Once upon a time in the golden days of Hollywood, the movies were bigger, the stars brighter, and the celluloid they were filmed on was, well, explosive.
Which is why the US Library of Congress maintains a special, fireproof vault in Virginia, near Washington, DC.
Some 145,000 film reels are stored in strictly fireproof conditions in a vast, chilly vault at the Library of Congress’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia
There, the highly combustible nitrate film used from the dawn of cinema in the 1890s until the early 1950s has a permanent home, rarely accessed by the public but toured by AFP.
Lost films on the volatile but durable medium are still being discovered and preserved in the facility.
Nitrate film is just part of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center’s collection of more than six million items of moving images and recorded sound
Thanks to digitisation, the lost treasures can also be safely viewed for the first time in decades.
Some 145,000 film reels are stored in strictly fireproof conditions in a vast, chilly vault at the library’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia.
The desk of Nitrate Film Vault leader George Willeman
It is crammed with cinematic treasures that rekindle warm memories of an era when films ruled.
The vault’s leader, George Willeman, reeled off the names of classics with negatives there: Casablanca, Frank Capra-directed films like Mr Smith Goes to Washington, and the granddaddy of all action movies, The Great Train Robbery from 1903.
With the American Film Institute, the library began collecting and copying nitrate film, including the holdings of big Hollywood studios – RKO, Warner Brothers, Universal, Columbia, and Walt Disney
Down a spartan corridor so long it seemed to recede into the distance, he unlocked a series of cell-like steel doors.
Inside each of the 124 cells – there’s one dedicated just to the Disney archive – were floor-to-ceiling cubby holes.
Footage from Georges Méliès’s lost 1897 French short silent film Gugusse and the Automaton (Gugusse et l’Automate)
Each one held film canisters containing negatives and prints, all arranged meticulously: packed tight to prevent canisters from opening, but far enough apart to prevent any fire from spreading.
Since being set up in 2007 in a former US Federal Reserve building in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the vault has maintained a perfect no-fire record.
Film nerds’ delight
Nitrate film is just part of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center’s collection of more than six million items of moving images and recorded sound.
They also have supporting scripts, posters, and photos.
The entrance of the Packard Campus cinema of the Library of Congress’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center
Willeman, who sports a button badge with the invocation to Experience Nitrate, said the Library of Congress began preserving the medium when, in the 1960s, “it was discovered that so much film was being lost” due to fires and defunct companies throwing negatives away.
With the American Film Institute, the library began collecting and copying nitrate film, including the holdings of big Hollywood studios – RKO, Warner Brothers, Universal, Columbia, and Walt Disney.
George Willeman, who sports a button badge with the invocation to Experience Nitrate, said the Library of Congress began preserving the medium when, in the 1960s, “it was discovered that so much film was being lost” due to fires and defunct companies throwing negatives away
They also tapped the personal collections of film icons like movie impresario and silent-era star Mary Pickford and motion picture inventor Thomas Edison, whose early studio produced hundreds of films.
“We’re 50 some years in, and it (the collection) just keeps growing,” Willeman said.
Georges Méliès’s Gugusse and the Automaton (Gugusse et l’Automate) plays on a screen at the Packard Campus cinema of the Library of Congress’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center
With the arrival of digital media, the mission has expanded beyond preservation for purists and cinema historians – who say films just look better on nitrate footage – to putting old films online.
“Now we can make them available for everybody, which to me, being the film nerd I’ve been since, like, third grade, is just amazing.”
Nitrate Film Vault technician Courtney Holschuh (L) and vault leader George Willeman (R) unspool nitrate film on reels in a workspace at the Nitrate Film Vault at the Packard Campus of the Library of Congress’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center
Nitrate film made by early artisans often preserves better than the later safety film, said Courtney Holschuh, nitrate archive technician.
At a workstation with no light bulbs or exposed batteries – either of which could ignite dust or gas from vintage film – Holschuh recounted how last September she carefully peeled apart a cache of 10 vintage reels donated by a retired schoolteacher.
Nitrate Film vault technician Courtney Holschuh, using a viewing loupe, views the actual film of Georges Méliès’s 1897 French short silent film Gugusse and the Automaton (Gugusse et l’Automate)
There were 42 different titles on the reels – only 26 of which have been identified.
They included a lost film, Gugusse and the Automaton (Gugusse et l’Automate), by French cinema pioneer Georges Méliès.
“So much of our early film history is still out there for us to see and to experience,” Willeman said.
Source: AFP