Geoffrey Nowell-Smith
Early in 1992 I was asked by José Manuel Costa, President of the Association des Cinémathèques de la Communauté Européenne (ACCE) and of the Lisbon-based Projecto Lumière, to conduct a feasibility study on the possibility of creating a European Filmography, to be held on database and completed, if possible, by 1995. As the study progressed it became increasingly clear that such a Filmography was not only feasible but necessary, but that its achievement by 1995 would also be extremely difficult. In spite of the difficulties, it was decided to press ahead. The feasibility study became a preparatory study, the preparatory study became a plan, and work is now well underway.
What follows is an account of what the Filmography aims to achieve, what progress has been made to date, and what the principal obstacles are in the way of its achievement.
First of all, however, a possible source of misunderstanding needs to be cleared up. The ACCE is an entity within FIAF which groups together archives of the European Community countries and the Projecto Lumière is a component of the EC's MEDIA Programme. This is therefore a filmography of the production of the member states of the European Community, which, at the time the project began, were the Benelux countries, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Greece. Since it includes co-productions involving any of these countries, it will also include a number of films from other European and non-European countries. But it is not, at least at the outset, a filmography of European cinema as a whole. In this sense, "European" is misnomer for what is an EC project, and can only be an EC project, since it is an EC programme which sponsors and in part funds it. However, recently signed agreements between the EC and Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Austria and Hungary, and the possibility of further agreements with Switzerland and with many of the former Eastern bloc countries, mean that the project is expanding at a rapid rate.
Eventually, therefore, we can look forward to this becoming a genuinly pan-European project, which is as it should be. As Project Director, however, I must confess to the shameful thought that I don't want every European country to join tomorrow. We started with twelve countries and nine official languages, one of which (Greek) uses non-Roman script and several of which alphabetise words in different ways. We have now acquired a further six countries and with the more languages and alphabets. This poses enough problems for the time being!
As an inter-archival project, the Filmography initially reflects the needs of the Archives (and their immediate constituency) and the state of knowledge as it is at present. The Filmography aims to consolidate knowledge that for the most part already exists. Most European countries already possess some sort of national filmography in the form of data that has been compiled over the years relative to national cinema. A lot of this knowledge is fairly standardised. That is to say, when a filmorgaphic record is made, it usually contains a title, a date of production or release, the name of the producing company or director, a length, and assorted cast and credit information. It might therefore seem a fairly simple matter to collect together all the information from these sources and merge it on a computer to produce a single consolidated record, eliminating a certain number of duplications on the way through.
Unfortunately this is not the case. Existing records are fragmentary. National records are rarely complete for all types of film in all periods. Some records are already on database, others are not. Where there are databases they differ in structure and in the selection of data to record. Without exception, every country that has a database has used a different software. Some countries can offer production data, others release data, others archival data derived from preserved copies. These data cannot simply be "merged" without throwing up a huge number of gaps and inconsistencies.
Secondly a simple merging of data (even if it were possible) would not be very useful. It would be tidy, it would give easy access on a screen to information otherwise to be found only in a dozen or more books. But it would be a very passive instrument of knowledge, and it would leave questions that need answers very much in the state in which they are at present. And answering questions that are likely to be asked by various types of users is both the scientific and the commercial justification of the Filmography.
The funding that the EC puts into the project can in principle only be used to assist the merging (the harmonisation, the Europeanisation) of the various national records: it cannot be used to support the compilation of the single national filmographies out of which the European Filmography will be composed. Since these national filmographies, as mentioned, are often incomplete and it would require a lot of resources to complete them in the time available, and since each country has to raise these resources internally in a period when money for projects of this kind is hard to come by, it has been necessary to prioritise. The days are gone when it would be possible to start a project, like Bouvard and Pécuchet, with the letter A and proceed (hopefully) to the letter Z (or, in our case, to start in 1895 and proceed to 1995), collecting on the way everything one might possibly want to know about anything. We therefore had to ask: which films, from which periods, and which items of information about them, are a priority? And we had to ask this both from the standpoint of existing information (which areas need least additional research in order to complete the records on them?), and from that of the purpose of the Filmography (what information will be most useful, and to whom?).
