Original subtitles

There is nothing like

going to a theater, a communal

atmosphere, watching something

that is bigger than life.

It's dark...

You don't look at anybody...

And then the movie

started and it was really,

really magical.

I went to a movie at

10 in the morning, which to me

was so odd, right?

Who goes to a movie at 10?

But there was light, there was

drama, there was narrative and I

think what I most loved was the

way the filmmaker was present,

saying "Here, take a look at"

this, think about that."

We were all an

eight-year-old boy.

We were all a 10-year-old girl.

We were all sitting there in

that audience watching whatever

that movie was.

It became a

magical experience.

You go into the dark and you

learn something new and you come

out and it's almost like a

religious experience.

If you want a window into

what was going on in humankind

at a given point in time, you

look at movies.

It gave me the sense that I

was more than just this little

boy, and there was a lot of

other things out there

that I could do.

And if I just kept going in the

right direction, maybe the right

thing would happen.

Because that's what happened

in the movies.

It's heavy.

What is it?

The, uh...

Stuff that dreams are made of.

Huh?

Media giant

Ted Turner has upset a lot of

people because of what he's

doing to some of Hollywood's

greatest old films.

Turner recently bought the.

M.G.M. film library.

Now, he's adding color to the

black and white ones.

To colorize or not

to colorize, Ted Turner has said

is his choice.

Well, last time I checked,

they were my films.

You know, I'm working

on my films.

Let us just say that a very

rich man has purchased all the

films ever made in Hollywood.

He calls together his staff and

says, "take all the black and"

white ones and turn them into

"color, using our new computer."

It was kind of an artists'

rights issue involving material

alteration of film, such as

colorization, panning and

scanning, that sort of thing.

It was a big controversy between

directors who don't like to see

their films changed and studios

who were looking to take, say,

black and white films and

introduce them to a new

generation by, they thought,

colorizing them would make them

more appealing.

Colorization really was the

combustible issue because

a lot of film critics, as well

as the directors and the

cinematographers and the actors

were all so incensed at these

changes, especially the

possibility of changes to,

you know, classic films.

Because the films are a

part of our cultural history,

and like all accurate

representations of who and what

we were, I think they deserve

preservation in their

authentic form.

The committee rooms were

packed and when you get

Jimmy Stewart coming,

you know, Mr. Smith literally

coming to Washington, you know,

I was just sitting there, sort

of admiring the whole scene.

I feel that they're

being tampered with and I... I

want to speak out against this.

The Librarian of Congress got

the idea that if film was

honored in some way by the

national government, that it

would be recognized as having

cultural and artistic value.

Today, the congress is taking

up a bill called the National.

Film Preservation Act.

Congress finally

stepped in and we were kind of

the person brought in to referee

it if we could.

And that was essentially

the creation of the National.

Film Registry.

The National Film.

Registry is a list of films of

enduring cultural, historical

and aesthetic importance,

recommended to the Librarian

of Congress by a very

distinguished board.

25 films are announced each year

as being added to that registry.

1989, the first year

of the board meeting, was very

much focused on the artists'

rights issues.

And then after that, it seemed

very quickly to fade.

The issue became preservation,

and which films should be

awarded the seal of the national

film preservation board.

This process serves

as an invaluable means to

advance public awareness of the

richness and variety of the

American film heritage.

This is not simply just another

list of great films.

It is saying to America

and to the world,

"These films matter."

What the film registry

says is "Here are great"

works of art."

They were created in a

commercial context but we need

to preserve them the way

the metropolitan museum

preserves Leonardo da Vinci's.

One of the nice things about

the National Film Registry is

that it's not only preserving

our films, but it's also, to a

large extent, preserving our

cultural heritage, and all the

things that film capture.

If you look at the advent

of movies from the 1890s

forward, they were in many ways

the most important force for

shaping a common sense of

American culture.

There was a time when people

in Southern California didn't

have much in common with

the people in Maine and the

people in Florida had virtually

nothing in common with the

people in the Pacific Northwest,

and it's movies that came along

that began to create the sense

of nationhood.

The American film was a

particular way in which a young

nation learned to express

itself, express its exuberance,

expose its problems,

reflect its hopes.

It was living history,

audio-visual history

of the 20th century.

Movies have been the document

of our history and culture.

They tell us what we looked

like, what we wore, what we

aspired to, our dreams, the lies

we told to one another...

Because in those

movies are those little gestures

and those little images and

the styles and the ways of

speaking to each other, the way

men spoke to women and women to

women and men to men, and the

way they projected their own

dreams and desires into

narratives and fantasies.

That is what the movies does,

and it does it better than

anything else.

American film really tells us

so much about this country.

When it starts with

storytelling about individuals,

underdogs, immigrants, people

who don't have something.

I saw that film

when I was still in Hong Kong

when I was a teenager.

I think it gave me

a sense of America.

Life can be bright

in America

if you can fight

in America.

Life is all right

in America

if you're all white

in America...

The lyrics to that

song, they're really quite

sarcastic about being an

immigrant in America.

That movie was a huge influence

on me when I was a teenager.

I mean, I probably saw it five

or six times in a row.

I was also in love with

Natalie Wood.

That helped.

You never really understand a

person until you consider things

from his point of view.

Sir?

Till you climb inside of his

skin and walk around in it.

Gregory Peck was kind of what

I thought America was in many

kind of respects.

In this country, our courts

are the great levelers.

In our courts...

All men are created equal.

That's the America that my

father respected most... in that

kind of man that Gregory Peck

was always meant to play.

We identified so strongly with

those kids somehow.

Oh, it's just, like,

instant tears.

It still gets me,

still makes me cry now.

He really portrayed

a father who was just

so understanding and had

such a close relationship

with his kids.

A lot of people would love

to have a father like that.

I mean, who wouldn't?

I would love to have a father

like that.

Many of the characteristics

that my dad portrayed in that

film are really him.

Of all the films that he did,

it was a film that was

closest to his true character,

certainly the character he,

he would want to be.

It's a different form

of honor than getting

an academy award.

It's a more cumulative or

retrospective kind of honor.

It's saying your film has stood

the test of time.

There's never been

a day so sunny

it could not happen twice...

The Academy Awards preserve

the consensus within the

industry at the time.

Sometimes history proves them

right, but very often, history

proves them wrong.

["Also sprach Zarathustra"

Most lists exist nowadays for

pop culture reasons.

It's an excuse for a TV special.

It's to sell magazines.

It's to get people arguing,

and that's what lists do.

The congressional language

setting up the registry was done

by congressional staff back in

1988 and they used "culturally",

historically or aesthetically

"significant," which, we love

that phrase because it basically

means almost anything.

Whoever came up with it,

I forget the person's name,

the staffer, but I'm forever

thankful because it does allow

a lot of leverage in terms

of the sort of films we're able

to pick and put onto the

registry and preserve.

Because of the 10-year rule,

we look at only films that are

10 years old, and that gives us

some space and some time.

