Abstract
What is the interrelation between film museums and film history writing? This question
formed the starting point for this research into the history of film museum practice. Focusing
on the history of the Amsterdam Film Museum (1946 - 1996), this study examines the ways in
which the history of film museum practice parallels
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film-historical debates, and how museums
participated in the (re)production of film-historical discourse.
The historical practice of film museums can be divided into three main areas of activity:
collection, restoration and presentation. Collection is a process of choices, selection and thus of
in- and exclusion. In that sense, collection or acquisition is the fundamental activity of the
musealisation of film. What has been archived, collected and preserved automatically becomes
part of the film museums' film-historical discourse. Collection practice includes taxonomical
practices like categorizing and prioritising, both leading factors in the shaping of a collection.
The collecting of films - especially the silent films this research focuses on - often occurred
outside of official film-archival institutions like the Film Museum in Amsterdam. In almost
every case, silent films reached film museums as part of an already existent collection, brought
together by distributors or plain cinephiles. The choices and categories of these first collectors
form the starting points of most official archives. In addition to this extra-museological factor,
film museums formulated specific collection policies and goals themselves, which largely
influenced the shaping of the archives. These policies were often greatly influenced by
prevalent film-historical discourses. The last collection shaping activity is the selection of films
for preservation and restoration, which entails making films projectable and thus visible again.
This is accomplished by making a duplicate of the already present (nitrate) prints. As such,
preservation can be conceived as an act of acquisition.
The second aspect of film museum practice that actively shapes discourse is the way films are
preserved and restored. Film restoration makes use of the fact that film is a medium that can be
reproduced: it makes duplicates, and turns those into new and restored versions. From this
perspective, a discussion of film as a material object is a necessity, especially because it has
become a more and more prominent issue on film museums' and film historians' agendas.
Furthermore, there is an interplay between film museums' activities and film historiography
where restoration ethics and aesthetics are concerned. For example, questions on restoration
techniques and how to use them are of major interest. By changing colours, grading, shading
and other factors of image quality, film images can be made to resemble their 'original' state.
This means film museums produce historical interpretations of the film image even before film
historians see these reproductions. This of course implies an influence of museum practice on
film historiography. In the case of the reconstruction of editing structure, the same mechanism
applies. However, film-historical debate and opinions on which parameters make a film into an
important one - a work of art if you wish - also form an important factor in the shaping of new
restoration versions of archival films. By these restoration and preservation activities, film
museums shape film-historical discourse.
Finally, it is the film museums' presentation that makes the collected and restored films visible.
Therefore this is a very important last step in the musealisation of film, and in the shaping of
film-historical discourse on a film museum level. Screening rooms and their furnishings are of
major importance when it comes to the shaping of meaning. Film museums differ from
commercial cinema theatres in their shaping of screening spaces and thus of cinema audiences'
expectations and production of meaning. This implies that they are part of the film-historical
discourse film museums tend to shape. Also, the way films are combined into programmes is
essential in film museums' shaping of discourse. The main difference between film museum
programming and film historiography is that for the latter, the survival of a film is less of an
obligation, whereas film museums cannot make programmes without collected films. A final
element of film display is its performativity. The way films are musically or otherwise
accompanied or not, can make a huge difference in either presenting them as a modern 'art' in
itself, or as a socio-historical performance art.
This research will give the reader insight into film-historical discourse production within film
museum practice and the way this has influenced film historiography or has been influenced
by it.
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