Orphan film
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An orphan film is a motion picture work that has been abandoned by its owner or copyright holder; also, any film that has suffered neglect.
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[edit] History
The exact origin of the term orphan film is unclear. By the 1990s, however, film archivists were commonly using this colloquialism to refer to motion pictures abandoned by their owners. Before the end of the decade, the phrase emerged as the governing metaphor for film preservation, first in the United States, then internationally. [1]
[edit] Definition
Historians and archivists define the term in both a narrow and a broad sense. A report from the Librarian of Congress, Film Preservation 1993, offered a first definition. As a category of so-called orphan works, orphan films are those “that lack either clear copyright holders or commercial potential” to pay for their preservation. [2] However, a much wider group of works fall under the orphan rubric when the term is expanded to refer to all manner of films that have been neglected. The neglect might be physical (a deteriorated film print), commercial (an unreleased movie), cultural (censored footage) or historical (a forgotten World War I-era production).
This broader conception is typically illustrated by a list of orphaned genres. In Redefining Film Preservation: A National Plan (1994), [3] the Librarian of Congress enumerated newsreels, actuality footage, silent films, experimental works, home movies, independent fiction and documentary films, political commercials, amateur footage, along with advertising, educational and industrial films as culturally significant orphans. To this the National Film Preservation Foundation adds animation, ethnic films, anthropological footage, and fragments. (See "What Are Orphan Films".)
Within a decade the epithet was adopted by scholars and educators. In The Film Experience: An Introduction (2004), for example, Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White include a section on orphan films, defining them simply as "Any sort of films that have survived but have no commercial interests to pay the costs of their preservation." [4]
Defined in this way, more films are orphans than not. Many are more accurately described as “footage,” recordings shot on celluloid but not intended to be completed works or theatrical releases. The millions of feet of home movies and newsreel outtakes alone outnumber the quantity of film stock used to make all of the feature films ever released by Hollywood studios.
[edit] Orphan film movement
The resurgent interest in these films is due to their rich value as cultural and historical artifacts. Documentarians, filmmakers, historians, curators, collectors and scholars have joined forces with archivists because they deem orphans not only historical documents, but also evidence of alternative, suppressed, minority or forgotten histories.
Since 1999, hundreds of these devotees have gathered for the biannual Orphan Film Symposium. In 2001, members of these professions began referring to an “orphan film movement.” As archivist-scholar Caroline Frick has written, some of the most active participants identify themselves as “orphanistas,” passionate advocates for saving, studying and screening neglected cinema. In 2004, visual anthropologist Emily Cohen wrote that the movement's creative and intellectual ferment constituted an “Orphanista Manifesto.” [5] More pragmatically, in the United States the group's rising influence affected discourse and policies about copyright reform. Examples of this include the 2003 Supreme Court case Eldred v. Ashcroft, the 2006 Copyright Office Report on Orphan Works, and filmmaker Martin Scorsese's announcement of a World Cinema Foundation at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
On June 4, 2008, the European Union announced the signing of a new "Memorandum of Understanding" on orphan works. The EU's Digital Libraries Initiative produced the statement. Signatories from included the key institutions in moving image archiving and representatives of rights-holders: Association Des Cinematheques Europeennes (ACE), the British Library, European Film Companies Alliance (EFCA), Federation Europeenne Des Realisateurs De L'audiovisuel (FERA), Federation Internationale Des Associations De Producteurs De Films (FIAPF), and the International Federation Of Film Distributors (FIAD). EU Press Release on Orphan Works
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Gregory Lukow, "The Politics of Orphanage: The Rise and Impact of the 'Orphan Film' Metaphor on Contemporary Preservation Practice", paper delivered at the University of South Carolina symposium, "Orphans of the Storm: Saving Orphan Films in the Digital Age", September 23, 1999. http://www.sc.edu/filmsymposium/archive/orphans2001/lukow.html . As early as October 1950 Industrial Marketing magazine referred to 16mm industrial sales movies as orphan films. Restoration expert Robert Gitt was quoted using the metaphor as early as 1992, to refer to silent-era films, newsreels, and kinescopes. Robert Epstein, “Mining Hollywood's Old Movie Gold,” Los Angeles Times, July 16, 1992, p. F1.
- ^ Film Preservation 1993: A Study of the Current State of American Film Preservation: Report of the Librarian Of Congress, by Annette Melville and Scott Simmon, Washington, DC: NFPB/LOC, 1993. http://www.loc.gov/film/study.html
- ^ Redefining Film Preservation: A National Plan; Recommendations of the Librarian Of Congress in Consultation with the National Film Preservation Board, coordinated by Annette Melville and Scott Simmon, Washington, DC: NFPB/LOC, 1994. http://www.loc.gov/film/plan.html
- ^ Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White, The Film Experience: An Introduction (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004), 391-98. They add to the list of orphaned genres government-produced films, citing What You Should Know about Biological Warfare (1952) This film is viewable as a digital file at http://www.archive.org/details/WhatYouS1952 as part of the Prelinger Collection of “ephemeral films.” Collector-activist Rick Prelinger is one of the people most responsible for raising awareness of orphan films.
- ^ Caroline Frick, Restoration Nation: Motion Picture Archives and 'American' Film Heritage, PhD diss. University of Texas at Austin, 2005, UT Austin library PDF; Emily Cohen, “The Orphanista Manifesto: Orphan Films and the Politics of Reproduction,” American Anthropologist (December 2004), 719-31.
- Boyle, James, et al. Access to Orphan Films, submission to the Copyright Office, from the Center for the Study of the Public Domain, Duke University Law School, March 2005.
- Cherchi Usai, Paolo. "What Is an Orphan Film? Definition, Rationale, Controversy." Paper delivered at the symposium "Orphans of the Storm: Saving Orphan Films in the Digital Age", University of South Carolina, September 23, 1999. Transcript at http://www.sc.edu/filmsymposium/archive/orphans2001/usai.html
- Fishman, Stephen. The Public Domain: How to Find & Use Copyright-free Writing, Music, Art, & More, 3rd ed. Berkeley, CA: Nolo, 2006.
- Horak, Jan-Christopher. “Editor's Introduction,” The Moving Image 6.2 (2006), vi-viii.
- Horak, Jan-Christopher. “The Strange Case of The Fall of Jerusalem: Orphans and Film Identification,” The Moving Image 5.2 (2005), 26-49.
- Libby, Jenn. "Foundling Films: Orphans 5: Science, Industry and Education", Afterimage (May/June 2006), 11.
- Prelinger, Rick. The Field Guide to Sponsored Films. San Francisco: National Film Preservation Foundation, 2006.
- Prelinger, Rick, with Raegan Kelly. “Panorama Ephemera,” Vectors: Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular, vol. 2.
[edit] External links
- Orphan Film Symposium websites at New York University (Cinema Studies Dept.), [1] and at the University of South Carolina (Film Studies Program), [2], including "What is an orphan film?" http://www.sc.edu/filmsymposium/orphanfilm.html
