“Films constitute a valuable historical document”: Ernest Lindgren on the founding of the National Film Library

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It is generally agreed that the entertainment film industry began in 1903 with the making of a film called The Great Train Robbery. It was shown in nickelodeons all over the United States. It changed the inventor’s curiosity overnight into an instrument of story and drama that was to grow beyond all reckoning. That was 30 years ago. Last month a copy of the film, believed to be the only one in existence, was discovered. The film has now been entrusted to the British Film Institute in order that measures may be taken for its proper preservation.

The incident has served to call attention once again to the need for a National Film Library which can undertake the preservation of films of national and historical value in an organised manner. As readers of Sight and Sound will have seen by the time this article appears, through announcements in the press and elsewhere, a film library of this kind is at last to be set up under the auspices of the British Film Institute. None of the tasks indicated in the Institute’s terms of reference was more emphasised than this one. “The Film Institute,” it was declared, “would maintain a library with multiple functions. Within the limits of what is technically and financially possible, it would preserve for record a copy of every film printed in England which had a possible documentary value; it would make available for study films of interest to students; it would distribute films not available through the ordinary agencies; and it would maintain an up-to-date catalogue of films of cultural and educational interest.”

Even in 1932, when these words were written, the need for a library of this kind was long overdue. One need not go so far back as The Great Train Robbery for examples of lost films. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, produced by Dr. Robert Wiene, marked an outstanding step in the development of the film. It was the first break from photographic realism to something which was both imaginative and creative. “In ten years,” writes Paul Rotha, “this film has risen to the greatest heights, as fresh now as when first produced, a masterpiece of dramatic form and content.” Today, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is unobtainable in this country. The same is true of Fritz Lang’s Destiny; of The Covered Wagon, one of the few films of epic quality which America has given us, produced in 1923; of Flesh and the Devil; of any of the full-length Chaplin films; of the French film Michael Strogoff; of Metropolis, Vaudeville, The Last Laugh, or, indeed, of many others which one could easily name at random. It is inevitable that films will disappear if their preservation is left only to the vagaries of chance.

Films, moreover, constitute a new and valuable kind of historical document. They stand alone in their ability to record for all time all kinds of action, from the most epoch-making to the most personal. To let these new records go out of existence, simply through lack of effective foresight, will be an action for which posterity will hardly have cause to thank us. Great Britain, in particular, has an unrivalled opportunity for making and preserving film records of the daily life and ceremonial customs of the primitive and orientally-civilised peoples within her Empire. It is a responsibility which should be discharged before the disappearance of the life itself ultimately makes it impossible. One of the main purposes of the National Film Library being set up by the British Film Institute will be to preserve films of this kind.

Permanent preservation is in itself a highly technical matter and in this the Film Institute has had the co-operation of the British Kinematograph Society, which has set out in detail the conditions under which a film should be stored if it is to be kept for any length of time. One of these conditions, incidentally, is that no such film shall be used for projection. This means that if a film exists only in the vaults of the National Film Library it will be necessary to make a second copy before the film can be shown.

The Library will also distribute films to schools, clubs, discussion groups and other bodies using the film for educational purposes. The need for effective distribution of these films is no less vital than the need for a film repository. At the present time educational films can be obtained from some score of principal sources and a host of smaller ones. Teachers, however, are busy people. If they are compelled to search a mass of catalogues, all classified differently, some badly and some not at all and to negotiate with several different firms for a single programme, it is clear that the great majority will be discouraged from using films altogether. The Film Institute, through its various panels and committees, is attacking the problem of educational film production; but this is not enough. Effective production is useless without effective distribution. As soon as teachers can obtain films easily they will use them, and projectors too. The only real solution is a central agency for the supply of educational films, which at the same time, by reason of its authoritative and independent status, would be able to give advice of all kinds on the use of films and issue a single catalogue in which films are accurately classified and graded as to quality. 

The importance of localised distribution has often been emphasised. Schools, it is argued, will want to use films in their own libraries, or in libraries maintained by the local authorities. The way to organised decentralisation of this kind, however, lies through centralisation as a first step. It is hoped that ultimately the National Film Library may stand at the head of a nationwide system of local and specialist branches, doing much the same sort of service as the National Central Library does for books. It will not be competitive with existing libraries, all of which are specialised to a greater or lesser degree. It will coordinate and amplify their work. France has already shown the way. Starting experimentally in 1920, when it lent 54 films to educational institutions, the Musée Pédagogique distributed in 1928-9 no fewer than 43,500 films and was operating through 47 affiliated centres throughout the country. Whereas in England there are possibly some 700 schools with projectors, in France there are 18,000. The difference between these figures is, from many points of view, of the greatest significance.

These, very briefly, are some of the reasons why a National Film Library is so urgently required. The Film Institute has prepared a very extensive and detailed scheme for a fully equipped library, consisting of repository, reference section and distributing section. This larger scheme will serve as the model to be ultimately worked for; anything so far reaching in its scope must necessarily be attained by progressive stages.

At the moment there are a large number of films in existence, amateur, industrial, scientific, publicity films of both public and private bodies and the like, which it would seem reasonable to collect and distribute from one source for educational purposes at a nominal charge simply to cover distribution costs. There are also a large number of films of considerable value lying idle in the possession of private owners and in the bins of junk merchants, entertainment and documentary films, scientific records and newsreels whose commercial value is exhausted, the owners of which would be willing to give them to a trustworthy organisation for permanent preservation. It is for films such as these that the Institute is now appealing. Beyond this, money will be required for the purchase of projectors, for the renewal of copies and for general maintenance and development. For those who are not in a position to give films, therefore, but who would like to assist the Library, the Governors are inviting donations as well. Both for the first stages of the work and for its ultimate completion, the Governors of the British Film Institute must rely on the generous co-operation of public-spirited men and women and this they are convinced the national value of their task will bring forth.