And I tell ya what.

From his footprint, he looks

like a big fella.

You see something

down there, chief?

No, I just think

I'm gonna barf.

Why the 10 years?

Why not 50?

Why not five?

Why not one that just opened?

But I suppose it's to have

a little bit of a distance,

which is proper.

Does the film have

a lasting benefit?

Does it stand to history?

The idea is that here is

an arm of the U.S. government

saying that, hey, some films

are important.

They're part of the picture.

So you immediately confer

upon them a certain status

and dignity.

Each year we do try to

fashion an eclectic list,

one that is also stand-alone

on its own merits.

If we pick 25 famous films

one year or 25 films no one

had ever heard of each year,

then the list, to us, would be

a lot less useful.

The way we pick the national

film registry each year is a

multi-stage process.

We start off by soliciting

public balloting.

So we take very seriously

what the public recommends.

They often recommend things that

nobody's even heard of.

We tabulate those results and

send them to the members of the

film preservation board.

Each year a group of

people, representing all areas

of the industry and education

come together and recommend

to the Librarian of Congress

the films of enduring

cultural, historical,

aesthetic importance.

People have their personal

campaigns, their pet films,

their pet causes, and that's

as it should be.

Having gone through the

obvious choices "Citizen Kane",

citizen Kane, citizen Kane...

Rosebud.

Then the less obvious films

come up for discussion,

and that's where the discussions

get interesting.

This was really a good

meeting, and I've been on this

board since its inception.

In the early years, you knew

there were certain kinds of

movies that were the

sprocket-worn classics, the

great films, they would be on

the list, and then you'd put in

a couple more that you hoped

you would expand people's

consciousness about.

It's great to be on the board

because there are so many people

from different aspects of film

and scholarship and everything

related to film, and they bring

up films, you know, that...

I always write them down because

I go, "Oh, I haven't seen this."

I'll have to go see it."

I'm a fairly new

board member.

In the beginning,

it is overwhelming.

There are hundreds of films

that are talked about.

The discussions can range

from being very lighthearted

to very serious.

They have people talking

about home movies, people

talking about newsreels,

people talking about short

films of various kinds.

And it's always one of the

most interesting moments to see

what has been chosen.

And as you go through, you

think, "Well, of course that."

I can't believe it wasn't

"chosen before."

And then you'll come to

something and say, "What?"

'cause this is

thriller

thriller night,

and no one's gonna save you...

Now it really is

American history.

Michael Jackson's iconic video

thriller was named today to the.

National Film Registry at the.

Library of Congress,

the first music video ever

to receive that honor.

Thriller,

thriller...

The nice thing about the list

is it's all over the place.

It's democratic.

You're tearing me apart!

I vote for films that I think

are culturally significant, and

sometimes I vote for films that

I think... even films that I

don't particularly like, I will

vote for it because I think

they have a special place

in film history.

I certainly felt,

as a cultural historian myself,

that this was an important part

of American culture and that it

had to be preserved not simply

so that our grandkids could

enjoy the same films that

we did, but also so that

they could understand

what America was like

at an earlier stage.

Dr. Billington, the.

Librarian, said something very

profound a little while ago.

He said that stories

unite people.

Theories divide them.

So that in itself is a wonderful

reason to preserve stories.

Stories are profoundly important

to human beings.

500 years from now, people

will look back and they'll say,

"This was the beginning."

This was the first 100 years.

These were the origins.

Why didn't they take better

"care of them?"

And the "they" they're

talking about is us.

Film is the art form

of the 20th century, and we

have let it go.

The studios stored the films

badly and they deteriorated,

they burned.

They didn't think of them

as an art form.

Half of the movies

made before 1950 no longer exist

in any form whatsoever.

Maybe 80% or so of the

silent era is gone.

So much of film

history has already been lost,

but there's still a very great

deal which can be saved if we're

willing to do it.

It's really amazing to pick

up a roll of film and just to

see this and realize the age of

this film and all the people who

went into making it and just to

look at the images on it.

All these people who worked

on these things who are all

gone now, but they've left

behind these amazing shadows

for us to enjoy.

I always keep a little memento

of my beginning here at my desk.

This is a Castle Films headline

edition, California bound.

It's actually a three-minute

clip from the W.C. Fields film,

it's a gift, where they go to

this rich man's estate and the

family basically has a picnic on

the lawn and makes a mess.

Look out where

you're going!

Oh! Look what you've done!

She ran right in front

of the car!

When I first saw W.C. Fields

in this film, his humor, his

sort of laconic behavior

and kind of slovenliness,

it spoke to me as a man

and as a human being.

Stop it!

Oh, you idiot.

Those were my mother's feathers.

Stop it.

Never knew your mother

had feathers.

Probably the most amazing and

unique thing about the Packard

campus is that it is part of the.

Library of Congress.

We are fortunate in that we get

a part of a budget from Congress

every year and part of that

budget, and a fairly good-sized

chunk, goes to preservation.

In the late 1890s,

the nitrocellulose film

was developed.

The... sort of uniqueness

of the nitrate film is why they

actually have a manager for just

the nitrate film collection.

So much of the nitrate film

collection is unknown, so we are

constantly working on the

collection to try and identify

those little bits of film that

might be something really

important, but we have no idea

what they are.

The major problem with nitrate

is that it is very flammable.

And when I say "very flammable",

I mean it is very flammable.

It is like setting a fuse on a

piece of dynamite.

We continued using nitrate up

until the 1950s, when the

triacetate safety came out

and was deemed just or almost

as good as the nitrate film

that preceded it.

Well, this is my little

world here.

We call this "nitrate land."

These are the nitrate vaults of

the Library of Congress.

We have 124 climate-controlled

vaults.

They're maintained at about

39 degrees fahrenheit, about

30% relative humidity.

Within these vaults, we have

130,000, approximately, rolls of

nitrate motion picture film

dating from about 1894

to about 1952.

It is a truly amazing collection

and one of a kind.

See what else we got here.

Nah...

P-eww!

This is our triage area of

films that the other staff find

that are questionable, and

they're brought to me to do

inspection on.

This is a can of

small fragments.

Normally, with a film you should

be able to, like, it should

give somewhat and be somewhat

loosely wound.

This one is solid as a rock.

This is what we refer to

as a hockey puck.

It has been wet.

It is probably very stuck

together, so I'm going to see if

I can at least peel something

off to tell what it was... ah!

Oh... darn.

Look at that... wow.

Through a variety of reasons,

through basic neglect or

deterioration especially,

many of our early films, and

actually some more recent ones,

are lost forever.

I mean, there's nothing left.

I know of one Academy Award-

winning film called The Patriot

and all that survives on it are

a few trailers and stills.

The other reason a lot of them

don't survive, of course, is

just because the studios didn't

really care about 'em.

They were just product, and once

they were done and made their

money, they went on the shelf.

