Good news, New Yorkers. Now you too can catch up with the fabulous documentary Henri Langlois: The Phantom of the Cinémathèque, which the cinetrix saw and reviewed this past April at Full Frame.
It's a good 'un, if a bit sprawling, as befits the man himself. The NYT's Tony Scott has the skinny.
For the first decades of their existence, movies were seen not as works of art deserving preservation but as disposable commodities. Once their run in theaters was finished, prints were tossed into the garbage or left to deteriorate in warehouses. The notion that they might be preserved, collected and studied - the belief that the cinematic record is a vital cultural resource - was in the air by the mid-1930's, but it took the pluck and persistence of a single eccentric Frenchman to make the idea a reality.
Do note that the film appears to have been pared down from 212 minutes to its current run time of 129. Wonder what was lost, and who will save it for future generations [or, most likely, the dvd release]?
Quit reading already. Go see it, then report back.