The conclusion was obvious, and not particularly comforting. Scholars want to know about everything, and they are right, since without scholarly curiosity knowledge will not progress but will endlessly circle around the same canonical items. But the interests of those who wanted to navigate the uncharted seas of previously uncompiled and unconsolidated knowledge (let us say, the European serial of the 1910s and 20s) had to take second place to those who plied the major trade routes. These major trade routes, which already had charts but where the chart could be made better by applying a pan-European rather that national perspective, were feature films (especially recent ones) and, to a lesser degree, the documentary. Information on features was relatively well researched in all countries, and there was a crying demand for better and more accessible information from a variety of users - programmers, for example, putting together seasons of films at cinémathèques and on TV, but also a gamut of people from scholars to cinéphiles to the general public. Information on documentary, as any archivist can testify, is also much in demand by historians and, again, by television.
As to which data-items were most important to acquire and consolidate, a conclusion soon imposed itself, based on the one hand on the incompleteness of national records and on the other hand on the needs of likely users.
This conclusion was devastatingly simple. The purpose of the Filmography was the correct identification of every known film within a given area of circulation.We therefore needed to collect knowledge that would enable us to distinguish films one from another and to create pathways linking the appearances of the same film under different guises. This was a job of great practical utility, which needed to be carried out scientifically, and which the European Filmography was uniquely equipped to perform.
Imagine you are the apprentice programmer of a small cinémathèque operation in - let's say - Canada. You have been asked to put together a programme on and around the French new wave. You do your homework. You read the Cahiers du Cinéma for background knowledge (in French, of course!). You discover frequent references to a film called Voyage en Italie which was clearly a seminal influence on the new wave directors, and you decide you need to include it in your programme, in as authentic a version as possible. It is an Italian film, so you need the Italian title - Viaggio in Italia. This you can probably find easily enough. But you will want (you think) a sub-titled print, from a local source. So you need a release title as well. One English-local source book gives you "Voyage to Italy", another gives "Journey to Italy" as an English title. You find "Journey to Italy" in a distributor's catalogue, but, horror of horrors, it appears to be dubbed. Besides, it is unavailable. You phone a friend in Toronto who is reassuring on one point. The English-language version is the authentic one, since the main characters are English and the actors (George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman) dub themselves in the English version, whereas the Italian version has them dubbed artificially into Italian. But this information is of no use to you, since no print seems to be available. You are then exceptionnally lucky. A local collector offers you a print of a film called Strangers, starring Ingrid Bergman, and this, on examination, proves to be the film you are looking for, though you would never have guessed it, and the length (at 75 minutes) falls short of the lengths of Viaggio in Italia quoted in your sources. You show it. Nobody complains.
You are also looking for Godard's Le Mépris. This too is not in the catalogues, but again you strike lucky, or think you do. The film turns up under the title Il disprezzo on a cable channel serving the local Italian-speaking community. The film is a co-production, set in Italy, so you take a risk on it, locate the print source used by the cable operator, and show the film. This time you get complaints. The original sophisticated multi-lingual dialogues have been massacred in the dubbing, and the print of this stunning widescreen film has been cropped to standard ration for TV purposes. You are fired. Years later (maybe in 1998), tele-shopping on your computer, you find a service called European Filmography, which could have told you...
This is, obviously, a fictitious example. The European Filmography will never - or not in the foreseeable future - provide instant "one-stop shopping" for all the information our programmer might have desired. But the example does, I hope, illustrate what can be both useful and possible as a result of merging exisiting records in a purposeful and systematic way.
To achieve this result, however, two principles need to be developed: a principle of identity and a principle of convertibility.
The principle of identity says that there is an identity Viaggio in Italia and that Strangers and Voyage en Italie are both instances of this identity. This identity is not located in a single material object - a print - but in a history which shows various names and various objects branching out from the trunk of a single tree. This principle can be challenged both practically and philosophically: it doesn't work perfectly for early film and will work less and less for the products of modern multi-media; it is also questionable in the light of post-Nietzschean (or indeed pre-Socratic) critique. But it is a principle that works well in more cases than not, and it works well for computers. It would be fun to design a computer program that eluded the postulate of identity, but life is short.
The principle of the convertibility of information is related. To say that Strangers = Viaggio in Italia is to state a fact, which should count as such in all forms that a record might take. Basically the European Filmography is trading in facts, and these facts need to be identifiable as such across the different formats in which they are currently held. Also, the form in which they are eventually held needs to be compatible with other forms of record-keeping - as used, for example, in national libraries.
The key to this is the notion of an exchange format. An exchange format can be defined as a way of establishing equivalences between information held in more than one data structure. By using an exchange format it is possible to take information from one or more sources, work on it, and transfer it to another place, without losing the integrity of the information. The information can be taken from a printed book and put on a database, or taken from a database and turned into typesetting; it can be taken from one database and put on another, different type of database; it can be taken from two databases and a merged record created which can be returned to them or passed to a third database.
