It's nice to see well-known classics in 35mm from time to time, but titles that are easily available through TCM, DVD, and countless regional screenings of the same old titles are absolutley no incentive whatsoever to travel any sort of distance to a film festival.
The fact that I may never have heard of a certain title or star or director is all the more reason to try to see it, especially if the film cannot be seen outside of an archive visit, and just as especially because I know it will be screened on 35mm film or a 16mm Kodascope or Show-at-Home or vintage original print, and not video projection. I can run 16mm in my basement (if I happen to have a print) and I can show hi-def video that's as good or better than most public video screenings. Why spend an extra grand to do something I can already do?
I wish I could get to Niles sometime. I almost always go to Cinecon (barring unforseen schedule conflicts) and have missed only two or three since I was in college some 35 years ago. I also usually go to the Syracuse Cinefest and the Massillon Cinesation, specifically because they show very few films I've seen before (and even when I have, it's usually been many years, or they're now in rare original or newly restored prints), and there are often many films I've never heard of. I've been to one Columbus Cinevent, the one that had more than half of its schedule devoted to titles I'd never seen, even though a few were "familiar" titles.
I'm one of those who may not find the overall lists of Cinecon or Cinefest titles "exciting," but it's the production dates, directors, and actors in the films that I pay more attention to, usually in that order because after all these years there are still numerous directors and actors I'm completely unfamiliar with. Massillon's schedule this year does seem more exciting to anticipate than Cinecon's, but I'm positive that I will make many unexpected discoveries at the Cinecon and there are several titles I'm greatly looking forward to (I'm also one of those who'd like to see most of the films on the schedule from the teens). I remember being tempted to pass up the railroad melodrama THE DIXIE FLYER, a low-budget independent with no names of note that sounded like a dreary programmer, yet it turned out to be one of the biggest highlights of the weekend. The Columbia B mystery-comedies and the Universal B-musicals are other entertaining delights that look forgettable on paper until you've seen them. Lupino Lane was just another vaguely familiar name until seeing his films made him an amazingly vibrant personality much of whose work is the equal of many Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd shorts. There are always new films to discover and looking exclusively for familiar titles and personalities is an incredibly narrow-minded and counterproductive excercise for anyone who pretends to appreciate "old movies."
When I started going to Cinecons at age 20, ALL the films were new to me, whether familiar titles I'd read about or obscurities that someone mentioned would be hard to see anyplace else. Going to the film conventions each year became like an extended and fascinating course in film history, revealing such now-favorite eras as "Pre-Code" and pre-1920 features, and listening to rabid enthusiasts rhapsodize about obscure mystery-thrillers or westerns or comedy series (and their famous-to-them stars). Watching only the accepted textbook canon of classics is like listening to top-40 public radio classical music (or "golden oldies" rock radio stations entrenched in nothing but the top 40 hits of the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s). It's nice, but there is so much more that is so much more interesting that never gets any exposure. You might consider festivals like the Cinecon, Syracuse, and Massillon vs. those screenings that pack in viewers to Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, NOSFERATU, etc., the difference between a university education and a trade school education that covers the basics in everything and specializes only in one specific interest.
There are still a few "warhorses" I've never gotten around to seeing, and a fair number of key titles by major stars that I've never seen even though they turn up on TCM regularly, and may even be sitting in a pile of unwatched tapes or DVDs. But at least I know I can get to them eventually. If they happen to turn up at a Cinecon or Cinefest or Cinesation among all the obscurities, all the better. (They're like the "bonus features" on a DVD or BluRay disc.) However, I, like I suspect most Cinecon regulars, sure wouldn't go out of my way to see a program consisting of majority of movies I've already seen or can easily find closer to home, on video, or even streaming on the internet (e.g. a former rarity like John Ford's recently restored BUCKING BROADWAY). If I lived in San Francisco, I'd probably try to get to some of the silent festival. If I lived in LA I might even patronize the Silent Movie Theatre (whose current schedules are nothing like the mouth-watering programs of rarities people used to take for granted in the 1960s and 70s). But I won't be spending the money to travel halfway across the country to see only films I've already seen and may even own prints of, even if they are screening in 35mm in a movie palace with a live score and a thousand appreciative first-time viewers.
--Christopher Jacobs
http://hpr1.com/film
http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs
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. But that was my point with the 'put up some info' on the films...had I seen any names or years or such I would have spotted Pickford. Sorry I dont have her few hundred film titles memorized.
