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| Issue 49: July 2002 |
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It’s Film Festival Time Again!
This year, the New Zealand Film Festival recognises the contribution
made by the late Jonathan Dennis with live cinema screenings of
two of Jonathan's personal favourites La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc
and The Wind. Both as Director of the Film Archive and
latterly Special Programmes consultant to the Festivals, Jonathan
was instrumental in creating an appreciative audience for early
cinema.
Carl Dreyer's La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (France, 1928)
plays at the Auckland International Film Festival on July 14 with
choral accompaniment by members of Viva Voce choir and the Chapman
Tripp Opera Chorus. The score is an arrangement by Dorothy Buchanan
of the music which accompanied the film's premiere in 1928. Jonathan
had brought the original project together for the 1988 International
Festival of the Arts in Wellington. The screening of Jeanne
d'Arc is made possible by kind permission of Gaumont and the
print, of the rediscovered original version, with English inter-titles,
is courtesy of BFI Collections.
Wellington audiences will have the opportunity to reacquaint themselves
with another festival star, the luminous Lillian Gish, in her finest
role as Letty in Victor Sjostrom's The Wind (USA, 1928).
Geoff Andrew in Time Out describes the film as "erotic,
beautiful, astonishing – [a film that] demonstrates such imagination
and assurance that it remains, seventy years after it was made,
completely modern." Musical accompaniment, composed by Carl
Davis, will be provided by the Wellington Sinfonia, under the direction
of Marc Taddei. The Wind was the live cinema highlight
of the 19th Wellington Film Festival in 1990.
Odd Man Out (UK, 1947) and The Fallen Idol (UK,
1948), by British director Carol Reed, will screen in Auckland,
Wellington and Dunedin. Reed is best remembered for The Third
Man, which screened at the festivals in 2000. Both prints come
from the NFTVA (BFI Collections) in London, with the support of
the Film Archive.
Jean Eustache, a less-well known, yet important, figure in auteur
cinema, features in a major retrospective made possible by the generous
assistance of the French Embassy, the French Ministry of Culture,
and the Sydney Film Festival. In a relatively brief career, cut
short by his suicide in 1981, Eustache's outstanding achievement
was his 1973 feature, La Maman et la Putain (The Mother
and the Whore), a remarkable cinematic exploration of the sexual
revolution of the late 60s and early 70s. The Eustache retrospective
totals six programmes and screens in Auckland and Wellington only.
Classic film noir is represented by Columbia Classics' superb
new restoration of Fritz Lang's The Big Heat (USA, 1953).
The glories of Technicolor and the great producer David Selznick
are celebrated with Nothing Sacred (USA, 1937) starring
Carole Lombard and directed by William Wellman and Gone to Earth
(UK, 1950) by Powell and Pressburger.
Buster Keaton's Our Hospitality (1923) screens in Auckland
accompanied by the Auckland Philharmonia.
Animation – both classic and experimental – is honoured
in Disney's Unseen Treasures and KINETICA-2: A Centennial
Tribute to Oskar Fischinger. Auckland audiences will also have
the opportunity to catch "Colour Cry", jazz collective
CL-BOB's multi-media tribute to Len Lye.
John
O'Shea's landmark 1964 feature Runaway screens in Auckland
(Sky City, 21 July at 1.30pm) and Wellington (Paramount, 3 August
at 4.30pm). A brand new 35mm print has been restored by the Film
Archive with the generous assistance of the Film Unit.
For full details, including session times and booking information,
refer to the relevant Film Festival brochures or visit www.nzff.co.nz
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Moving House
The Film Archive has solved its long-standing accommodation problems
with the purchase of a new home in central Wellington.
The Archive will relocate staff and collections to Te Anakura
Whitiahua on the corner of Ghuznee St and Taranaki St by the end
of the year and offer a full range of activities on the site by
Christmas 2003.
The six-storey building – formerly best known as the Wellington
headquarters of construction company Winstones and as the Te Aro
post office – was built in 1970 and, according to Chief Executive
Frank Stark, is ideal for the future needs of the Archive.
“The building combines very high standards of construction
and strength with large, uninterrupted floor spaces. It gives us
very safe storage for the collections as well as a great site for
developing and presenting our new public programmes.”
When the development is complete Te Anakura will offer more than
75% extra vault space, accommodation for up to 40 staff and feature
a 120-seat cinema, exhibition and viewing spaces and a much expanded
research and library service. Its location is only a block away
from Courtenay Place, the heart of Wellington’s cinema and
entertainment district.
The purchase and basic fitout of the building will be paid for
by the Archive – largely from the sale of its current home,
the Film Centre. The second stage of development, the public spaces
on the ground floor and basement, will be financed partly from Archive
resources and partly from the results of a fund-raising campaign
which will be launched later this year.
