Treasures From American Film Archives Encore Edition
 

Available everywhere DVDs are sold, including this Internet retailer:


"The best set of the year."
The New York Times

"Watching this impressively annotated collection is like taking a crash course in American film history."
Leonard Maltin

"It's the perfect antidote to the Hollywood blahs."
The Boston Globe

"Sensational ... a treasure trove of old, obscure, forgotten, rediscovered, and fascinating footage from the first century of film."
Roger Ebert

"Modern viewers should jump for joy at this collection."
Time

"This stunning and exemplary four disc collection is a must-have for anyone interested in film history . . . it's a 20th-century time capsule in moving image form."
Film Comment

"A wonderfully educational experience that is also surprisingly entertaining."
San Francisco Chronicle

"For sheer historical value, this remarkable compendium is essential for any serious film collection."
Library Journal

"This is a bottomless bottle of blue tequila, rich with era-documenting home movies, governmental effluvia, pioneering one-reelers, Yiddish snippets, paper-print copyright deposits, newsreels, and rare avant-garde films no one's had a chance to see often enough."
Village Voice

 
4-DVD box set, with program notes
642 minutes, NTSC, playable worldwide
$69.95

Winner of the 2000 Film Heritage Award
from the National Society of Film Critics

In 2000, 18 of America's premier film archives joined forces with the NFPF to release films preserved in their collections for the first time on video. Treasures from American Film Archives, 50 Preserved Films showcases the breadth of American filmmaking in the first 100 years of the motion picture. With rarities ranging from the first movie exhibited in the United States to a 1985 experimental documentary of New York's Battery Park, the 11-hour 4-DVD set received critical accolades and was honored with awards from the National Society of Film Critics and the Video Software Dealers Association.

Originally produced through funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Pew Charitable Trusts, Treasures has been reissued in a new, reduced price edition, complete with updated program notes. The new Encore Edition is made possible through the support of the Cecil B. De Mille Foundation and Sterling Vineyards®. For an illustrated brochure (PDF file) listing the contents and contributors, click here.

Treasures features:

50 films on 4 DVDs
4 illustrated booklets of film notes and credits
Newly recorded musical scores
Essays about the archives narrated by Laurence Fishburne
More than 300 interactive screens about the films and music

The full contents include:

SILENT-ERA FEATURES The 1916 Snow White, Western star William S. Hart in Hell's Hinges, both with their original color tints, The Toll of the Sea in two-strip Technicolor, and the first feature shot in Alaska, The Chechahcos.

LANDMARK AVANT-GARDE WORKS The Fall of the House of Usher by Webber and Watson, Rose Hobart by Joseph Cornell, OffOn by Scott Bartlett, and others by Ed Emshwiller, Richard Protovin and Franklin Backus.

DOCUMENTARIES AND NEWSREELS including The Autobiography of a Jeep, John Huston's The Battle of San Pietro, footage of Orson Welles's 1936 "Voodoo" Macbeth, George Balanchine's choreography, Negro Leagues baseball, and Marian Anderson's Lincoln Memorial concert.

THE EARLIEST AMERICAN MOVIES Blacksmithing Scene (the first publicly exhibited film), The Gay Shoe Clerk, Three American Beauties, and others.

PIONEERING SPECIAL EFFECTS in Princess Nicotine, Star Theatre, The Thieving Hand, and Dog Factory.

CARTOONS AND EXPERIMENTAL ANIMATION, HOME MOVIES, TRAVEL FILMS, WORKER TRAINING FILMS, POLITICAL ADS and other less familiar types of American film made over the last century. At least 45 of the 50 titles have never been available on video in any form, and the others have been issued only in poorer-quality copies. For this set the NFPF created new digital masters from the finest archival sources.

Each of the 50 films presented here is safeguarded for future generations in both preservation masters and viewing prints. Treasures offers a reminder that the nation's archives hold many more such astonishing films that will survive to be seen only with further public support. Net proceeds from the set support further film preservation.

For the transcript of coverage on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer click here.