feeling listless

Film A lost silent John Ford film has been found in the archives of Centre National de la Cinématographie, a film financiers in Paris, France:

"Eighty experts have been given the job of restoring 300,000 reels stored there, dating from 1892 to 1952 ... More than 10 years after work began, attention was turned to a decaying hour-long reel titled Drame du Far West. Although Harry Carey was quickly recognised, it was some time before its real title was identified."

The lack of foresight made by people in the past as to saving art, in this case the moving image for future generations and merchandising possibilities is horrific. There was a Shakespeare called ‘Loves Labours Found’ knocking around until some miscreant who had just bought one of his houses after his death decided it wasn’t anything in particular and burnt it as kindling. Some Doctor Who fans break into a cold sweat when they read articles like this one at the Restoration Team site and particularly paragraphs such as this:

"‘We contacted the woman from BBC Enterprises - Pamela Nash - who was in charge of destroying these prints. He asked her why she was destroying old ‘Doctor Who’ episodes. She said "No one wants them, they’re only old black and white prints".

‘I wanted them, as I had just got clearance from the BBC to buy copies of these episodes. And now I knew they were being destroyed. She didn’t seem to care - she had been destroying all the prints, all the negatives and all surviving master copies. Just incinerating them, destroying them - they were lost forever. I had seen all the cards showing when she had junked all the episodes. They had held every single episode of ‘Doctor Who’ up until 1972’.

Everything is saved for some future nostalgia show or other now of course, but frankly considering what’s been lost it’s a bit late now ...