[MUSIC PLAYING]
ASHLEY SWINNERTON: Hi, everyone.
Welcome to Virtual Views: Film Vault Summer Camp.
I'm your host, Ashley Swinnerton,
Collection Specialist in the Department of Film
here at the Museum of Modern Art.
And for the month of August, we're
going to be looking at some treasures from the film archive
here at MoMA.
I wear a lot of different hats at the museum.
I work a lot with our database and cataloguers and the film
collection.
But most of all, I manage the Film Study Center.
So any research requests or access to the film collection
goes through me.
Each week in August, we'll be looking at a group of films
from the Film Department.
We've got an excerpt from an unreleased feature from 1914.
We have a technicolor screen test
with Katharine Hepburn from 1934.
We'll be looking at Andy Warhol's Kiss and some home
movies from a socialite in Chicago.
And next week, we'll have a live Q&A with Chief Curator Raj
Roy and filmmaker Todd Haynes.
You'll be able to submit your questions for Raj and Todd.
For our first week, we're focusing on First Programs.
These are the earliest acquisitions
in the collection as well as the very early efforts
to make film available to people outside the museum.
The Department of Film was founded in 1935
and almost immediately began circulating programs
and distributing them for universities, cinema clubs,
and even theaters.
And you have to remember that this is the 1930s.
There was no streaming back then.
There were no DVDs or VHS, no cable TV, no TCM.
So this was circulating 16 millimeter film prints
and literally mailing them to universities
to screen on a projector and put it up on the projector.
So this week, we're going to be looking at The Flying
Train, which is a Mutoscope short from the Biograph
Company, produced in 1902.
The Flying Train is a really incredible look at Vohwinkel,
Germany, and their suspended train.
It's literally suspended.
[LAUGHS]
So Mutoscopes were shot on 68 millimeter film,
which is more than twice--
I think it's three and a half times the size of what
you think of generally--
35 millimeter-- so the image quality
is absolutely incredible.
And these films were shot at 30 frames per second,
so the movement is very smooth.
Mutoscopes were part documentary, part spectacle.
The suspended train is still there.
So you can go on Google Earth, and look at the same route
that the train took in 1902.
The train itself is magical as well as the film.
I don't know.
It's almost like a roller coaster.
So some of the earliest efforts of the film library
in the 1930s and '40s was to compile programs, which
were for educational purposes.
They were-- There was one on German propaganda.
There was one about Sergei Eisenstein's ¡Qué Viva México!
But none of the compilations are more
popular than Great Actresses of the Past,
which is a look at four of the greatest
actresses from the late 19th and early 20th century.
We have Duse, Bernhardt, Mrs. Fiske, and Gabrielle Réjane.
And these were the premier stage actresses of their time.
Great Actresses of the Past is my most frequent program
request.
So I still have classes that come every year.
Acting classes and acting coaches
bring their classes to see the greats.
So this is really valuable footage
of these actresses honing their craft, or--
not honing their craft.
It was already honed.
But it's these actresses in their primes
doing what they do best.
So I hope you enjoy these films.
Stick around for the month of August.
We'll be bringing you more treasures from the film
archive.
Next week, we'll be exploring the topic of preservation
and hosting a live Q&A with Chief Curator of Film Raj
Roy and filmmaker Todd Haynes.
So I hope you stick around.
And see you next week.
[MUSIC PLAYING]