, digital technologies have produced an entirely new reality, one that resists the material, artifact-driven approach that is the gold standard of preservation in the Western world. As it has become increasingly easy to capture and access moving images, increasing evidence of something many archivists have known for years has emerged: industrial and training films, amateur travel diaries, and even family videos are critical public resources. It has also raised question about the role of the profession. Is access equivalent to preservation, and, if it is, how should archivists alter their activities? The time is ripe for a reconsideration of the politics and practices of preservation. Saving Cinema is the book to guide that conversation.

This ultimate insider's guide reveals the secrets that none dare admit, told by a show biz veteran who's proven that you can sell your script if you can save the cat!

The importance of media preservation has in recent years achieved much broader public recognition. From the vaults of Hollywood and the halls of Congress to the cash-strapped museums of developing nations, people are working to safeguard film from physical harm. But the forces at work aren't just physical. The endeavor is also inherently political. What gets saved and why? What remains ignored? Who makes these decisions, and what criteria do they use? Saving Cinema narrates the development of the preservation movement and lays bare the factors that have influenced its direction. Archivists do more than preserve movie history; they actively produce and codify cinematic heritage. At the same time, digital technologies have produced an entirely new reality, one that resists the material, artifact-driven approach that is the gold standard of preservation in the Western world. As it has become increasingly easy to capture and access moving images, increasing evidence of something many archivists have known for years has emerged: industrial and training films, amateur travel diaries, and even family videos are critical public resources. It has also raised question about the role of the profession. Is access equivalent to preservation, and, if it is, how should archivists alter their activities? The time is ripe for a reconsideration of the politics and practices of preservation. Saving Cinema is the book to guide that conversation.

This updated book continues its explorations of identity, place and existence in his films, with three new essays by Adrian Martin, Mark Cousins and James Morrison on his latest film The New World (2005), as well as analysis of Badlands (1973), Days of Heaven (1978) and The Thin Red Line (1998).

With a detailed range of approaches, this new collection investigates how cinematic narratives can and have been used to portray different political 'threats' and 'dangers'. Including a range of chapters with a contemporary focus, it studies issues such as: how the geopolitical world has been constructed through film how cinema can provide explanatory narratives in periods of cultural and political anxiety, uneasiness and uncertainty. Examining the ways in which film impacts upon popular understandings of national identity and the changing geopolitical world, the book looks at how audiences make sense of the (geo)political messages and meanings contained within a variety of films - from the US productions of Hollywood, to Palestinian, Mexican, British, and German cinematic traditions. This thought-provoking book draws on an international range of contributions to discuss and fully investigate world cinema in light of key contemporary issues. This book was previously published as a special issue of Geopolitics.

In The End of Cinema As We Know It, contributors well known in the 'movie' field talk about the movie industry and look at the variety of new ways we are viewing films. They query whether or not we are getting different, better movies?

What do digital platforms mean for cinema studies in Canada? In an era when digital media are proliferating and thousands upon thousands of clips are available online, it seems counter-intuitive to say that audio-visual history is quickly disappearing. But the two processes are actually happening in tandem. Adopting a media-archaeological approach to the history of cinema, contributors to Cinephemera cover a wide range of pressing issues relating to Canadian cinema's ephemerality, including neglected or overlooked histories, the work of found footage filmmakers, questions about access and copyright, and practices of film archiving. Spurred by rapid changes to technologies of production, viewing, and preservation, this collection showcases both leading and emerging scholars grappling with the shifting meaning of cinema as an object of study. Film historians are put in conversation with experimental filmmakers and archivists to provide renewed energy for cinema studies by highlighting common interests around the materiality and circulation of films, videos, and other old media. Considering a wide range of cases from the earliest days of silent film production to the most recent initiatives in preservation, Cinephemera exposes the richness of moving image production in Canada outside the genres of feature length narrative fiction and documentary - a history that is at risk of being lost just as it is appearing. Contributors include Andrew Burke (Winnipeg), Jason Crawford (Champlain), Liz Czach (Alberta), Seth Feldman (York), Monika Kin Gagnon (Concordia), André Habib (Montreal), Randolph Jordan (SFU), Peter Lester (Brock), Scott Mackenzie (Queen's); Louis Pelletier (Montreal), Katherine Quanz (WLU), Micky Story (New College), Charles Tepperman (Calgary), Jennifer VanderBurgh (Saint Mary's), William C. Wees (McGill), Jerry White (Dalhousie), and Christine York (Concordia).

Provides advice for budding screenwriters on how to handle the challenges of writing a Hollywood script and includes insider information on the most popular genres in Hollywood as well as references to 500 movie "cousins" to help guide the script writing process.