One studio destroyed all their

silent negatives in the '40s

because they didn't think

anyone was ever going to

want to see them again.

I got involved in film

archiving 'cause I saw Gone with

the Wind when I was 12.

And to think that I might have a

part in somebody, some other

12-year-old girl seeing a

movie that changes their life is

really exciting to me.

I volunteered at the library

for a month before I applied

for a job and while I was

volunteering, Warner Brothers

was doing a restoration of Gone

with the Wind, and sure enough,

I walked into one of the back

rooms one day to find a stack of

negatives and I got really

excited and I remember running

into a couple people's offices,

I mean, like, "Look at this!"

"Look at this!" And they knew

exactly why I was excited 'cause

they'd found their favorite

movies and had the same feeling.

My favorite part of the job is

spending a whole day saving a

film, you know, a film that

comes in that's torn and no one

can watch and it's up to me to

make sure that it gets to a

point where it can be rescued.

It's kind of like a lost

puppy... That needs

to be taken care of.

Ah, nice.

Nice splice job... oh...

Is it a piece of...?

Oh, that's great.

So we have a piece of scotch

tape that someone just stuck on

the film to repair a rip.

That's my job and to know

that because of me spending

hours staring at tiny frames and

working with, you know, small

pieces of tape, that future

generations are gonna see it,

is very exciting.

A friend of mine had a

16-millimeter print.

He said, "you have to"

see this film.

I want you to see this film.

"It's, like, this amazing film."

There were no DVDs in those

days, no videotapes, nothing.

I had a Bell & Howell

projector, I put the film on,

I watched it and I went.

"Oh, my God!"

Yay!

Hello, Bedford Falls!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, George!

Merry Christmas,

George!

What struck me more than

anything was the emotion of it.

I cried.

Is this the ear

you can't hear on?

George Bailey, I'll

love you till the day I die.

I'm going out exploring

someday... you watch.

I cried when Jimmy Stewart

grabbed her and they were

listening to the phone together

and he grabbed her and it was

one take.

No cutaways, one take,

and said...

Now, you listen to me.

I don't want any plastics and I

don't want any ground floors and

I don't want to get married ever

to anyone... you understand that?

I wanna do what I wanna do,

and you're... and you're...

Oh, Mary... Mary...

George, George, George...

It is my favorite film

because it's a film that

celebrates the value of life,

and there is nothing greater

than us all appreciating

the value of our lives

and other lives.

Auld Lang Syne.

We'll drink a cup

of kindness yet

for Auld Lang Syne.

Film should be an experience.

Reality outside the frame is

your everyday life.

The reality inside the frame

is whatever you want to create

it to be.

Some films definitely give

you access to a dream world.

I think musicals probably do

that better than most.

Follow the yellow brick road.

Follow the yellow brick road.

Follow the

yellow brick road,

follow the yellow brick road

follow, follow...

It immediately

takes you out of reality.

It's something that could only

happen in your dreams, but that

doesn't make it less worthwhile.

In fact, for me it frequently

makes it more worthwhile.

It's not a place you can get

to by a boat or a train.

It's far, far away.

I would watch Wizard of Oz

every day when I was two.

I had a really hard time

understanding that I couldn't

go into the film, 'cause it felt

so real to me.

Somewhere

over the rainbow...

It's a wonderful

universal story.

I mean, if you look at

the Wizard of Oz, it takes a

reality which is the beginning

of the movie and it turns it

into a mythology.

Dreams that you dare

to dream really do come true.

You know, all great

storytelling is a form of myth.

Tap your heels together

three times...

And think to yourself,

"“There's no place like home."

The Wizard of Oz is still

my all-time favorite movie...

probably for the wrong reasons.

I never got why Dorothy

wanted to go home.

Why would she want to go home

when she could live with winged

monkeys and witches and...

I don't know, I never understood

it... I was sobbing when she went

home to that dreary farm.

This was a real,

truly live place.

And I remember that some of it

wasn't very nice, but most of it

was beautiful.

I've always been an

aficionado of science fiction,

fantasy and horror.

The truth is, speculative

fiction has always informed us

about who we are.

If you go back to Invasion of

the Body Snatchers, it was

a parable about McCarthyism

and the Red Scare.

They have to be

destroyed... all of them!

They will be,

every one of them.

Listen, we're gonna have to

search every building,

every house in town.

Men, women and children are

gonna have to be examined.

We've got some phoning to do.

Filmmakers were able to

make that film and send a

message without having it be

a message movie.

It's a malignant disease

spreading through the

whole country.

Initially those films

were relegated to B-movies

or even Z-movies.

They weren't given any kind

of critical acclaim.

They generally weren't big

commercial successes.

Are you crazy?!

Ya big idiot!

They're here already!

You're next!

I think I'm not so much

a fan of science fiction per se

as I am a fan of cinema

that creates worlds, that

creates an entire alternate

universe that you can escape

into for a couple of hours.

The first time that I.

A Space Odyssey,

I was completely blown away.

It made me think about mankind,

the future of mankind...

Where we came

from, where are we going?

And the special effects were

absolutely magnificent, and it

was a film to take seriously,

not a film that was disposable.

Open the pod bay doors, Hal.

I'm sorry, Dave.

I'm afraid I can't do that.

You could truly lose yourself

in that cinematic experience,

really opening up a way

of looking at reality

completely differently.

I've always enjoyed films

that reward multiple viewings,

films that if you chose to come

back and look at them again,

you might see something else

in them.

It does transport you

to an entirely different

time and space, and to me,

it does it so well that I

lose myself entirely.

I'm in a dream world when I'm

watching Blade Runner.

Each frame, each shot

is full of the most

extraordinary detail.

It's really too much to take in

on a first viewing, and it

requires subsequent viewings to

sort of orient yourself in the

world of that film and see all

of the different layers that

went into the fulfillment of

that grand design.

I think for my generation,

there isn't a filmmaker...

working in Hollywood,

certainly... who can deny

the influence of the.

Star Wars films.

The first experience that I

had with Star Wars was the

summer that it came out.

We went to the Coronet theater

in San Francisco and there was

a line... the biggest line I'd

ever seen as a kid...

around the block.

The lights go down and I

didn't really know what to

expect whatsoever.

Huge musical hit and the Star.

Wars logo goes back and then

the scrolling of the text

happens and... and I began to

sort of just become mesmerized.

And then the moment that Star.

Destroyer comes overhead,

that just seemed like

a forever moment.

I just kept watching and

watching and watching, thinking,

“this is the biggest spaceship.

"I've ever seen."

To top it all off, by the time.

Darth Vader makes his

appearance, people started to

boo and started to hiss at Darth.

Vader, and I just thought, "This"

is... what is going on here?"

There's something more

that this movie in particular

has to offer.

It simply opened up

a feeling of reality

in science fiction.

The feeling of a completely

thought-through world that

existed outside the frame.

I think when you look at the

history of movies, I don't

believe there's been as dominant

a cultural milestone in cinema

as that first Star Wars film.