The announcement ends a long period of uncertainty over the Film
Archive’s accommodation. The previous plan to relocate public
programmes to the Wellington Free Ambulance Building under the name
Museum of the Moving Image proved too difficult, says Frank Stark.
“Ultimately the Archive decided it just couldn’t afford
to wait any longer for all the issues surrounding the Ambulance
Building, the Wellington waterfront and Government capital investment
to be resolved.”
The new building was identified in 1999 as a possible home for
the collections and staff, but the Archive’s Board of Trustees
had always recognised its potential to be fully developed in this
way.
As long ago as 1998, the Archive informed funders and supporters
that it had outgrown its current home, largely as a result of the
extraordinary success of its Last Film Search project and its new
role as guardian of the National Television Collection. “While
the response was sympathetic, supportive even, four years have gone
by and the pressure has continued to build. We realised that we
could have gone on waiting another four years. We decided to act.“
The Film Centre was acquired in 1992 with the support of Bank
of New Zealand and at that time was expected to provide for at least
20 years of growth. Those forecasts proved far too modest and the
success of the Archive’s public programmes, restricted by the
size and accessibility of the Film Centre’s spaces, has only
increased the pressure to move on. The film and video collection
has grown from around 15,000 in 1992 to 85,000 today and the Archive
now services a national audience of close to 150,000 users a year
– up from fewer than 10,000 in the mid-1990s.
The move to Te Anakura will result in a significant restriction
of the Film Archive’s ability to respond to outside requests
for access and deposit services for the period August – December
2002. Following the relocation of staff and collections, most activity
will return to normal. However usage of some public facilities will
be limited until the completion of Stage II, late in 2003. Nonetheless,
programmes like schools’ screenings, Te Hokinga Mai and the
Travelling Film Show will be maintained throughout the development
process.
At the same time the Board also announced that it had signed a
long-term agreement with Massey University to lease the disused
National Museum underground storage bunkers as additional vaults.
These spaces would be used for further collection growth and as
a method of spreading risk across two sites.
With the two new facilities the Film Archive is confident it has
the necessary base to carry on its work for at least the next 40
years.
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Remembering Jonathan Dennis
Jonathan Dennis, the Film Archive’s first director, died in
January this year from cancer. Newsreel readers will already
be aware of Jonathan’s integral role in setting up the Archive
(interview with Jonathan Dennis, no. 47).
In 1981, Jonathan was the sole employee and was involved with
every aspect of the Archive’s operations. He was particularly
active in alerting the nation to the plight of this country’s
neglected film heritage. The Archive’s ongoing commitment to
screening programmes also began with Jonathan. From the time the
first preserved prints came out of the laboratory, he started the
tradition of taking films back to their place of origin. Screening
programmes were toured extensively throughout New Zealand, shown
on marae, in cinemas and community halls – wherever the projector
could be set up. Jonathan also curated major retrospectives in Europe
and Australia and arranged screenings of early Maori films to tour
with the exhibition Te Maori to North America in 1984.
Accompanying these, and numerous other programmes in following years,
was the Archive’s Kaumatua, Witarina Harris, star of the 1929
film The Devil’s Pit.
Jonathan had an acute awareness of New Zealand’s unique character
and position in the South Pacific and the archive model that he
developed differed from those established in Europe and North America.
This awareness is reflected in the Archive’s title, Nga
Kaitiaki O Nga Taonga Whitiahua – the guardians of the
treasured images of light – and by the recognition of the Treaty
of Waitangi in its Constitution and operations. Jonathan retired
as director in 1990, when staff numbers had reached sixteen and
the Archive’s future was assured. That same year, he was awarded
a Queen’s Service Medal.
Jonathan continued a strong association with the Archive. In 1993,
he curated a programme of silent films for the prestigious Le Giornate
Cinema del Muto held annually in Northern Italy. At this festival
the international film community acknowledged his work by awarding
him the Jean Mitry Award for services to silent film. During the
centenary of New Zealand cinema in 1996, he made the documentary
Mouth Wide Open about pioneer filmmaker Ted Coubray and
produced two 3-minute histories of film in New Zealand. All three
productions drew heavily on Archive collections.
Over many years, Jonathan worked closely with the New Zealand
Film Festival on special presentations of live cinema and on retrospectives
of filmmakers, both major and less well-known. Jonathan’s Film
Show, a popular weekly look at the movies, started in 1994
on Radio New Zealand. His association with RNZ however, began with
Voices on Film, a seven part documentary series. Later
he produced the imaginative soundscape, A Day Without Art,
followed by the collaborative millennium work Ocean of Time.
