FilmLandscape

Discussion of personal filmThere are no internal edits to the...

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 22:03:11 -0400

Discussion of personal film
There are no internal edits to the moving images; we show films as the creators cut them. Northeast Historic Film hosted art and cultural historians to discuss amateur film, considering aesthetic intent, audiences, and interpretive strategies. Over a day we watched a dozen moving image selections and talked about how we might understand personal film in relation to art history and museum gallery settings. Here is an excerpt.

Photo

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Screening list (archives gathering 16 May 2012)

Mon, 21 May 2012 18:46:00 -0400

Amateur film discussion with Karan Sheldon, Justin Wolff, Libby Bischof, Michael Komanecky. Considering aesthetic intent, audience interest, and interpretive strategies.

Alexander Forbes, 28 mm b&w, Sheep on Naushon Island, 1915. http://oldfilm.org/collection/index.php/Detail/Collection/Show/collection_id/426 

Alexander Forbes (1882-1965) born and died in Milton, MA. Great-grandfather, John Murray Forbes, a diplomat and businessman in China, was responsible for establishing the Forbes family on Naushon Island. Harvard Medical School MD in 1910; specialized in neurophysiology.

F.B. Richards, 28 mm b&w, Snow White[Blue Hill Country Club] 1916. http://oldfilm.org/collection/index.php/Detail/Collection/Show/collection_id/105

Colonel F.B. Richards (1862-1940) a summer resident of Blue Hill, Maine. Graduated from MIT in 1884, industrialist from Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Lieutenant Colonel in World War I.

Charles B. Hinds, 16 mm b&w, A.S. Hinds factory, Portland, 1925. http://oldfilm.org/collection/index.php/Detail/Collection/Show/collection_id/368

Charles B. Hinds (1881-1958) A.S. Hinds Laboratory was built in 1920 at 331-337 Forest Avenue. Lehn & Fink (manufacturers of Lysol) bought the company in 1907, although it continued independently and was in business through the 1940s.

Hiram Maxim, 16 mm b&w, Scarf Dance, 1925. http://oldfilm.org/collection/index.php/Detail/Collection/Show/collection_id/251 

Hiram Percy Maxim (1869-1936) was an engineer and inventor. His father, Hiram S. Maxim, from Sangerville, Maine, invented the Maxim automatic gun. Hiram P. Maxim was founder and first president of the Amateur Cinema League, 1926-.

Snowden Family Collection, 8mm color, outside a house in Stonington, circa 1960 (Reel 20) 

Jason G. Snowden and Edith Pickering Snowden married in 1937, filmed their six children and life in Deer Isle and Stonington, Maine. We do not know who is depicted here.

E.B. White, 16mm b&w E.B. White, Joel White, Raffles the dog, circa 1940. http://oldfilm.org/collection/index.php/Detail/Collection/Show/collection_id/102

E.B. White (1899-1985) was an essayist, humorist and fiction writer, born in New York and moved with his wife Katharine to Maine in the 1930s. Wrote for New Yorker and books such as Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little.

Albert Conley, 16 mm b&w, Automobile trips in Maine, 1928-1934. http://oldfilm.org/collection/index.php/Detail/Collection/Show/collection_id/13 

Dr. Albert D. Conley (1887-1974) was a resident of Freeport, ME. He was a research chemist, married Mary F. Johnson Conley and lived on Pleasant Street, Freeport. His second wife was Madelyn Edith Dyer Conley.

Jameson Collection, 16 mmb&w,Brown Hill Farm, Bow NH 1926 and Enid OK 1927 (Reel 11) from Beta SP

John Butler Jameson (1873-1960) born in Bennington, NH, resident of Bow, NH. Insurance executive.  

Charles Norman Shay, 8 mm Kodachrome, Indian Island, Reel 1, and Tourism in the American West, Reel 9.

Charles Norman Shay, a Penobscot Tribal Elder, was born in Bristol, CT, in 1924, moving to Indian Island, ME in 1930, attending school in Old Town, ME. He is the grandson of Joseph Nicolar, tribal representative to the Maine Legislature and author of The Life and Traditions of the Red Man (1893).

Arthur Libby Race, 16 mm b&w, Heron Island, Maine, 1939.

Arthur Libby Race, (1879-1960) was born and brought up in Boothbay, ME. He worked as managing director of the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston and lived at the hotel as resident manager in the 1920s-1940s. Race was national chairman of the American Hotel Association Committee on Prohibition.

For who was there, see http://filmlandscape.tumblr.com/team

Amateur films in museum galleries

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:51:45 -0400

In a gallery setting, how long will viewers attend to one screen before moving to the next?

What comes to mind when watching these selections? All are...

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:28:00 -0400

What comes to mind when watching these selections? All are silent 16mm or 8mm. The links are to collection descriptions.

Scarf Dance, 1925 / 16mm
Hiram Percy Maxim Collection

Boothbay Harbor, 1938 / 16mm
O.P. Geer
Blanche Geer, Ph.D. Memorial Collection

Events About Town, 1938 / 16mm
Philip W. Hussey Collection

Over the Garden Wall, 1938 / 8mm
Raymond Cotton
Hiram Historical Society Collection

Haying, 1938 / 8mm
Milton Dowe
Palermo Historical Society Collection

Is Seeing Believing, 1938 / 8mm
Milton Dowe and W.J. Roach
Palermo Historical Society Collection

Hodgkin Family, 1941 / 8mm
Clayton and Laura Hodgkin Collection

Northeast Historic Film Selections 2

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:26:00 -0400

Northeast Historic Film Selections 2:

The ground rules for treatment of amateur 16mm and 8mm films is to respect as fully as possible the intent of the creator. We introduce no internal edits to the makers’ original reels. In the exhibition all works will be presented in the correct aspect ratio and at the original frame rate.

The visual and literary imagery of old New England became a national commodity, successfully...

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 17:30:00 -0400

The visual and literary imagery of old New England became a national commodity, successfully marketed by a powerful publishing industry, a cultural elite of critics and editors closely allied with their artists and writers, both inside and outside the region, for a hundred years and more.

—Picturing Old New England: Image and Memory, Page 16

Interwar amateur film has never been a commodity in this way. Each unique reel was made for personal use, not shown, critiqued, exposed to public view or assessment since.

Ivan Flye Collection, 1941

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:58:00 -0500

Ivan Flye Collection, 1941

"Films created for personal use represent aesthetics and creative practices that are rewarding for..."

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 18:05:47 -0500

“Films created for personal use represent aesthetics and creative practices that are rewarding for study and discussion.”

Cherryfield Narraguagus Historical Society Collection, 1938. ...

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 16:44:00 -0500

Cherryfield Narraguagus Historical Society Collection, 1938. Frame enlargement from 16 mm. filmed by Lester Bridgham in Cherryfield, Maine.

Ernest G. Stillman Collection, herring off Mt. Desert Island,...

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 16:29:00 -0500

Ernest G. Stillman Collection, herring off Mt. Desert Island, Maine. Frame enlargement from 16 mm. film.

Herbert Benedict Collection, 1933. Frame enlargement from...

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 16:25:00 -0500

Herbert Benedict Collection, 1933. Frame enlargement from 35 mm. amateur film.

Amateur Film Landscape in the Interwar Years

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 16:17:19 -0500

Nontheatrical films from the first part of the twentieth century harbor intense yet largely ignored representations of how people lived in and understood their enfolding landscape.

These moving image documents ask questions about perceptions of our environment and shift understandings of visual culture.