Now, as opposed to being

on the outside watching,

now I sort of feel like I'm

part of that now.

Remember,

the Force will be with you...

Always.

The world that he

created is something you had

never seen before and you just

wanted to be with those

characters in that world.

I was so blown away, but I

always felt like, I wanna do

that in animation.

Halt, who goes there?

Don't shoot! It's O.K.

Friends.

Do you know these life forms?

Yes!

They're Andy's toys.

All right, everyone.

You're clear to come up.

I am Buzz Lightyear.

I come in peace.

Oh, I'm so glad you're not

a dinosaur!

It's all I ever wanted

to do, you know?

My true love was cartoons, even

when it was uncool, right?

When you're supposed to be into

girls or cars or sports or

things like that, I would run

home after school to watch.

Bugs Bunny cartoons and always

pray that it would be a

Chuck Jones cartoon.

Kill the wabbit?

The films that have been the

most influential on my career

are the films of Walt Disney...

Snow White...

Pinocchio...

I can walk!

Fantasia...

["Waltz of the Flowers"

I think that Fantasia

does represent sort of

the pinnacle of animation

of its time.

["Night on Bald Mountain"

And I was actually just

looking at "Night on Bald".

"Mountain" the other day because

there's beautiful, beautiful

fire animation.

Animating fire is not easy, and

I don't even know how the

animators did it.

So, yeah, in animation, you

can do anything... and then the

first time you see something

that you drew come to life,

you are addicted because

it's like magic.

When you see something

that you drew move, that is a

mind-blowing experience.

I remember when I was 12 or 13,

and I saw my first super-8

animation move and it was like...

I wanna say it's better than sex

but I'd never had sex when I

was 12, right?

But it was just incredible.

We knew we were

making the first

computer-animated feature film,

but the main focus was the story

and the characters.

Walt Disney always said for

every laugh, there should be a

tear, and it's something that

is so important to me in my

filmmaking, is that heart,

'cause I believe that's

something that stays with an

audience much longer than the

jokes have gotten old, but that

heart will always stay there.

You know how you feel when you

first watched these movies and

it brings a tear to your eye.

Absolutely, animation

belongs on any list of

culturally significant works.

Animation... is art.

When one looks through the

list of films that have been

selected over time, what one is

struck by most of all is the

extraordinary diversity of the

kinds of movies.

It isn't just

Hollywood films.

It's films that document.

America's life and.

America's heritage.

There's a wonderful film that

was named to the Registry

a few years ago.

It's a piece of amateur

filmmaking made by the wife

of a doctor in a sort of

agricultural town in Minnesota

in the '30s, and she went

around photographing what the

place looked like.

Well, this is wonderful.

It's like watching a bunch of

live Edward Hopper and Charles.

Sheeler canvases come

to life, you know?

Who knew?

So there's a film that very

specifically preserves a niche

in a corner of American life.

There is some sense of

sadness and poignancy.

It's part of our history, it's

part of our family history.

It's the history of a people,

history of our country.

One of the most tragic, yet

fascinating moments in our

country's history was the mass

internment of 120,000

Japanese-Americans.

Overnight, American citizens

of Japanese ancestry were looked

at with fear and suspicion,

simply because we looked like

the people who bombed.

Pearl Harbor.

Mass hysteria took over the

country, and President Roosevelt

ordered 120,000 people taken

from their homes, moved within

three days and put in internment

camps throughout the country.

I still remember that day

when two American soldiers with

bayonets on their rifles came

stomping up to the front door of

that house and ordered

our family out.

And I remember my mother had

tears streaming down her cheek

as we moved out.

It became normal for me to

begin the school day in a black

tar paper barrack with a Pledge

of Allegiance to the flag.

I could see the barbed wire

fence and the sentry towers

right outside my schoolhouse

window as I recited the words

"with liberty and justice

for all."

I have a nine-year-old

daughter and I want her to be

able to experience and see what

these camps looked like.

I think when you talk about the

history of an experience, you

can't really feel it unless you

can see it and visualize it.

My father is

Dave Masaharu Tatsuno and he

was responsible for the

film Topaz, which documents

life in an internment camp

during World War II.

That's my mother holding me

in the desert.

It wasn't meant to be

a documentary.

He was just trying to do

a family film for us.

What has come to be

known as his film was really

just a portrayal of life in the

camps, of the daily struggles

that people experienced and

it captured for all time

something that America didn't

want anyone to see.

Home movies are so important.

They show our history... of our

family, of our community,

of our country.

That's important,

that's very important.

The addition of the Zapruder

film, the home movie that

captured the assassination of

John Kennedy, demonstrates, I

think, at its farthest extent

that America's film heritage,

its movie heritage embraces

much, much more than just a

Hollywood feature film.

I think, "This film is real"

and it happened during

"my lifetime."

I saw it, it's ugly, it's

sudden, it's shocking and it's

inexplicable, and the only way

that you can recreate the

experience of it is showing it.

Hey you, come on

out of there.

Come on!

Well, I'm a... too many of you

dames gettin' away with it

these days.

The cops in the yards'll

take care of you!

Oh, wait a minute.

You wouldn't throw us off

the train, would you?

Yeah, and you're gonna get

30 days for it.

In jail?

Yes, in jail!

Now why don't we sit down

and talk this thing over?

Almost always, the things

that people wanted to cut out of

movies were ideas.

And so you have ideas being cut

out of the original Baby Face by

the New York censors.

That man

of mine...

Baby face was really

interesting 'cause I'd known the

film for a long time and

actually, I had a copy of it

on laserdisc... for those who

remember what laserdiscs were.

They asked me to go and check

the negative to see what

condition it was in, and that's

when I noticed that we actually

had two negatives.

So I get 'em out, and I start

looking at the two reel ones and

I notice that there's something

strange about them, so I

put the two reel ones down on a

table and set one of top of the

other one and that's when I

noticed that, you know, like the

one reel one was this big...

And the other reel one was like

this big, and I'm like, “There's

"something going on here."

Say, I like it here.

How about a job?

Oh, we don't...

Oh, now don't tell me in this

great big building there ain't

some place for me.

Have you had any experience?

Plenty.

And I started going

through the two negatives

and also listening to the

soundtracks and began finding

these differences, these

great differences between

the two films.

And then he has the Eureka

moment and he realizes that what

he has is the film before

it was edited!

That the five minutes with

Barbara Stanwyck going to the

city to use what she has,

you know, to get what she

wants is in there, and they

thought it was lost.

The boss won't be back

for an hour.

Well then, why don't we go in

and talk this over?

The original

negative was cut to the

censorship version.

The duplicate negative was the

original pre-censored version

that had all the naughty bits

still in it, and that was

just... I mean that was just

the find of a lifetime.

Look, here.

Nietzsche says "All life",

no matter how we idealize it,

is nothing more nor less

"than exploitation."

That's what I'm telling you.

Exploit yourself!

