Orphans 8: Made to Persuade (Eighth Biennial Orphan Film Symposium) (review)

Three hundred thirty-three people attended the 2012 Orphan Film Symposium at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, on April 11–14. This biannual symposium is a three-day conference devoted to the screening and presentation of the orphan film. The Astoria venue is a new location for the symposium and proved to be ideal for this visual immersion into the unusual moving image gems that were screened throughout the event. The museum itself is housed in a new building, designed in sleek, stark white, that was completed only one year ago. It houses a state-of-the-art theater enhanced by a white ramped entry that is eerily lit with blue light. With the gracious hosting of chief curator David Schwartz, we had many enjoyable meals in this gleaming facility, and with the former Kaufman Studios next door, the setting worked exceptionally well for the symposium.

The history of this area was particularly interesting to attendees because the museum and Studio Square were originally part of a huge complex developed during World War II as the Army Pictorial Center, where military training films were made until the 1970s. Attendees were fortunate enough to view one of the films made at the center—a training film about training films—on the first morning of the symposium, thanks to the museum’s Barbara Miller. Another benefit of this location was its proximity to Studio Square, where attendees were served dinner on two evenings while enjoying stunning views of the New York City skyline. These communal meals enabled the audience to remain together and the schedule to run on time (or close), and they were an excellent opportunity for open discussions about screenings, collections, digitization issues and equipment, cataloging and metadata, future film collaborations, and more. Corralling attendees in one location centered around meals created an especially important feature of the symposium.

Screenings, presentations, historical overviews, and academic talks occurred from 9:30 each morning until 11:00 or later each night for three days. An eclectic parade of films reflecting this year’s theme, “Made to Persuade,” included vintage presidential political campaign spots and corporate promotions from the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia, made between 1905 and 2011. Presenters and attendees were generally a mix of film students, artists, academics, and professionals with experience manning the battlements of film preservation over the years: librarians and archivists, people involved in film production and distribution, and collectors of all kinds. A talented crew of New York University students oversaw the projection booth traffic, and Museum of the Moving Image projectionists ran the show with rarely a hitch, until the 16mm projector bulb, imported from Uruguay, grew dim during the last session of the last day.

For over seventy-two hours, the audience was immersed in visual treats and oddities—not surprising, as the definition of the orphan film genre includes a vast array of (largely but not exclusively) nontheatrical films, including, but not limited to, industrial, educational, government-sponsored, advertising, independent, newsreel, experimental, and home movies. Given the variety of material that could be included in any given year owing to the vast array of moving image material out there fitting this description, Dan Streible and his team of organizers curated a particularly unique lineup this year. One of the more remarkable things about orphans is the discovery and presentation of fascinating aspects of our past. All the films screened over this three-day period are exemplars of past times, cultural values, and attitudes.

The adventurous 1921 film Die Hochbahnkatastrophe (The elevated train catastrophe) opened the symposium with live accompaniment by the well-known silent film organist Dennis James; narration by trained stage actor Harrison Beck; a detailed technical overview of the restoration and history of the film by the archivist responsible for the preservation, the Deutsches Filminstitut’s Anke Mebold; and a scholarly historical overview and contextualization of the “Sensation” drama and the serial by the University of Chicago’s...