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John H. Collins joined the pioneering Edison Studios as a stenographer and scenery painter in 1912. Two years later, he had become Edison’s most advanced director, with a crisp, streamlined style quite divorced from the Victorian stage trappings that still stuck to much of the prewar American cinema. But his career was tragically cut short when he died, at the age of 28, in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. His surviving films suggest that the rapidly evolving American film industry had lost an artist of rare talent whose creativity was only beginning to blossom.
This program presents several recent digital restorations of Collins’s work, drawn from MoMA’s unique collection of Edison negatives. Musical accompaniment is composed and performed by Ben Model.
Virtual Cinema is not available to Annual Pass members or members outside of the US.
Organized by Dave Kehr, Curator, Department of Film.
Film at MoMA is made possible by CHANEL.
Additional support is provided by the Annual Film Fund. Leadership support for the Annual Film Fund is provided by Debra and Leon D. Black and by Steven Tisch, with major contributions from The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston, The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art.