One condition is required for this. It has to be a reasonably safe bet that the field-name
In the case of the European Filmography we are starting with a variety of information sources, some of which are databases but some of which are printed books (Denis Gifford for the British fiction film, Raymond Chirat for a number of decades of French cinema). Selected information has to be extracted from these and compared. One source may give the title of a film as Vamos a matar, compañeros, another just as Compañeros; the director may be called Sergio Corbucci or Corbucci, S. Another director may appear sometimes as Max Ophüls, sometimes as Max Ophuls; there may be instances of a M. Ophuls, who might be Max or Marcel. Conversion into an exchange format separates differences in the way information is held (which it can sort out) from differences in the content of the information (which will have to be decided by a filmographer). Expert intervention will be necessary to decide which title of a film is to be treated as the original, or which spelling of the name is to be regarded as authoritative, but if the format is correctly established and suitable computer routines written, questions that relate only to the way information is held can be settled mechanically, without intervention.
As well as a source, there is also a target, or rather two targets. The first target is the European Filmography itself, which needs to hierarchise the inputs, decide which title of Compañeros is in fact the original one, etc., and present the whole in easily read and managed form. The second target is the wider world of data systems.
In the world of books and libraries, however, there has been a long history of discussion of bibliographic practice and in the past two decades this discussion has branched out into questions of the management of electronic data. It has now abutted in the elaboration of an international exchange format for bibliographic information known as UNI-MARC.
UNI-MARC is the product of a process whereby an original format, elaborated in the United States and at first known simply as MARC but now as US-MARC, was adapted for use in various other countries under names such as danMARC, UK-MARC, etc. The more these various MARCs were tailored to individual needs and customs, the less useful they became for the purpose of international bibliographic exchange. UNI-MARC is the result of an attempt to bring the formats back together again.
UNI-MARC is not perfect. It was designated for books and its little add-ons for audiovisual works are not ideal for filmographic purposes. It is also still in the process of consolidation. But there are nevertheless great advantages to making the European Filmography MARC-compatible. First of all, establishing equivalences between MARC fieldnames and numbers and those used for the exchange format of the European Filmography makes it possible for filmographic information to be incorporated into the data systems coming into use in the international library network. Secondly, since North American film cataloguers are already converting (albeit sometimes painfully) to US-MARC - which in turn is compatible with UNI-MARC - information exchanges will be possible with American filmographers and archives. When you consider that no fewer than six thousand European films which circulated in the United States in the first decade of the century have been identified and catalogued for the American Film Institute catalogue, the utility of being able to exchange information across the Atlantic is obvious.
Putting these principles into practice, we have decided to structure the Filmography around a notion of identifying data. Three fields in each record - Identifying title, Nationality, and Year - will be used to establish a basic identification, on the assumption that in the vast majority of cases they will be sufficient to establish the uniqueness of a record. There will then be fields for additional data on titles (other titles under which the same film has been known whether in its country or countries of origin or in other countries in which it has circulated); on its source (production company, director) and original attributes (length, gauge, silent or sound, black-and-white or colour); and on its dating (when the film was produced / copyrighted / censored / screened / released). While information is welcome in all these additional fields, we cannot realistically expect all participating countries to be able to supply every data-item that might possibly be desired. The only thing that is absolutely obligatory is that every film should be uniquely identified, and for this the three identifying fields should normally be sufficient.
The full list of fields in which information may be entered is as follows:
0.1 <i> Identifying number from original record
2.0 <n> Nationality
3.0 <y> Year
4.1 <sr> Source
Entries in some of these fields will often be superfluous. Length of a film in reels, for example, will only really be required in the case of lost films about which we only know roughly what sort of length they were. Running time in minutes, rather than length in metres, is requested for films originally made on gauges other than 35mm, but a length in metres (or feet) is required for silent films because projection speeds can vary. In general filmographers are asked to supply lengths for sound films as well, which the computer can automatically convert into minutes for ease of consultation.
The wide choice of date fields also merits an observation. National filmographers are being asked to input whatever information they happen to possess, and inevitably this will vary from case to case. What is important, however, is that the data on any one film should be internally consistent. Filmographers are being asked to select a particular version of a film as "editio princeps" and to enter data consistently about that version. Normally this will be a release version, and records will give the length and format of this version and the date of its release. But say the film in question had first been shown at a festival and then recut for release. Suppose, too, that the festival version is generally regarded as superior and is the one whose details are recorded in the national filmography. In that case a date must be given for a screening of the film at the length stated. If only a release date is given, this can give the misleading impression that the film was released at its original length. Published filmographies are often guilty of this sort of confusion. The European Filmography hopes not to be.
