NEW RELEASES FROM THE CIRCULATING FILM AND VIDEO LIBRARY
A Forty-Program Film Series Featuring Rare Early and Independent Work Including
Sixteen New Titles from The Library of Congress
May 10–June 10,1996
For more than sixty years, the Circulating Film and Video Library of The Museum
of Modern Art has provided access to rare early and important independent work
— works that would otherwise be available only to scholars. Beginning May 10,
the Department of Film and Video presents New Releases from the Circulating
Film and Video Library, an eclectic forty-program series that showcases the
library's recently released work and its ongoing commitment to American and
international film heritage.
The series, which runs through June 10, features seminal silent films from The
Library of Congress, including work by Alice Guy-Blaché and Lois Weber,
America's first women filmmakers; key films from the Museum's own archive by D.
W. Griffith; intimate portraits of directors Roberto Rossellini, Satyajit Ray,
and Shirley Clarke; new "Films on Art" programs; three films by maverick
American independent Jon Jost; and numerous others. The series closes with Fred
Keleman's stunning experimental work Fate (1994).
In recent years, the Museum has entered into a collaboration with The Library
of Congress to circulate more than two dozen early films on 35mm. Sixteen of
these superb silent works—chosen by The Library of Congress as unique first
examples of their genres—are organized into five omnibus programs titled
"The Origins of American Film." "America's First Women Filmmakers" features
four charming short films by Alice Guy-Blaché and Lois Weber; "Origins
of the Gangster Film" pairs Griffith's The Narrow Road (1912) with
Maurice Tourneur's Alias Jimmy Valentine (1915); "The African-American
Cinema" showcases Oscar Micheaux's Within Our Gates (1920); "Origins of
the Fantasy Feature" includes the revelatory The Patchwork Girl of Oz
(1914); and "Origins of American Animation, 1900–1921" finds the Katzenjammer
Kids cheek-by-jowl with Krazy Kat, Ignatz Mouse, Gertie the Dinosaur, and other
pesky characters.
Some of the Museum's best-preserved negatives of Biograph films directed by D.
W. Griffith from 1910 to 1913 have recently been transferred to Beta SP masters
and are in the process of being assembled into programs for distribution on VHS
cassettes. There are two Griffith programs in New Releases, "Wife v. Temptress"
and "Western Visions," which include magical performances by Lillian and
Dorothy Gish, Robert Harron, Blanche Sweet, and Mabel Normand.
The lives and careers of three influential film directors are gracefully
rendered in the documentaries Rossellini on Rossellini (1994),
Shirley Clarke in Our Time (1993), and Satyajit Ray—Introspections
(1990).
In addition to its own films on art and artists, the library now distributes
many of the fine art films originally distributed by The American Federation of
Arts. Three "Films on Art" programs are planned for this series, including
George Grosz in America (1993).
New Releases also includes the classic American independent films Pull My
Daisy (1959) by Alfred Leslie and Robert Frank, Leslie's The Last Clean
Shirt (1964), and three feature films by Jon Jost: Speaking Directly:
Some American Notes (1972–74), Angel City (1976–77), and Slow
Moves (1983). The Jost films, dating from the early seventies and eighties,
examine in a non-narrative fashion the director's complex response to the
Vietnam war (he was expelled from college and later jailed for refusing to
cooperate with the Selective Service Act).
The Circulating Film and Video Library was created in 1935 to provide a
circulating collection at reasonable rates to colleges, museums, and other
educational institutions. Since then, its role has widened to include service
to festivals, collectors, and film enthusiasts worldwide. The broadbased
collection includes early silent films, important documentaries, avant-garde
and independent works, animation, and video art. Information about the
collection can be found in the library's two-volume catalogue. All titles in
the series are available for rental or sale. For more information, please call
212/708–9530.
New Releases from the Circulating
Film and Video Library, was organized by Kitty
Cleary and Marilyn Mancino, Assistants, and William Sloan, Librarian, of the
Circulating Film and Video Library.