Go to some big city where you

will find opportunities.

Use men!

Be strong! Defiant!

Use men to get the things

you want!

The version that was

discovered puts some of the

sex back, but it puts a lot

of the philosophy back.

Yeah.

The New York censors

altered the sharpness of the

philosophical thrust for the

release version because they

were afraid that it would

offend people.

What chance has a woman got?

More chance than men.

A woman... young, beautiful like

you are... could get anything

she wants in the world...

But there is a right

and a wrong way.

Remember the price of the wrong

way is too great.

Go to some big city where you

will find opportunities.

Don't let people mislead you.

You must be a master,

not a slave.

Be clean, be strong, defiant.

And you will be a success.

You always hear

about these things but they

never survive.

Yeah.

And to this day, I don't

think we've found out exactly

why this negative survives and

why on this particular film,

they actually made this

duplicate negative before

they cut the film.

You can make a movie,

by the way, that endorses

conventional morality,

that's not the problem.

The problem is that it was

not sincere, it's not real.

And in the case of Baby Face,

when it really said what it

wanted to say, of course,

it's better.

That is why censorship

is so horrible.

Because censorship blocks the

free expression of an era

talking to another era.

For the most part, most films

that are made are entertainment

and that's all they're meant to

be and I think there's a, an

unfortunate sense people have

that all films are just films.

Well, I think the shining

example of something that is

a folk fantasy and commercial

and art is probably Godfather.

I used to live in.

Bayside, Queens, and there's a

local theater there, R.K.O.

Keith's, which was an old, kind

of ornate theater that had the

skylights and the stars and had

the balcony and that's where I

had first seen The Godfather

played in that theater.

And it played great, it sounded

great, it looked great.

Eh... now you come to me and

you say, "Don Corleone",

give me justice."

But you don't ask with respect.

You don't offer friendship.

You don't even think

to call me Godfather.

Somehow, with the

performances of all the actors,

especially Brando, hit that

neural cord that we all have and

there was a visceral reaction

from almost anyone who saw it.

The cinematographer on The.

Godfather, Gordon Willis... one

of the great cinematographers of

our time... did a very, very

daring thing when he

photographed those pictures.

Gordon decided that he didn't

want people messing about with

his image and he shot it in a

way that you couldn't print it

in any other way than the way

that he shot it.

You can get the color wrong,

you can make skin green

if you want to, but it's

gotta be printed dark.

I'm glad you came, Mike.

I hope we can straighten

everything out.

The original

negatives of Godfather I and.

Godfather II were not in good

condition, were not capable of

making new copies, and they

really needed a restoration.

The negative of that film

was in tatters.

And this is The Godfather, this

is... this is The Godfather.

This is a film, you know, I

think people consider... if not

maybe the greatest film of

all time, one of them.

A lot of prints were made

from that original negative,

more so than probably should

have been made.

The negative sustained some

injury, as any negative that

gets overused will.

The more popular the film,

the worse condition the original

negative is going to be in.

It's been loved to death.

It's not until the past

15, maybe as far as 20 years,

that the studios have realized

what they have stacked away

in their vaults.

They really didn't realize that

these golden treasures that they

had in their vaults and hence,

they weren't looked after

very well.

The beauty of this job is that

once you start working on these

films and you start getting to

explore them scene by scene,

shot by shot, frame by frame,

you get to see little things,

little nuances, little pieces

of the puzzle... and your

appreciation for the film

just explodes.

We're not

creating anything.

What we're doing is to try

and take what people made

and just preserve it and make

it look like what it was

supposed to look like.

The trick is not to change it.

Don Corleone.

The thing about

movies, it's about storytelling.

And the story that it tells

still today stands up

very strong.

At first, you think,

"Oh, God, this is gonna be the"

same 20 movies.

We're gonna have on here

Casablanca, we're gonna

"have the obvious ones, right'?"

You do have them.

But then you have some

that are surprising.

I said...

"Relax and don't say anything,"

I just want to talk about a film

which I'm sure has never been

"brought up at the board."

How do you do-ah?

See you've met my

faithful handyman...

People are gonna say,

"You must be, you must be crazy."

The film's lacking in taste,

"it's this, it's that."

But at the same time, here's a

film that's played at midnight

in theaters across the country

for 30 years.

There's a reason why The Rocky.

Horror Show is a popular film.

Well, if it's that popular,

it must be speaking somehow

to this country.

There must be something woven

into what makes that film work.

One hell of a lover

I'm just a sweet transvestite

from...

And I have to

sympathize with Dr. Billington

because he has to go to the

halls of Congress and tell

everyone one of the 25 films

is The Rocky Horror Show.

"It's this great film!"

It's about transvestites

and men from Mars and

"dancing hunchbacks."

I don't know how he does it.

Well, it, it, it...

Certainly widened my horizon.

With your hands

on your hips.

Bring your knees

in tight...

Honestly,

when you're dealing with

a wide variety, you have to

be open to a wide variety.

Rocky Horror Picture.

Show is the, the most

successful midnight movie ever,

way more than Pink Flamingos

ever was.

Let's do the time warp

again.

I'll tell you a story

about it.

A woman came up to me and she

said, "I saw you sitting here",

and I just had to tell you that.

"Spinal Tap... saved my life."

Coming live, direct from

hell, Spinal Tap!

You're hot,

you take all we've got.

Not a dry seat

in the house...

No, I'm not gonna tell

that story.

No, it was The Princess Bride

that saved her life,

so Spinal Tap didn't save

her life at all.

It was Princess Bride that

saved her life... and I don't

think that's on the registry,

but it should be.

On our way, but tonight

we're gonna rock ya.

Tonight I'm gonna rock ya.

Yeah, tonight we're gonna

rock ya...

When we first showed it in a

preview in Dallas, the people

came up to me and said, "Why"

would you make a movie about a

band that nobody's heard of and

a band that's so bad?

Why don't you make a movie about

"the Rolling Stones?"

So it took a while for people to

catch up to it, but once they

did, it became this kind of

iconic representation of the

world of rock and roll.

What we do is if we need that

extra push over the cliff,

you know what we do?

Put it up to 11.

11, exactly.

I love This Is.

Spinal Tap.

It takes the things that are

naturally humorous about that

lifestyle and exaggerates them.

One louder.

Why don't you just make

10 louder, and make 10 be

the top... number and make that

a little louder?

These go to 11.

Oh, Ma.

Oh...

I never would have heard of

this... a very early sound film

demonstration which is a

quacking duck.

Oh, Ma!

One can look at Gus.

Visser and you can think, "Hmm",

what is the aesthetic value?

"That might be hard to justify."

It's there because it

demonstrates an important

breakthrough in the

technology of the history

of motion pictures.

It was brought to our

attention and we watched it and

said, "We have to have this",

it's a sound film demonstration.

"And it's hysterical."

It's a film you can't really

describe...

How he makes the duck quack.

He's kissing me.

