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American Film Institute
The newest edition of The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures
Produced in the United States, the long-awaited Film Beginnings,
1893-1910, was launched in the Spring of 1995 by the AFI National Center
for Film and Video Preservation. Film Beginnings is the fifth volume
in the AFI Catalog project to research the U.S. national filmography.
Published by The Scarecrow Press, the two-book set contains information
on the 17,752 titles produced or distributed in the United States during
the earliest years of American filmmaking. As part of the AFI's celebration
of the centennial of the motion picture, Film Beginnings made its
international debut during the annual Congress of the International Federation
of Film Archives (FIAF), co-hosted by the National Center in Los Angeles
in April 1995.
Research on the 1893-1910 project began in Washington, DC, in late 1983.
Catalog researcher Elias Savada spent more than eight years compiling and
refining entries for the Film Beginnings database, beginning with
information gathered by the late film archivist and historian George Pratt.
More than 6,000 of the 17,752 titles in Film Beginnings are foreign
titles released in the U.S. during the cinema's first two decades.
Entries in the volumes document the pioneering era of filmmaking, including
the careers of such early film luminaries as D.W.Griffith, Thomas Edison,
Edwin S. Porter, J. Stuart Blackton, Mary Pickford, Florence Lawrence, Billy
Bitzer, "Broncho Billy" Anderson and Mack Sennett. Also documented
are the productions of such early studios as Biograph, Bison, Essanay, Kalem,
Kinemacolor, Lubin, Selig and Vitagraph.
Invaluable information on milestone films is contained within the entries
for such titles as Edison Kinetoscopic Records (1893, including Fred
Ott's sneeze), The Kiss (1896), The Great Train Robbery (1903),
The Life of an American Fireman (1903), Ben-Hur (1907), The
Adventures of Dollie (1908), A Corner in Wheat (1909) and The
Life of Moses, Parts I-IV (1909-10).
Historical events documented from a contemporary perspective include the
assassination of President McKinley, the sinking of the U.S. Maine, Admiral
Dewey in Manila, the Corbett-Fitzsimmons fight, and the funeral of King
Edward VII. Information is also provided on thousands of lesser-known fiction
and non-fiction titles - many of them now lost to the ravages of film deterioration.
Film Beginnings has been published as a "work in progress"
as a direct result of the desire expressed by many archivists and historians
throughout the world to obtain AFI's research on this period as soon as
possible. Yet entries in the Film Beginnings volumes provide more
than a mere title list, and in many cases represent as much as may ever
be known about particular films from this early period. Many entries have
plot summaries taken from exhibition catalogs or trade publications such
as The Moving Picture World. Production credits are provided for
a large percentage of the entries, as are location information and citations
for further research in contemporary and modern sources.
Accompanying the film entries volume is a book of indexes that provides
access to the films by corporate name, personal name, chronology, country,
location of production, dramatic or literary source and a keyword index
to titles. The keyword index will be of particular use to scholars as it
is the only extensive index covering the subject matter of early films.
The chronological index is also unique in that it is arranged not only by
year, but within each year by specific month and day, wherever possible.
Although it would require many additional years to complete a task as enormous
as fully cataloguing the thousands of titles in Film Beginnings, it
is the National Center's hope that access to the material at this time will
stimulate more in-depth research in the period and that scholars throughout
the world will uncover and share new information about the earlier years
of the cinema.
Funding for the Film Beginnings volumes was provided by the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the David
and Lucile Packard Foundation, and Bank of America. In addition to Film
Beginnings, AFI previously has published volumes of the Catalog of
Feature Films for the decades of the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s and 1960s.
The 1910s and 1930s volumes are still in print and available from the University
of California Press. The AFI Catalog staff, headed by Executive Editor Patricia
King Hanson and Associate Editor Alan Gevinson, is currently completing
work on two projects: the AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1941-50 and
the AFI Catalog of Ethnic American Feature Films. To obtain the Film
Beginnings volumes, contact: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 4720 Boston Way,
Lanham, Maryland 20706, USA; phone 800-462-6420; fax: 301-459-2118.
La dernière édition de The American Film Institute
Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States, le tant
attendu Film Beginnings, 1893-1910, a été publié
au printemps 1995 par le AFI National Center for Film and Video Preservation.
Film Beginnings, 1893-1910 est le cinquième volume du projet
de l'AFI Catalog concernant la filmographie nationale.
Le chercheur Elias Savada, responsable de la publication de ce double volume,
consacra plus de 8 ans à réunir des informations sur 17.752
titres de films (dont 6000 films étrangers distribués aux
USA pendant les 20 premières années du cinéma).
Film Beginnings a été publié dans l'esprit d'un
"work in progress" pour répondre au besoin exprimé
par de nombreux archivistes et historiens de voir paraître ce volume
aussi tôt que possible. Il contient bien davantage qu'une simple liste
de films et, dans de nombreux cas, offre des informations inédites
sur les films des premiers temps.
Un livre des index accompagnant le volume principal permet la consultation
par noms, raisons sociales, chronologie, lieux de production, sources dramaturgiques
ou littéraires, ainsi que l'accès aux titres par mots-clé.
Pour commander: Scarecrow Press, Inc. à l'adresse indiquée
dans l'article.
El esperado Film Beginnings, 1893-1910, del American Film Institute
Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States, fué
publicado en 1995 por el AFI National Center for Film and Video Preservation.
Se trata del 5° volumen del proyect de la filmografía nacional
de catálogos del AFI.
El investigador Elías Savada, responsable del volumen, dedicó
más de 8 años a la recolta de informaciones sobre 17.752 títulos
de películas (de las cuales unas 6000 extranjeras exhibidas en USA
en los primeros 20 años del cine).
Film Beginnings es un "work in progress" y responde a las nacesidades
de numerosos archivistas e historiadores. Contiene más que una simple
lista de films: ofrece informaciones inéditas sobre numerosas películas
de los primeros tiempos. El índice figura en un volumen separado
y permite la consultación por nombres propios, nombres de compañías
de producción, lugares de producción, fuentes dramatúrgicas
o literarias, etc. Para pedidos dirigirse a: Scarecrow Press, Inc. (ver
artículo).