On November 18th, the 1997 additions to the
National Film Registry were announced. The films of the Registry illustrate the
vibrant diversity of American film-making, and range from well-known Hollywood classics (Casablanca,
The African Queen, and A Night at the Opera) to landmark
independent, documentary and avant-garde masterpieces (Nothing But a Man, Louisiana
Story, and Meshes of the Afternoon)."The
moving picture is not so much the art form as the language of the twentieth century,"
Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has said. "Future generations will wonder
why so little of such a marvelously accessible and appealing record was ever preserved or
seriously studied by the strangely transparent and otherwise exuberant society that
produced it all."
The National Film Preservation Board serves as a public advisory
group to the Librarian of Congress. The Board consists of 40 members and alternates
representing the film industry, archives, scholars, filmmakers and others who make up the
diverse American motion picture community. As its primary mission, the Board works to
ensure the survival, conservation and increased public availability of America's film
heritage, including: advising the Librarian on the annual selection of films to the
National Film Registry, and counseling the Librarian on development and implementation of
the national film preservation plan.
Motion pictures of all types are deteriorating faster than archives
can preserve them:
- Fewer than 20% of the features of the 1920's survive in
complete form; for features of the 1910's, the survival rate falls to about 10%.
- A large number of "lost" American films of the 1910s
and 1920s can be found only as single prints in foreign archives.
- "Safety film," the cellulose acetate medium to which
volatile nitrate films have been transferred, has been found to have its own problems of
"vinegar syndrome", an irreversible film base decay.
- Fueling the crisis is the fading of color films from the last
40 years.
- Funding for the largest federal film preservation programs has
fallen to half its 1980 level, when adjusted for inflation.
Although not all of the films added to the National Film Registry
are available on home video, the films selected this year, as well as those inducted in
prior years, represent some of the most "culturally, historically, or
aesthetically significant" American films, definitely titles worth viewing when you
visit the video store and have trouble finding a title that you're interested in watching.
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links
View
listing of films selected to the National Film Registry for 1997
Read James H.
Billington's speech of 11/18/97 announcing the 1997 selections
Browse the National Film Registry, 1989-1996: Unoffical Credits Listing
(external site)
Visit
the web site of The National Film Preservation Board
(external site)
View H.R. 1734 (Public Law 104-285)
"The National Film Preservation Act of 1996"
(external site)
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