I will say that when I was

looking at the movies that are

on the National Film Registry,

I was pleasantly surprised that.

Blazing Saddles was on there.

Blazing Saddles was basically

nominated by a reporter who has

done a lot of articles on the.

Registry and preservation.

Blazing Saddles has a

special place in my heart.

I love the myth of the

American West.

I like cowboys, I like cowboy

stories, I like cowboy poetry.

I like Roy Rogers, I like dances

with wolves.

Two...

Three!

That myth of

the American West is the

myth of America.

But Blazing Saddles takes that

myth and twists it and turns it

on its head.

It also takes the moviemaking

myth and twists it and turns it

on its head.

Raisinets!

And finally, the Board said,

"Well, he may have a point."

And the rest is history.

To see Blazing Saddles on

there was a little bit of

vindication for me, that I

didn't waste my time in

college watching that movie

so many times.

I wasn't wasting my time.

I was enriching myself with film

history.

Why don't you let him go by?

Well, he wants the

whole road.

Now, look, all I'm trying to say

is there are lots of things that

a man can do and in society's

eyes it's all hunky dory.

A woman does the same thing...

the same, mind you... and she's

an outcast.

Finished?

No.

One of the most important

things that I can do with my

role on the Board is to keep the

contribution of women to film

history in the center of our

discussions.

We had to write reports

on what we wanted to be and

the boy next to me wrote a

composition on how he was gonna

be a movie director.

And I got so angry at him,

because movies seemed too good

for us, like they came from

magical people in Hollywood and

here he was, the guy that

cheated off of me during

the tests and how could he

be a movie director?

And then I thought,

"Well, I must be this angry"

because that's what really,

"what I want to do."

Awesome!

Totally awesome!

Fast Times at Ridgemont.

High is one of my

favorite films.

Not the favorite, you know, but

when Sean Penn ordered the pizza

into the classroom...

Who ordered the double cheese

and sausage?

Right here, dude.

I thought, "This is the"

best moment in American film

"history," actually.

Very few people know

about the extent of the

involvement of women

in early film culture

in the United States.

Half of all films in the silent

era were written by women.

All of the top screenwriters

were women.

The highest paid screenwriters

were all women.

And many of the top directors

were women.

It was a growing industry.

It was the popular mass medium.

People were going to the film

every single day.

So, there were incredible

opportunities for women

in Hollywood.

Lois Weber is an extraordinary

figure in American film history

and she's somebody who very few

people know about.

Everybody's heard of D.W.

Griffith, everybody's heard of

Cecil B. Demille and in the

1910s, Weber was often mentioned

alongside Griffith and Demille

as the three great minds of

filmmaking.

She was Universal's top

director.

And she was a top director who

made socially engaged films

about the key problems

of the day.

The film that's in the film

registry, Where Are My.

Children?, is a film about

birth control and abortion

and it was Universal's

top moneymaker of 1916.

It traveled all around

the world.

Not only did she make these

films about really difficult...

issues that we're still

grappling with as a culture,

she made popular, box office

successes.

When you start looking at the

studio era, the '30s and '40s

and beyond, then you really do

see gender bias.

Then it really becomes nearly

impossible for women to direct.

When I was in

graduate school at U.S.C.

Cinema, a group of us organized

a small screening series called.

Films by Great Women Directors

and somebody wrote across the

sign "There are none."

Often when you're working

with the studios, they'll give

you a list of pre-approved

directors and you'll find that

there are very few, if, in many

cases, no women directors

on the list.

Dorothy Arzner is

the only woman to work as a

director in the studio era

in the '30s and '40s.

That's an extraordinary

accomplishment.

She would also joke that

she was one of the guys.

She used to dress like a man,

she used to hang about with the

guys, she used to behave like

the guys, and she always said,

"that's how I got on in the"

industry, 'cause I was just

one of the guys.

They didn't think about me as

being a woman, I was just a guy

"directing films."

Dance, Girl, Dance is

a film that takes on, in an

allegorical way, Hollywood's

representation of women.

It's about a dancer who aspires

to be a serious ballet dancer.

She's sort of stuck as the comic

act amidst all this sexual

exploitation of women.

And the climax of the film

occurs when she stops in the

middle of her performance...

and looks straight at the

audience, which means she looks

straight at the camera

and she says...

I know you want me to tear my

clothes off so you can look

your 50 cents' worth.

50 cents for the privilege

of staring at a girl the way

your wives won't let you.

I'm sure they see through you

just like we do.

It's an extraordinary moment,

in which we, as the audience,

are confronted and asked to

think about what we routinely

see in movies, which is the

sexual objectification of women.

Weber and Arzner were

very different women who made

very different kinds of films in

very different contexts, but if

I think about it, what maybe

unites them is that they had a

unique and singular vision of

what they could do that just

allowed them to persevere.

It's really important to have

female filmmakers because women

have a different perspective

on the world, on our culture,

on life.

Women filmmakers, we have

an awful lot to bring

to the screen.

There are not a whole lot of us

and we have this nurturing

quality and we have often a

different point of view, a way

of seeing the world, a different

way of placing characters

or placing the camera,

so let's play around with that,

let's experiment and that's...

And I did that with Daughters

of the Dust.

And for a lot of people, it

worked and for a lot of people,

they said, "Whoa, what is this?"

"What are you doing?"

And it was like, "I'm exploring"

and I'm telling a story my way."

I was involved

in getting Back to the Future

put on the Film Registry.

What did I tell you'?!

88 Miles per hour!

I went to the fans.

Back to the future is one of

my favorite movies.

I had used a wonderful website,

BTTF.com, that was hosted by a

man named Stephen Clark and I

wrote to him and said, "Look",

fan response is an incredible

factor in getting something on

the Registry and make your fans

"write in."

And the response was amazing.

Steve Leggett, who works with

the Film Registry, said that he

had so many e-mails every day,

hundreds of e-mails coming in,

and it was the first time

that there had been such an

overwhelming response to getting

one film on from people outside

of the Library of Congress.

It's found its way into the

popular culture so much, and the

fact that you can now buy a flux

capacitor online... and people

will buy them... is saying

something about the impact of

the movie.

My moment of

triumph as far as the National.

Film Registry is concerned...

I had a couple of different ones

that I put on there.

The one film that I actually

got chosen is a little

film called...

Let's all go

to the lobby,

let's all go to the lobby

let's all go to the lobby

to get ourselves a treat...

A little film made by the.

Filmack company up in Chicago.

And it's a bumper that goes

in between the movies to get you

to go to the candy counter.

The sparkling drinks

are just dandy.

The chocolate bars

and the candy.

So let's all go to the...

lobby,

duh, duh, duddiluh, duh, duh.

But I looked at it and was like,

"This is such an important

little piece of film."

Everybody knows it,

everybody's seen it.

It's the perfect example of this

kind of cinematic advertising

that they were doing.

And it's fun.

So I put it in and sure enough,

it got chosen that year.

