IT'S ONLY A MOVING IMAGE Archives, Access and the Social Contract ...

We must sometimes applaud guardianship at the same time we criticize its persistence. This might be one way to thinkabout the legacy culture of film archives whose model remained dominant until very recently. The earliest film archivistswere cinephiles who dared to collect physically endangered works or films of uncertain provenance, ignored culturaldisdain for the populist medium, courted severe punishment for saving and hiding politically discredited films, floutedcopyright laws whose interpretation was even more Draconian then as now, and, last but not least, risked nitrate fires.They loved cinema and achieved much despite their cautious culture and the limitations placed on their activities.12