In her tribute to Jonathan, Elizabeth Alley of Radio New Zealand
remarked that he was a man “unafraid of saying exactly what
he thought. His utter fearlessness, his acerbic wit, the spit and
polish he insisted on, his sensitivity for the craft, his prodigious
knowledge and his controversial judgements, set new broadcasting
benchmarks and new production standards. He didn’t mess about.”
For the National Library, Jonathan re-released early sound recordings,
among them Ana Hato raua ko Deane Waretini and The
Tahiwis. Jonathan was also involved with numerous publications,
most recently with Jan Bieringa he edited Film in Aotearoa New
Zealand (now in its second edition) and Don’t Let
It Get You, the memoirs of John O’Shea.
His last project, The Silent Migration, a history of
the Ngati Poneke Young Maori Club, a collaboration with Irihapeti
Ramsden and Patricia Grace, has been nominated in the historical
category of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2002.
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The Don Declares
Don Charles Selwyn’s long association with literature, drama,
theatre and film has been extraordinarily diverse. He is family
man, actor, writer, film director/producer, dramatist, community
worker and political activist. Monika Ahuriri talks to Don about
how he puts his philosophy of filmmaking into practice.
How do you see yourself?
As an interpreter of people’s talent. A facilitator, really.
I come from a teaching background, which really influences my attitude
— in that you draw the talent out of the students rather than
impose it on them. I found I really love watching other people’s
talent develop and how others interact with that. I guess that’s
where my thrust comes from, that’s my philosophical position
and the way in which I operate. Our company, He Taonga Films, operates
that way. We like to get people who have a lot of talent to contribute.
Who inspires you?
People like Inia Te Wiata have inspired me. Here we were, a bunch
of Maori from all over the place, shearers etc, waiting to do Porgy
and Bess. We were rehearsing 10 hours a day. Inia arrives on
his little scooter, his knees to his ears, and he’s just singing
and he’s so professional you know. And I think, God!, here’s
us, undisciplined. We had talent but he taught us discipline.
How easy is it for Maori to enter the film industry?
My big fear is that our industry is going to become institutionalised.
Film schools and tertiary institutions charge the earth. People
who have a minimum amount of money are up to their neck with student
loans and it’s going to exclude people with natural talent.
We ran a 12-month course and every six months we took on six new
students and they got paid! Now all of those people have more than
paid back with their mahi out there in the industry. It’s about
developing raw talent. We have to have somewhere creative and consider
some sort of community-based programmes for those that don’t
make it academically but have talent. That’s what the film
industry can do. My attitude is money should go into Creative New
Zealand or some other place that is about developing talent. What
I’m saying is, create a film bank for the film industry. Be
more discerning about the quality of programmes and don’t be
sending 47 people off to Cannes. All those sort of things need to
be turned around.
How do you think this can be achieved?
We’ve got such a wide range of experience within our own
identity but there’s a tendency for us to determine it in view
of what the Pakehas think about us, not what we think about ourselves.
We have to change that attitude. I think anyone who has something
to offer becomes more important when they pass it on. If we hang
onto our knowledge selfishly then it’s of no value because
it will die with us. It’s a great thing, that everybody who
worked on Te Tangata Whai Rawa o Weneti (The Maori Merchant
of Venice) and everybody who came through our film school; all have
that same attitude. It may be seen to be a bit like racism in reverse
but Pakehas don’t work for us unless they train Maori. The
sound person has to have a Maori trainee, DOP the same. It’s
what I call positive development of Maori. It’s no big deal,
it’s only a matter of attitude – you don’t need legislation.
Where do you think Maori are at with getting our own stories
out there?
We need to be telling our own stories, like to the people in Taranaki,
I say, “You have got to write your own story about Titokowaru,
not somebody else.” If you don’t write your own story
someone else is going to. The moment someone else writes it you
cut off the lifeline to your own people. I’ve been talking
with Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Maori (Maori Language Commission) about
setting up a scholarship to encourage Maori to write their own stories.
Maori and Pacific Islanders want to know what the process is. Everyone
has a right to know what the process is so the more informed we
are, the more discerning we are and the better our audience needs
are met.
How does Te Tangata Whai Rawa o Weneti fit into
this?
I think that if this film says anything it’s about including
people’s talents across the board. The film is only a catalyst,
really, for the talent that's out there; it’s only a vehicle.
That’s the way I see it; except that also its got a lot to
say about how good our language is to hear! I met a koro at a screening
and he had seen it a couple of times already. He said to me, “This
time I am going to watch it with my ears.” The other thing
is the film reminds me of how talented our people are, those that
didn’t have to go through film or drama school, the sort of
things that appear to be the platform under which people progress.
Sometimes it’s a hard road, but if you’ve got enough faith
in yourself you will get there – Maori or Pakeha – it’s
a universal thing.
What keeps you motivated?