I was totally blown away.

Let's all go to the lobby

to get ourselves a treat...

Thank you, thank you.

When I was younger, I was

interested in films about power.

People with invincible skills.

They could shoot a gun out of

someone's hand, they could snap

a bullwhip around your neck.

This will remind you that

I have been here once

and can return.

And so from around six to 10,

those were the staple of my

imagination and you'd leave the

movie and you'd be acting out

all the parts with your friends.

And as a matter of fact, on the

first Western I ever did, I

ruined my first take on

horseback where I'm shooting

somebody with my pistol because

on the finished film, you can

see me looking at the guy

steely-eyed and pulling the

trigger and going...

Really stupid.

But, you know, it shows you

the grip that these things

have on you.

When I was young,

when I was little, that was all

I used to think about...

the N.B.A.

There's nothing more

powerful than a true story,

because it makes you feel

like you don't have that escape

valve that I have when I

watch fiction.

When it gets too tough or too

close or too emotional, I can

always kind of back out of it

just a little bit by saying,

"Eh, this isn't true."

And when you're seeing a

powerful documentary, and you

believe what you're seeing,

you don't have that and

that's a good thing.

My mother, she's

like mother and father to me.

She don't want me really hanging

around over here that much,

'cause of the gangs.

I always wanted to make

stories.

This was a chance, an

opportunity, to hopefully tell a

great story, but a story that

was true and a story that, in

focusing on these two kids and

their families, what their lives

had to say about the American

dream, about race in America,

about poverty in America.

It's something I think that

needed to be said, and

needs to always be said,

and unfortunately continues

to need to be said.

Arthur agee.

I would say an influence

for me early on was Barbara.

Kopple's work, in particular,

Harlan County.

Come,

all you young fellers,

so brave and so fine...

Seek not your fortune

way down in the mine...

The beauty of

documentaries is that it

only happens once.

It can't happen another time.

I remember when I was with the

widows from the Farmington Mine

disaster in Harlan County.

They had never gotten together

to speak about what it meant

to lose their husbands.

This was the first time and they

sat in a circle and they talked

about the most intimate details

of their husbands, of their

lives, of what it meant to be

a coal miner, what it meant

to work in one of the most

dangerous industries

in this country.

And one or two of them just

burst into tears.

Another one got really angry.

I live right almost on the

seat of the main explosion,

right there, and they said,

"You get out of your house!"

And the police told me

to get out.

Do you know why?

Because they didn't want me

to see what was going on up

that damn, dirty, filthy mines!

It's about

communication.

It's about connection.

It's about stepping in to

somebody's world that you would

never be privy to...

And being able to be there and

understand what's going on with

them and who they are and what

they're about.

I mean, nothing could be finer

than that.

And nothing else will do that.

And if we don't save those films

and preserve those films,

we won't have a history.

Film reconnects us

to the world and to our

experience of our lives in this

space, in this time.

1929's H20.

It is a short film about water,

where the filmmaker starts from

a distance and looks at water.

Little trickles of water,

little waterfalls,

streams with the rocks visible.

And he moves ever closer to the

water and the light playing on

water to the degree that you no

longer recognize it as water.

Then I guarantee, once you see

this film, you never look

at water the same way again.

It's not meant to make sense.

It's not meant to tell a story.

But in many ways, it's meant

to touch us the way poetry does.

It is not always easy to engage

the experimental film.

And one has to simply open one's

self to the language of film.

That's where the beauty lies.

We, through the medium,

we see the world anew.

You know, the great thing

about the Registry is that it's

grown to be pretty diverse.

It's gotten a lot more

inclusive, you know.

There's a lot of experimental,

avant-garde and independent

films.

There's lots of

documentary films.

There's home movies.

There even are a few industrial

and educational films.

There was a turtle

by the name of Bert.

And Bert the turtle

was very alert.

When danger threatened him

he never got hurt.

He knew just what to do.

He'd duck

and cover...

This country has always been

about persuasion.

Really most societies are.

And these films really

illuminate that, kind of the

changing history of what

we were told.

We must be ready

every day, all the time, to do

the right thing if the atomic

bomb explodes.

Duck and cover!

This family knows what to do,

just as your own family should.

The House in the Middle is a

goofy and rather marvelous film

made in about 1953, '54 by...

let me see if I can get it

right... the National Clean Up-

Paint Up-Fix Up Committee, in

association with the Federal.

CML Defense Administration.

And it puts forth a really,

really odd message.

Three identical

miniature frame houses.

The house on the right,

an eyesore.

But you've seen these same

conditions in your own hometown.

This house is the product

of years of neglect.

It has not been painted

regularly.

The house in the middle,

in good condition, with a clean,

unlittered yard.

If your

house is freshly painted and

clean and doesn't have a lot

of crap sitting around in

the front yard, you're a lot

more likely to survive

a nuclear attack.

So it really makes kind of

a moral argument, a behavioral

argument for surviving

nuclear attack.

Two houses are

a total loss, but the well-kept

and the painted house

in the middle still stands.

Of course it's funded by

the paint industry, so they're

trying to sell house paint and

saying, "Hey, it's gonna help"

you survive nuclear attack."

I mean, this is, you know...

This is a little weird.

The dingy house on the left,

the dirty and littered house

on the right, or the clean white

house in the middle.

It is your choice.

The reward may be survival.

Every movie that is popular,

every movie that is popular

captures something of the ideas

that were alive at the time.

And very often, the ideas that

they capture and that make them

so acceptable to the public

are lies.

This is D.W. Griffith's film.

Essentially, Griffith, right

then and there, invented a lot

of the grammar of film.

Its aesthetic and historical

significance from the point of

view of film is beyond debate.

Its value as a portrayal

of American history is not

at all beyond debate.

It is basically a pro Ku Klux.

Klan view of what happened

in the South.

I think The Birth of a Nation

really legitimized the motion

picture industry.

It was the first film to be

shown at legitimate Broadway

theaters.

I think for the first time,

people realized almost not only

the power of the motion picture,

but also almost the danger

of the motion picture.

What it could accomplish.

Unfortunately, all these

innovative ideas were used

to advance the notion of

segregation, Jim Crow, racism,

racial bias.

It was a dangerous film and it

caused a lot of personal harm

to people after it came out

during that time.

Birth of a Nation was

propaganda, you know, and it

was slander, but it's important

to recognize.

I think by ignoring it or by

denying, you know, the existence

of Birth of a Nation, you're

almost losing a piece

of cinema history.

So we'll find them

in the end, I promise you,

we'll find them.

Just as sure as the turning

of the earth.

I know the generation of

people that saw The Searchers

when they were young will never

forget it.

It was essentially about a man,

played by John Wayne, who comes

to save a little girl

who has been kidnapped

by an Indian tribe.

It's always the menacing

music, the menacing war paint

that was assigned

to these characters.

[Shouting in

Growing up, if you look back

at all the cowboy and Indian

stuff I watched as a kid,

why were we the heroes?

