The Documents: Letters, Program Notes, and Reviews from the Cinema 16 Files: Part I: Fall, 1947 - Spring, 1952

The following documents from Amos Vogel’s Cinema 16 files are presented in chronological order, in the hope that readers will be able to find their way into the on-going “narrative” of the development and demise of the film society.

A complete listing of the film events presented at Cinema 16 is included. The program announcements for the first three presentations have been reproduced from the originals; and beginning with the Spring, 1948 series—the first of the newly-incorporated Cinema 16 Film Society—complete seasonal schedules are listed, along with the blurbs from the program announcements, at the beginning of the period during which the events were presented. These listings have been simplified (only the dates, titles, and blurbs are included) and regularized (all film titles are in italics and are capitalized according to present-day conventions). We have eliminated the regular, capitalized subheadings supplied on the broadsides and brochures (e.g., “A Cinema 16 Premiere: U. S.,” “The Psychological Film: U. S.,” “The Experimental Film: U. S.,” “The Animated Film Classic: France”...), to facilitate reading the schedules.

Insofar as possible, we have done our best to provide a sense of both the text and the graphic look of the letters to and from Vogel and the program notes. We have justified margins left and have indicated new paragraphs with a double-space (rather than by indenting the first line), regardless of how the writers presented their texts. But we have otherwise retained the writers’ idiosyncrasies of grammar, usage, punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and graphics, in order to provide readers with a more complete sense of the period during which Cinema 16 was active. When letters, or additions to letters, are handwritten, we have indicated this with a [hw], and when we have abridged a complex letterhead, as we have done consistently with Frank Stauffacher’s letters from the San Francisco Art Institute, we have used a [ ...] in the heading.

When it has seemed useful, I have included brief explanatory notes.

All letters from Amos Vogel to filmmakers (and others), and all program notes written for Cinema 16 screenings, are reprinted by permission of Vogel.

Fall 1947

Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Amos Vogel (Vogelbaum), 9/17/47

Sep. 17th, 1947

Frank Stauffacher
Art In Cinema Society
San Francisco Museum of Art
San Francisco, Calif.

Dear Mr. Stauffacher,

thank you very much for your letter of Sept. 13th. The information contained in it, plus your program notes for the ART IN CINEMA showings proved to be of great help to us.

We are at the present time engaged in the setting up of a film society in New York City which—while concentrating on experimental and avantgarde films—will at the same time screen documentary and scientific shorts.

We are, as may be readily imagined, encountering the usual problems connected with the setting up of such an organisation. It is for this reason that we feel you can be of help to us in our common work and endeavor—to bring a greater awareness of the film as a powerful medium of art.

1) Film Sources; While we are fully acquainted with the facilities offered by the Museum of Modern Art, as well as various commercial distributing agencies, we find it difficult to get in touch with “contemporary” experimental film producers (most of them located on the West-coast). We also do not know where to locate some of the avant-garde classics and wonder if you could supply us with more concrete information as to how we may obtain the following pictures:

The films of Oscar Fischinger   of John and James Whitney   of Hans Richter   of Viking Eggeling UN CHIEN ANDALOU THE LOVE OF ZERO WAXWORKS ARSENAL RAIN ROMANCE SENTIMENTALE UNDERGROUND KALEIDESCOPIO MR. MOTORBOAT’S LAST STAND BY THE LAW THE CAGE MARS

and all the films in your Oct. 24th, 31 and Nov. 7th, 1947 showing, except those that may be obtained from the Museum of Modern Art.

We do hope that we are not imposing...