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November 1995, Week 2

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Subject:
From:
Pip Chodorov <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 10 Nov 1995 16:28:43 -0500
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Here are three posts from H-FILM on Peter Jackson's documentary.
-Pip Chodorov <[log in to unmask]>
____________________________________________________
 
Subj:  Historical film discovery
Date:  Dim 29 Oct 1995 7:33 EDT
From:  [log in to unmask]
X-From: [log in to unmask] (Steven Mintz, U. Houston)
Sender: [log in to unmask] (H-NET List for Scholarly Studies and Uses of Media)
Reply-to: [log in to unmask] (H-NET List for Scholarly Studies and Uses of Media)
To: [log in to unmask] (Multiple recipients of list H-FILM)
 
From:   IN%"[log in to unmask]" 29-OCT-1995 05:05:48.38
 
This note is written late on the night of 29 October and our family -
enthusiastic film readers and watchers is still stunned, so if my tale is
confused, forgive me. We have just watched a documentary on national
television made and hosted by Peter Jackson (Heavenly Creatures, Braindead,
Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles) which was screened with little or no
pre-screening hype, about Colin McKenzie.
 
Did any LIST readers know of this New Zealander? We didn't and
small-town-like, we thought we had at least an awareness of the country's
part in film history. But apparently not. Colin McKenzie was a film maker.
He started making films in 1900, as a 12 year old. He used bicycle parts to
crank the camera, and the family farm tractor to steam drive the projector.
He experimented then used egg albumin and boiled flax to make his own film
stock - and made his father so mad by stealing 2000 eggs (it was there in
the newspaper) that all his equipment was smashed - except his camera,
hidden by his mother. Do you believe me? There's more, as you script writers
say. He shot footage of  a pre-Wright brothers flight, proving at last a
NZers legend. He invented a synch-sound recorder. He used a Tahitian plant
material to make coloured film stock. He built an enormous set in the back
country to film a version of Salome - during 1915 - 1920 amid amazing tales
of huge financial deals, international espionage that is too complicated to
detail here. The first close up. There was a lot more - Leonard Maltin
narrated a lot of the historical material and Sam Neill appeared too. I am,
as I said quite bewildered that all this has been discovered in our own
backyard, and in such amazing detail. Here in New Zealand we are all
saying,"Has anyone heard of Colin McKenzie?" By the way he also filmed his
own death - but perhaps I should take a leaf out of Jackson's book and leave
you to see that for yourselves in the doco which is called "Forgotten
Silver". But please lets know your reaction.
 
You heard it here first...
 
__________
 
Subj:  Discovery a hoax
Date:  Dim 29 Oct 1995 18:05 EDT
From:  [log in to unmask]
X-From: [log in to unmask] (Steven Mintz, U. Houston)
Sender: [log in to unmask] (H-NET List for Scholarly Studies and Uses of Media)
Reply-to: [log in to unmask] (H-NET List for Scholarly Studies and Uses of Media)
To: [log in to unmask] (Multiple recipients of list H-FILM)
 
From:   IN%"[log in to unmask]" 29-OCT-1995 14:30:13.83
 
I am SO  red-faced. Peter Jackson bewildered me, offered me something I
WANTED to believe - and I fell right in! "Forgotten Silver" it appears is in
fact another of Jackson's fantasies and the creation of his wicked
imagination, his circle of friends ( Maltin, Weinstein, Neill), and his
super-powerful computers. The film watchers of New Zealand have got
something to talk about for a long time. When I get over my embarrassment -
I will not speak out on the List for a long while, now! I still say this was
a great piece of film, tricky or no.
 
_________
 
Subj:  Film and Hoax
Date:  Lun 30 Oct 1995 10:27 EDT
From:  [log in to unmask]
X-From: [log in to unmask] (Steven Mintz, U. Houston)
Sender: [log in to unmask] (H-NET List for Scholarly Studies and Uses of Media)
Reply-to: [log in to unmask] (H-NET List for Scholarly Studies and Uses of Media)
To: [log in to unmask] (Multiple recipients of list H-FILM)
 
From:   IN%"[log in to unmask]" 30-OCT-1995 07:22:15.20
Re: Film and Hoax
 
Don't be embarrassed. Film is and is about hoax: seeing what's not there;
seeing whole what is really bits and pieces; seeing a past that never
existed. Your experience in New Zealand fits in quite well with the recent
thread on film and history--the answer to which is "as if!" Film is only
about itself, its form and structure, and what those say about the state of
the culture at the moment of their reception.
 
Robert Kolker
 
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