I didn't quite get that.

Took me a long time to realize

that, even when you played

cowboys and Indians

with your friends.

Today, I'd want to be

the Indian, they're the rebels.

And I would be for the Indians

against the cowboys.

I saw The Searchers with

an American Indian and I was

unaware of the racism in the

film until I was sitting next

to her and she just stormed out

at a certain scene in the movie.

And I went out to follow her,

I said, "What's going on'?"

She said, "Did you see"

the movie'?"

I said, "Yeah, I saw it."

"Well, did you see

what happened?"

These are my people...

Go!

Go, Martin, please!

Stand aside, Martin.

So he was searching for her

so he could kill her, so she

wouldn't have to live with them.

Because she was living a fate

worse than death.

It was very disturbing.

Ethan, no, you don't!

Stand aside.

I thought that was really

something that I really wouldn't

want my daughter to look at.

It really helped create

a persona about Indian people

that continues to this day.

The exiles was made about.

Native Americans living in

Los Angeles in the 1950s,

in other words, Native Americans

not out in the desert or

in the mountains, in the kind

of environment that most people

in cliched terms think of,

but trying to survive in

a brutal urban environment.

The Exiles really put kind

of a face on Indian people

at the time.

During that time period, it was

either relocation or maybe

serving in the armed services.

A lot of Indian people left the

reservations and came to cities

and met other Indian people.

It showed kind of the truth

of living in an urban area

as far as the isolation,

depicted in the young woman.

She's always seen to be alone

and longing for a better life.

Film very much is important

in depiction of a people.

Yo, what's your problem, man?

Y'all are brothers, you ain't

supposed to be fighting

each other.

Little punk.

Get off my porch, mama's boy.

When Boyz in the Hood as

a document of its time, it's

a document of what was going on

in that time period.

You have to think, young

brother, about your future.

It gave a voice

to the voiceless.

Listen, I want to do

something with my life,

all right?

I want to be somebody.

The film, for me,

it's like my diary.

Ricky!

It was a cathartic thing for

me to show where I was from and

what I'd gone through.

Film is a reflection of the

times of which we live in,

good or bad.

I was responsible for pushing

forward Birth of a Nation into

the Film Preservation Board.

That movie led to the deaths of

many, many black people through

lynching, through enacting laws,

segregation, through Jim Crow

and everything.

But it really shows the power

of film for evil as well

as good.

When you watch a movie

from the past, you're involved

in a dialogue.

A dialogue between past

and present.

There's what's up on the screen

and then there's the person

looking at it and every person

who looks at it brings their own

history and finds their own

value in it.

You look at every war that

we've been through and whether

it's a war that we won, like the

good war, World War II, or a war

we lost, like Vietnam, a war

like what's going on now in Iraq

and Afghanistan where we don't

know what the result is going

to be, the result is the same

on the people who fought it.

And I think that's important

for people to understand.

The best years of our

lives is about three G.L.S

returning from service to their

hometown.

I enlisted in the Army Air.

Corps, I was a bombardier

in a B-17.

I was no hero, but I was there,

I did the job.

Naturally, it hit me

particularly hard when Dana

Andrews playing the bombardier

goes out to a field where

they're cocooning old b-17

bombers, and he approaches one

and climbs back up into it.

And the sound comes up and

the filmmaking makes him

experience a bombing raid.

And the sound is extraordinary.

That had a particular meaning

for anybody who was in a bomber.

Hey, you!

What're you doing

in that airplane?

It had a great effect on me.

The movies create order out of

the chaos of our lives and

that's what this was.

I was the last person that

I ever would have thought would

have gone to war.

War scared me when I was young.

After I came back from Vietnam,

I gave away my uniforms,

I really put the whole thing

behind me.

I just thought I could shut the

door and move on with my life.

I don't guess I spoke with

another veteran or about

my experience for eight

or nine years.

By chance I was put in touch

with a guy who worked with

veterans and he invited me to

a screening of The Deer Hunter.

[Chopin nocturne playing

Really discovered that the

issues that they were dealing

with in that film, how

frightened those guys were once

they got over there.

They went over there with such

enthusiasm and such honest,

just sincere patriotism and

discovered themselves just

in this chaotic world.

[Explosions, machine gun fire,

It really, to me, emotionally

hit home.

How that stays with you.

Once you've been through that.

Mike?

It's... it's like something

that, um...

A human shouldn't

have to experience.

That... that loss of control.

That having, really having to

give up on life, because you

don't know that you're gonna be

alive in an hour... in a day...

And that's, it's just something

that doesn't...

That doesn't go away.

It's a good thing that films

like Deer Hunter were made,

because it's an honest

representation of the emotion

of war, and I think people need

to know that.

We should not go to war easily

because the impact on people's

lives is permanent.

Film captured me,

as it does so many people,

when I was a kid.

As a child, there were no good

movies or bad movies.

There were just movies.

I grew up in a very poor

family and I think going to the

movie theater, the old walk-in

theater that cost maybe

20 cents...

It was the window to the world.

It largely took me, I think,

took me out of my own life.

So for a dime, I could

go and stay there all day and

watch three pictures and Pathé.

News and Mickey Mouse.

So my outlook was to watch film,

any film, and I did.

I loved them all

and I still do today.

I just loved the glamour of

life in film from the '30s and

'40s, like I wanted to have all

those glittering costumes and

I wanted Cary Grant to take me

out to dinner, but the closest

thing I have is film.

This is an art.

It's not just how to make money,

it's not just what we can sell

it as, but it's something

valuable that we should save.

This is part of who we are

as a culture and we need

to preserve it.

It's not a matter of, like,

"Should we?"

It's "How are we going to?"

We've got a job to preserve

the aspirations and the images

and the ideals and dreams of

millions and millions of people.

I think one thing we can say

is that 500 or a thousand years

from now, when people want to

know what life was like,

they will go to movies.

They will go to the moving image

materials that we created first,

because those are the time

capsules of our era.

They are now being preserved

and restored so that when we're

all long gone, as long as

there's something to watch films

with, they'll be able to see

these things.

The beauty of film is that

it's everybody's.

It's not just the socially

elite, it's everybody's.

Somebody says, "Why would you"

save movies?"

Well, I'd ask those people back,

"Why do you save

your family pictures?"

As a society, we want to do

the same thing.

We want to say who were we,

where are we now and what do we

want people in the future

to think about us?

It's our family album.

It is absolutely

imperative that we save the art

form of the 20th century.

I mean, how can we not?

Here's looking at you, kid.

Elaine!

Let's all go

to the lobby,

let's all go to the lobby.

Let's all go to the lobby

to get ourselves a treat.

Delicious things

to eat.

The popcorn can't

be beat.

The sparkling

drinks are just dandy.

The chocolate bars

and the candy.

So, let's all go to the lobby

to get ourselves a treat.

Let's all go to the lobby

to get ourselves a treat...