Author Archives: Jan-Christopher Horak

Archival Spaces 298 James Card Memorial Lecture at Nitrate Picture Show Uploaded 24 June 2022 Below is an excerpt of my James Card Memorial Lecture at the recent Nitrate Picture Show at George Eastman Museum on 4 June 2022. As some people know, I started my career there: 47 years ago I began my careerContinue reading “298: James Card Lecture”

Archival Spaces 297 Nitrate Picture Show at George Eastman Museum Uploaded 10 June 2022 After a two-year hiatus, due to the COVID Pandemic, the 6th Nitrate Picture Show was held in Rochester, N.Y. between 2 – 5 June 2022 at George Eastman Museum. Organized by the GEM Film Department’s relatively new curator, Peter Bagrov, theContinue reading “297: Nitrate Film Fest”

Archival Spaces 296 Operation Anthropoid Uploaded 27 May 2022 Exactly 80 years ago, on 27 May 1942, the so-called Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich, was wounded in an assassination attempt by members of the Czechoslovak Army in exile in an operation code-named Anthropoid. Flown in by the Royal Air Force and coordinated onContinue reading “296: Reinhard Heydrich’s End”

Archival Spaces 295 San Francisco Silent Film Festival Uploaded 13 May 2022 The San Francisco Silent Film Festival celebrated its 25th Anniversary, 5-11 May 2022, and its first live iteration since before the pandemic in 2019. It may also be the last SFSFF at the storied Castro Theater, which the owners -rumor has it –Continue reading “295: SFSFF”

Archival Spaces 294 Ukrainian Film Archives in Peril Uploaded 29 April 2022 When the Giornate del cinema muto got its start in 1982 in Gemona, Italy, it was partially in response to a devastating earthquake that had rocked the area of Friuli in 1976, leaving its residents shell-shocked. I was reminded of that fact whenContinue reading “294: Kyiv Film Archive in War”

Archival Spaces 293: Austria Made in Hollywood Uploaded 15 April 2022 Back in December, I reported on the Academy Film Museum Symposium “Vienna in Hollywood. The Influence and Impact of Austrians on the Hollywood Film Industry 1920s – 2020s.” Now, I have finally caught up with an excellent book that focuses less on Austrians inContinue reading “293: Austria on Hollywood’s Screens”

Archival Spaces 292 Film Erotica in Papal Film Archives Uploaded 1 April 2022 My wife and I have been in Rome for the past ten days. Since this is not our first trip to Rome, we have forgone most of the Roman antiquities sites, and have focused on visiting libraries, archives, and private collections ofContinue reading “292:  Film Erotica”

Archival Spaces 291 The “Missing Movies” Manifesto Uploaded 18 March 2022 Recently, film director Nancy Savoca and screenwriting partner, Richard Guay realized that their 1993 film, Household Saints, could not be screened at Columbia University, because of copyright problems. Nancy eventually worked with her lawyer, Susan Bodine, and Ira Deutchman, the film’s original distributor, toContinue reading “291: Missing Movies”

Archival Spaces: 290 Julien Duvivier’s Films of Religiosity Uploaded 4 March 2022 Over the course of the years from 1927 to 1929, Julien Duvivier directed and wrote three films with overt religious subject matter, all of them very much personal projects, products of his Jesuit education:  L’Agonie de Jerusalem/Revelation (1927), Le divine croisière/The Divine VoyageContinue reading “290: Julien Duvivier’s Films of Religiosity”

Archival Spaces 289: Julien Duvivier Blu-Ray Box Set Uploaded 18 February 2022 For many years, Julien Duvivier was considered one of the greatest directors of the pre-World War II French cinema, celebrated not only by critics, but by the likes of Jean Renoir, Ingmar Bergman, Orson Welles, and Michael Powell. But the French New WaveContinue reading “289: Julien Duvivier Silents”