FLASHBACK 1996: The Library of Congress is on a mission to save America's film heritage. 

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In commemoration of City Weekly's 40th anniversary, we are digging into our archives to celebrate. Each week, we FLASHBACK to a story or column from our past in honor of four decades of local alt-journalism. Whether the names and issues are familiar or new, we are grateful to have this unique newspaper to contain them all.

Title: Screening for Preservation
Author: Mary Dickson
Date: Mar. 28, 1996

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For almost a century, film has played a vital role in preserving and reflecting the American experience. From Birth of a Nation to To Kill a Mockingbird, films have chronicled our culture, for better or worse. The thousands of films made since 1893 have provided a remarkable record of American life and culture. Unfortunately, more than half the movies produced in this country before 1951 have deteriorated and are lost forever.

The Library of Congress National Film Registry has selected 175 films to be restored and protected because of their cultural, esthetic or historical significance. Authorized by Congress in 1988 to preserve and restore American film treasures, the Registry each year selects 25 films of all types for preservation, including features, documentaries, shorts, independents, newsreels and even home movies. The eclectic collection includes everything from The Great Train Robbery (the oldest film in the collection) to a 1914 animated short about a dinosaur to the 1963 Zapruder film and the 1980 Raging Bull (the newest film in the collection).

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To increase public awareness about the importance of preserving our film heritage, the National Film Registry is touring 20 of the films in its collection. Seventeen of those films will play at the Tower Theatre from March 29 through April 4 (see attached box). "Our tour really is raising awareness," said Margaret Ershler of the Library of Congress in a telephone interview. "First and foremost, we want to let people have a chance to see these wonderful movies the way they were meant to be seen. In a theatre—a wonderful old theatre." It's a chance Utahns shouldn't miss.

Film may be one of the most powerful media, but it's also one of the most fragile. More than 80 percent of the earliest feature films no longer exist. But even more recent films, such as Star Wars, have lost scenes due to the deterioration of film stock caused from exposure to light, temperature and humidity. America's motion picture heritage is literally decaying. According to Ershler, film was not originally intended to be permanent. "It was something you saw and then it was over," she says. "No one thought of archiving it. That's why so much deteriorated or was lost to willful destruction."

The Silver Screen, as it was called in its glory days, was actually a literal term since silver was used in film stock itself. "The studios would melt the film down to reclaim the silver," Ershler says. Nitrate stock, used until 1950, was highly flammable. Acetate, used after 1950, not only fades but is subject to the vinegar syndrome in which chemical decomposition produces a strong vinegar odor.

While there is no foolproof method of saving film, Ershler says proper storage in low temperature and low humidity is key. "Refrigeration is obviously an expensive proposition," she says. "It's something the studios are able to afford, but our particular concern is the orphan films, those independent and avant-garde works produced by people who can barely afford to scrape together enough money to make the film in the first place. Everyone's cultural heritage is at risk here. It's not just whether Chinatown or City Lights will exist. We're losing historical materials, too."

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• Charlie Chaplin's City Lights gets a face lift courtesy of The Library of Congress' National Film Registry

How does anyone go about deciding which films are important enough to be preserved for posterity? According to Ershler they must be of "aesthetic, historical or cultural importance for the nation." Films are not considered for the registry unless they are at least 10 years old. "You wait 10 years so you can have a little bit of distance," she says. "It's not an Academy Award or what is popular this week. The films aren't even necessarily classics. Again, it has more to do with American culture, which is sometimes good, sometimes bad. Things like Birth of a Nation are included, which, understandably, received a lot of criticism when it was placed on the registry. The registry is not necessarily honoring these films. All art forms—our literature, our music, our sculpture, painting and film reflect us. Film, particularly, is not just an art form, but the language of the 20th century," Ershler says.

Anyone can send recommendations to the Library of Congress. For the 25 films added in 1995, the registry received more than 1,000 titles. The process of narrowing the nominations involves the National Film Preservation Board, an advisory board for the Library of Congress that is comprised of people throughout the film community. The Motion Picture Division of the Library of Congress works with the board to pare down the selections. Ultimately, James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress, watches all the films in their entirety.

"The most important thing about the registry is that we're not just speaking about the output of Hollywood," Ershler says. "We're looking at documentaries, newsreels, the avant-garde and independent productions. If you sat down and watched all 175 films, you'd see a good cross-section of American filmmaking—different genres, filmmakers and subject matter. Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950) is a wonderful cartoon. What's Opera, Doc? (1957) is a hysterically wonderful Bugs Bunny cartoon. Gertie the Dinosaur was made in 1914 by a New York Times cartoonist who drew each one of the 10,000 frames of that film." The registry includes the beginnings of film, like the 1903 Great Train Robbery; some of the great silent classics like Laurel and Hardy's Big Business and Chaplin's City Lights; some of the great adventure films like the 1948 Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the 1946 western My Darling Clementine and the film noir of the 1940s and '50s, like Out of the Past, one of Ershler's favorites that will play at the Tower. Also included in the registry are the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup, Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt, and more recent selections like Dr. Strangelove and Chinatown (all four will be at the Tower).

"As I go around the country on these tours, people will come up and say, how can you put this one on and not this one," Ershler says. "It's a good parlor game, what you'd put on and what you wouldn't. Everyone has an opinion."