Pékin et ses environs
R: Unknown. P: Pathé Frères. Fr 1910

“Around China with a Movie Camera contains such a wide variety of footage. How unlikely is it that these kinds of films survived?
We are lucky that anything from this period has survived, especially pre-WWI. Be it inflammable cellulose nitrate base or more modern ‘safety’ acetate stock — film is exceptionally fragile. What’s more, these films have spent a lifetime in circulation. They are worn through use and warped by time; they may have been buckled, bent, twisted, or torn; their splices broken, perforations ripped, images scratched. There is an enormous range of factors threatening a film’s physical survival. There’s also a cultural aspect. Film certainly had not been treasured in the same way as museum artifacts or literary works and, with new sound technologies, silent era films were rendered not only old-fashioned, but obsolete. For films never part of the commercial distribution cycle — home movies or missionary films — there’s an extra risk, as they are so often considered by their makers as mere holiday snaps or somehow too personal or private for anyone to think they could be valued by an archive.”
Interview with BFI Curator Edward Anderson by Shari Kizirian (in conjunction with the screening of the program Around China with a Movie Camera at A Day of Silents, San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2015)
silentfilm-org

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