With the inception of cinema in the late 1890s, discussions relating to the preservation of film emerged in countries around the globe. Early motion picture
collectors, enthusiasts, critics, scholars, and producers justified film preservation by appealing to cinema’s role as art or artifact or through the medium’s capacity to
document historical events. In the mid to late twentieth century, however, film preservation advocates increasingly validated their work by defining and celebrating cinema as cultural heritage. This dissertation investigates the emergence and growth of the film preservation movement throughout the twentieth century on all levels of the film
archiving network, from the international and national to the infra-national. Using a wide
range of archival documents and organizational records, this project creates a more
complete discursive history of key institutions involved in the film preservation movement. Moreover, the project examines the ramifications of this movement upon
what constitutes “American” film heritage for the scholar, practitioner, and global
audience. This dissertation illustrates that moving image archives have not merely
preserved movie history, but have, instead, actively produced cinematic heritage. / text
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/1915 |
| Date | 28 August 2008 |
| Creators | Frick, Caroline Jane |
| Source Sets | University of Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | electronic |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works. |
Page generated in 0.0023 seconds