Nemo—Yes, it will be in fine shape when our descendents want to look for photos in 1,000 years! With all the money gates has got, why the hell doesn’t he just digitalize all 17 million photos now?
Guin—Virgina Rappe was a promising starlet who died after a party given by comic Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle and friends in 1921. Arbuckle was tried three times for manslaughter; he was aquitted, but his career was ruined. In my opinion, he WAS guilty of not getting her medical help (she was left to linger three days before she was brought to a hospital).
Ever since, she has been brushed off as some no-talent floozie who got what she deserved. I found some reviews of her performances while doing research, though. Photoplay said in 1919 that “Her rare beauty combined with an exceptional understanding of just what is required to secure a laugh, promises a most brilliant future for this young girl.”
I kept trying to keep an open mind while reading the article. Trying, trying, trying, and when I got to the part about focusing their energies on the images with the greatest commercial potential (i.e. anything with Elvis, Marilyn, etc.) I just lost it.
I’m ill.
“Hoarding” is indeed the term. That one only ever owns a thing temporarily is something Andrew Mellon understood when his art collection became our National Gallery. It galls me when cultural patrimony is kept hidden away - it is avarice personified. One can argue about whether the proper home for the Elgin Marbles is in London or Athens, but no-one’s talking about putting them under glass in some rich person’s library, or burying them in the Alps.
Eve, I think the problem isn’t that they’ve lost they’re “collective” mind, but that said mind is the only one they’re thinking with!
Johnson—It is indeed ill-making . . . I think the article mentions that we will be seeing the same damn images over and over again, and the rarely seen ones will become never-seen ones.
Example: when I was working on my Anna Held bio, most of the photos I chose from had not been reprinted in 75 years or more. I found two shots of her in male drag dancing with a partner in a show and decided to print BOTH of 'em, as it gave a nice feeling of that musical number. I also found a slightly blurred snapshot of her at a dinner party—the only photo I’ve seen of her without makeup and with her hair undone. So esoteric, “non-remunerative” photos like that will now be lost forever . . .
I have way too much respect for Eve to get into a pissing match over Virginia Rappe’s death and the details therein. I’ll agree to disagree. Besides, it would be a long and messy hijack.
p.s. I’ll vehemently agree with one point. That poor lady WAS the original “blame the victim” girl. She was Nichole Brown Simpson before Nichole was born. Not to mention a dozen other victims…
Cartoon and Guin—OK, let’s start a whole “Virginia Rappe/Fatty Arbuckle” thread so we can get into more detail. As opposed to what everyone SAYS, I AM (well, sometimes . . . ) willing to listen to reason.
Back to the OP: I just got this note from a small-scale photo archivist I know in California—
“After buying Bettmann, they [Gates] bought two other large collections (one alone over 40 million images). Their goal of course is to digitize the entire collection. However, after recent layoffs they have been able to scan only 2%. What’s interesting about this is that Gates is the sole owner of Corbis. Not Microsoft nor another corporation. That makes Gates a mere collector, like me, but on a little different scale. Consider this. As the world’s largest holding of historical images is placed out of physical reach of the public, with the only access via scans, it might be possible to digitally remove someone or something from history. This would become very doable if the subject were highly arcane and rare. Perhaps a bit too Rod Serling. This of course fits into my ongoing quest to have parts of my collection exhibited.”
Check out The Commissar Vanishes by David King. It’s an interesting look at how photographic images were altered in Stalinist Russia. The front cover alone says it all; four copies of the same photo, in the original Stalin has three men beside him, then two, then one, then Stalin stands alone. Of course, knowing Stalin, these men undoubtedly disappeared in more than just a photographic sense.
Eve I feel for your future inability to handle the photos themselves. And turn them over, to reveal an aside.
As a side question, have you been able to actually go in and browse the original photos themselves in the last few years? I read the article rather quickly, and got the idea that they have been ‘not available’ for a while.
I think I agree with people/scholars who say that they are impounding things which are not currently decomposing, while rightfully so trying to preserve things which are turning to mush. Much like some of the Library of Congress stuff, much of which is too late to preserve.
Of COURSE you are :D. Who would DARE insinuate otherwise??? I’ll start it, a fitting 1,000th posting for me. I somehow get the feeling that it’s a G.D., although I’ve never done a thread there before. I’ll pose the O.P. in a way that it’ll stand as a Debate, not a Mindless Pointless.
Eve? While we’re still here in the asbestos-lined suite of offices that Is The Pit, lemme say this as a preface to what will doubtlessly become a classic Dope Thread :
I’m going to base all of my assertions on this one book. It seems exhaustingly thorough. You are the film historian par excellence, I am merely the filmmaker. And, I respect your historical acumen. ( Oh, wait, I said this here in the Pit for a reason, right? ). I fucking respect your goddamned historical acumen. Bettah?
It’s in Great Debates, where all…uh…great debates belong !!
<—rubbing palms together gleefully, calling up friend whose father owned the hotel in San Francisco where it happened, cousins who are in the Prosecutor’s Office in San Fran, dozens of books and affidavits…
Post 1,000 was spent starting this most illustrious debate. Can’t think of a better way to do it. Sorry, ** Libertarian**, no masturbation threads.
Cartooniverse
YOu guys know that famous photo of Lenin, standing on a platform with his arm out speaking to the crowds? Stalin had it altered from the original in his time-originally, Trotsky was standing by Voladya*-in the altered one, Trotsky was taken out-and you just see the back of the platform or something…hehehe…
*Lenin’s childhood nickname…I just felt like using it.
" . . . Corbis will create a modern, subzero, low-humidity storage area safe from earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, vandals, nuclear blasts and the ravages of time. "
Well, I suspect I’m alone in this view, but from the two articles I’ve read it seems clear that a) the pictures are currently (and have been for some time) physically deteriorating, and b) the majority of the collection hasn’t been available to the public for some time anyway.
It’s a bummer that saving the collection inconveniences people, especially nice folks such as Eve. But if the alternative is to see it rot, well I say put it in the ground.
And the idea that Bill G should immediately scan everything (“he’s got the money”) is crazy. 17 million pictures at $20 apiece (the price they paid for scanning those so far) = a third of a billion dollars. It takes some sizeable cajones to insist that that kind of money be taken from an individual in the name of the public good.
Samclem—Maybe half the collections I work with let me come in and go through the files in person. The rest of 'em send me photocopies of all the photos in whichever files I want. Out of the six Bettmann photos I want to use for my next book, FOUR of them are slated for burial, and I was told to order them NOW.
Bill H—I wonder if they really are deteriorating. Have you read (or read of) Nicholson Baker’s new book, “Double Fold?” it’s about how libraries are microfilming and trashing millions of books and newspapers, claiming they are “turning into dust,” which Baker has proved is not true. Certainly, the 100+ year old photos I go through are in great shape. Being jammed into files tightly seems to keep light or moisture from getting to them.
Update: Last night I received a goddam computer disk which claims to hold the only TWO (out of six) photos I need for my book from Bettmann. The other four—including two rare news snapshots—have apparently already been buried somewhere in a coal mine. Now I gotta get ahold of all my other stock-photo sources and see if they can supply something like what Bettmann no longer has available . . .
I’m going to cross those bastards off my list completely and return their damn disk to them.
Oh, Eve…damn. Now I really am ill. Mr. Gates? We want to save you! Here, just stick your head into this bag…yes, that’s fine…now, let’s just walk over to the Extra Valu Size Ronco Vacu-Seal…
