NFPF News

THE BARGAIN in the NFPF Screening Room

William S. Hart in The Bargain (1914)

The NFPF has the pleasure of announcing that The Bargain (1914) is now available for free viewing in our online screening room. This epochal western, produced by Thomas Ince, directed by Reginald Barker, and added to the National Film Registry in 2010, marked the feature film debut of William S. Hart, one of the genre's greatest stars. It kicked off Hart’s decade-long mission of giving the Western a greater semblance of realism and intense morality. Hart plays his favorite character type, the “good badman,” the outlaw who finds redemption in uneasy reach.

Though The Bargain is available elsewhere online, our copy is in High Definition and graced with a score by Ben Model! Our thanks to the Library of Congress for providing a scan of the 35mm paper print, originally deposited at the Library for copyright purposes in 1914, and for … Read more

“Preserving the Avant-Garde” in San Francisco

This Monday the 4 Star Theater in San Francisco will screen a program of experimental films to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Avant Garde Masters grant program, a fruitful partnership between the NFPF and The Film Foundation.

Remembrance (1969), screening in the program "The Film Foundation: Preserving the Avant-Garde."

Screening as part of the series “Scorsese: More than a Gangster,” the program is titled “The Film Foundation: Preserving the Avant-Garde.” Started in 1990 by Martin Scorsese, The Film Foundation has furthered the cause of film preservation by ensuring the survival of nearly 1,000 works of world cinema. Among these are 214 works (by 83 artists) preserved through Avant Garde Masters grant program, which is supported by the Film Foundation, administered by the NFPF, and receives funding from the Hobson/Lucas Family … Read more

NFPF-Preserved Films at the Century of 16mm Conference

Multiple SIDosis (1970), one of eight films screening in the Century of 16mm program “16mm Orphan Films Preserved through the National Film Preservation.”

In 1923 Eastman Kodak introduced 16mm nonflammable film and radically changed the history of filmmaking, which became affordable and feasible to millions. The new format facilitated the rise of home movies and amateur moviemaking. Filmmaking was no longer the preserve of well-heeled industries—16mm democratized it.

To celebrate this momentous anniversary, the Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive has organized “A Century of 16mm,” which includes an academic conference, commissioned films, exhibitions of 16mm technologies, and screenings.

Among the conference programs, scheduled for Thursday, September 14th, is “16mm Orphan Films Preserved through the National Film … Read more

Artist’s Spotlight: Cornelia Chapin

Cornelia Chapin at work on her prize-winning sculpture Young Elephant.

For Women’s History Month the NFPF is calling attention to the home movies of Cornelia Van Auken Chapin (1893–1972), preserved through an NFPF grant by the Archives of American Art, a unit of the Smithsonian Institution

Cornelia Chapin was a sculptor who specialized in creating stone and wood sculptures of animals through the direct carving method, which favored sculpting directly from life, without the use of models or casts. Artists in this movement, which rose to prominence after 1915, believed in the “truth of materials”—that a finished work of art should display the inherent properties of the raw material it was sculpted from. Very little period footage of artists engaged in direct carving exists, and during this period there was more documentation of male than female sculptors—these … Read more

Listening to Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks looks back on his life's journey in Listen to a Stranger (1973).

During a month that celebrates the history and accomplishments of African Americans, it’s more than appropriate to highlight Listen to a Stranger: An Interview with Gordon Parks (1973). Preserved through a 2019 NFPF grant by Washington University in St. Louis, this once-rare documentary honors an artist whose work in photography and film were equally groundbreaking.

Gordon Parks (1912–2006) trailblazed with his camera; starting at the Farm Security Administration he became the first African American staff photographer at Life magazine, documenting myriad aspects of American life during the onset of the Civil Rights era. By 1969 he had moved into cinema with The Learning Tree, adapted from his own novel, becoming the first African American to direct a major Hollywood studio feature. His next film was the seminal Blaxploitation … Read more