No doubt some confusions will remain. There will be errors and omissions. But we hope that by 1995 we shall have in operation a database which sends new standards of accuracy, completeness and ease of consultation. Roll on 1995!
La inmediata finalidad del proyecto es la recopilacíon y actualizecíon de aquellos datos ya integrados en bases de datos tales como las filmografías nacionales, y dedicar una primera etapa a recopilar las películas de ficción, "para continuar con aquellas cuya importancia contribuya a la reconstruccción del conocimiento histórico". Para satisfacer la finalidad deseada de identificar correctamente "todas las películas conocidas dentro de un área determinada de circulación", G.N-S. establece dos principios: identidad y convertibilidad. La identidad hace referencia a la relación entre un objeto determinado y una obra ideal ya sea artística o intelectual, mientras que la convertibilidad ofrece los suficientes datos fácticos como para poder diferenciar a unos objetos de otros. La compatibilidad de la información es otro factor clave, tanto para dar consistencia interna, como para facilitar el intercambio de información con otros sistemas de redes internacionales. Con tal fin, el proyecto ha elegido establecer la compatibilidad con el formato UNI-MARC.
Los datos básicos utilizados en la filmografia son: título de identificación, nacionalidad y año. Se añaden otros campos que vienen a completar esta información y permiten establecer una descripción física básica de cada pelicula. Se espera que el proyecto de Filmografía Europea este disponible en 1995.
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Filmographers tend to work in isolation, devising systems for their own purposes and occasionally exchanging information with friends and colleagues. Apart from the FIAF Cataloguing and Documentation Commission, there is no official forum for discussion, and it is only rarely the case that filmographers, whether working individually or in film archives or other insitutions, are brought face with other forms of cataloguing and bibliographic practice.
1.0 <t> Identifying title
1.1 <st> Sort title
1.2 <tr> Translation
1.3 <at> Alternative title(s)
2.1 <pc> Production company
2.2 <sp> Sponsor / commissioning agency
2.3 <r> Director
2.3.1 <rc> Direction credit
2.4 <s> Silent / sound
2.5 <la> Language of soundtrack
2.6 <bc> Black-and-White / colour
2.7 <g> Gauge and format
2.8.1 <l> Length in meters
2.8.2 <mn> Running time in minutes
2.8.3 <rl> Number of reels
2.9 <ca> Category (fiction / non-fiction / animation / serial)
3.1 <p> Production date
3.2 <z> Censorship date
3.3 <c> Copyright date
3.4 <sc> Date of first screening
3.5 <re> Release date (theatrical)
3.6 <tv> Date of first TV transmission
3.7 <v> Date of video release
4.2 <nt> Notes
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G.N-S. explique l'origine et le développement de la "Filmographie européenne", un projet sponsorisé par l'Association des Cinémathèques de la Communauté Européenne (ACCE) et financé par la Communauté Européenne, pour créer une base de données intégrée sur les films produits dans cette Communauté. La finalité immédiate du projet est de compiler et de complèter les données existantes dans des bases de données antérieures comme les filmographies nationales, et de se concentrer dans un premier temps sur les films de fiction et ensuite sur "les films reconnus comme importants pour l'établissement de la connaissance historique". Pour atteindre l'objectif d'une identification correcte de tous les films connus dans une aire de circulation prédéfinie, G.N-S. pose deux principes: l'identité et la convertibilité. L'identité montre la relation entre un objet donné et une oeuvre artistique ou intellectuelle idéale, tandis que la convertibilité procure suffisamment de données factuelles relatives à ces objets pour pouvoir les différencier les uns par rapport aux autres. La compatibilité de l'information est un autre facteur-clé, tant pour la logique interne du projet que pour faciliter les échanges d'informations avec d'autres réseaux internationaux de bibliothèques. Dans ce but, le projet a choisi de se rendre compatible avec le format UNI-MARC. Les données de base utilisées par la filmographie sont le titre identificateur, la nationalité et l'année. Des champs supplémentaires complètent ces éléments et permettent une description physique fondamentale de chaque film. La Filmographie européenne espère être opérationnelle pour 1995.
G.N-S. nos explica el origin y desarrollo del proyecto de "Filmografía Europea" patrocinado por la "Association de Cinémathèques de la Communauté Européenne (ACCE)" y financiado por la propria Comunidad Europea, para crear una base de datos de toda la produccíon cinematográfica de los países de la Comunidad.