It’s like-minded people who have an ambition. The more we
sit down and exchange views the more we are able to hone that collective
vision; that’s what keeps me going. I think about those old
people who also had these visions but never had the capacity we
have today to achieve them. In lots of cases we only have ourselves
to blame if we don’t. I think we have to be courageous enough
to take a step. If we have to be arrogant enough in order to be
able to fight the prejudice, then we have to. We need to work collectively.
The other thing is our talent and our stories are untouched. There
are so many beautiful stories to be told out there. People say to
me, “oh I saw the most horrendous rendition of makutu on Mercy
Peak that you’ll ever get.” What the Pakehas are doing
is trying to sanitise Maori culture so they can understand it. We’re
brought in as advisors but if you don’t make a difference there’s
no point in doing it.
Congratulations on receiving an honorary Doctorate in
Literature
Initially I was reluctant to accept it but then thought it may
help to inspire young Maori to education. And it’s a celebration
of all the help I’ve had in my career. I think if we look for
the big things to give us pleasure, we miss the little things and
to me it’s those little things that really matter. When Wassie
(Hairoka/Shylock) came on set, or Ngarimu (Pohia/Portia), Sonny
(Karatiano/Gratiano) or Scotty (Anatonio/Antonio), I say, “You’re
not the most important person here.” And Wassie says, “Who
is?” I said the person who’s making the cuppa tea. We
all laugh and agree, it’s all good fun. It just keeps the balance
there, just keeps our focus right.
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Saving Tape
Part 4 – How Do We Save Videotape?
You may as well ask why save films, books or paintings? The
content of videotape is just as important. The third in a series
by video conservator, Jamie Lean. Part 3 of this series can be found
in Newsreel Issue 48
The simple answer is – we make a copy. In time, no matter
how well stored or how little it is played, your original videotape
will cease to be playable. Whether this is due to deterioration
of the magnetic signal or the breakdown or absence of machinery
capable of playing your tape, the only way to ensure the survival
of the images and sound is to copy them to the best possible format.
If cost was no object it would be possible to transfer the original
videotape to 35mm film, a medium that has been around for well over
a hundred years. If stored properly, film should be able to be screened
in another 200 years or more.
Practical concerns mean that the most likely solution for preserving
video is to dub the tape to another videotape. The Archive copies
the original tape being preserved to three different formats. After
the original has been examined and, if necessary cleaned and repaired,
we copy it directly to Betacam SP, Digital Video (DV) and VHS.
The Betacam SP format has been the broadcasting industry standard
for almost 20 years, although DigitalBetacam is now taking over.
Betacam tape is 1/2” wide and of good quality, while the cassette
shell is robust and comes in a heavy plastic case. There are tens
of thousands of machines worldwide which should ensure the ability
to play back BetaSP tapes for years to come. The Archive’s
BetaSP becomes the preservation master and is carefully stored and
only accessed for further preservation requirements.
DV tape is much smaller (6mm wide) and uses digital compression
to carry all the original information. Because of this, DV is not
considered a preservation format. The DV is a dubbing master from
which we can make access copies. The VHS is created for viewing,
research and cataloguing.
Tape Tips no.4
If your prized video has developed mould, it may be possible to
clean it enough to transfer it, but you will never be able to remove
the mould from the original and it will grow back! Mould typically
grows on the top of the tape pack where air and moisture circulate
and can be wiped off with various solutions (isopropyl alcohol will
do) . It is advisable to fast forward and rewind the tape a couple
of times in an old machine to shake loose any further debris and
maintain tension on the tape. Even so, when you come to copy the
tape you may find that you have to stop frequently and clean the
player heads.
Next: Part 5 – Where to now?
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News Clips
Screenings
The Auckland Museum screenings, Time in Motion – The Pictures
on Sunday, played to capacity audiences in April and May. They
continue on the last Sunday of the month through to September.
On the Road Again
Bank of New Zealand Travelling Film Show took screenings to eight
centers in the Hawke’s Bay and Wairarapa regions in March.
The Show will be on the road touring Marlborough and the West Coast
in August this year. Special live cinema screenings of My Lady
of the Cave (1922) were held at the Regent Theatre, Dunedin
in May and The Bush Cinderella (1928) screened at the Regent
Theatre, Palmerston North in June.
International Relations
In May, Julian Millar, the Archive’s Digital Assets Manager,
attended the SEAPAVAA Congress in Laos. Julian completed his 3-year
term on the Executive Committee. Another Archive staff member, Conservation
Manager, Cushla Vula, has been elected in his place.
Honoured
The Film Archive warmly congratulates Waana Davis, chairperson of
the Board of Trustees, who was made a Companion of the Queen’s
Service Order in the Queen’s Birthday honours list. Ka nui
nga mihi atu ki a koe e Waana kua tae atu koe ki runga i te taumata
teitei.
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