Video (Netflix) Pick: These Amazing Shadows

With The Artist and Hugo, Hollywood has churned out entertaining propaganda for film preservation and restoration.  Not to be outdone, These Amazing Shadows is a documentary centered around the National Film Registry, which began in the mid-80s in response to outcry towards Ted Turner’s attempts to colorize classic black-and-white films.  After acquiring the rights to the MGM, RKO and WB libraries, Turner possessed a huge chunk of cinema history.  Scholars, critics, celebrities, even nice guy Jimmy Stewart, were all beside themselves and protested before Congress that the changes were a defamation of the film’s artistic integrity and historical significance.  Since 1989,  the National Film Registry has selected 25 films annually for preservation in the Library of Congress.  The films include Star Wars, Gone With The Wind, Frankenstein and even Fargo.  

These Amazing Shadows pays tribute to the Registry’s mission and many of the films it protects.  Geared toward novice movie-goers, Shadows presents a broad overview of the Registry’s film preservation efforts while showcasing various features, shorts, commercials and cartoons that carry a unique artistic and historical merit. 

Scholars and recognizable faces like John Waters, Christopher Nolan, Rob Reiner and Zooey Deschanel take opportunities to ogle over the usual suspects: The Godfather, 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Wizard of Oz.  But Shadows doesn’t pander solely to casual crowds–it also concentrates on forgotten pioneers like Lois Webber who defied the male dominated silent era and directed gender-defining pictures on taboo subjects such as abortion and contraception.  There’s also the controversial Registry selections like The Birth of a Nation, whose milestone in cinema history is equaled by its blatant racism (the film’s heroes are Klan members).  Unfortunately, Shadows focuses too deeply on the subject matter and skims over the reasons for the film’s influence.  The talking heads are noticeably less forgiving to the John Wayne classic, The Searchers which paints an unflattering, but less potent, negative portrayal of Native Americans.

There also discussion over less obvious selections which show the raw, ugly side of American history including two amateur shorts from World War II: Cologne, a 1939 documentary about a German-American community and Topaz,  a home movie which chronicles life in a Japanese internment camp.  There are also films like Baby Face whose sexual innuendo was censored during their initial release.  However, the Packard Campus in Culpeper Virginia, which maintains thousands of films reels, and was able to reinsert many of the lost sequences. There are also films that counter the more popular racist films such as 1961’s The Exiles, in which a bevy of Native Americas strive to start a new life in urban Los Angeles. 

The most baffling film is a cold war era propaganda short that suggests houses will survive a nuclear attack if properly painted–and even produces a demonstration of three tiny model homes in which the freshly coated replica stands while the other two lay in ashes.  The short was sponsored by a paint company.

The actual restoration effort is not given the amount of attention it deserves.  What is presented are temperature controlled film values where stocks are preserved.  We also see the results of films not properly care for.  Film cans from different eras contain prints is disarray–torn, shriveled, dust-ridden.  We only see brief glimpses of the pain-staking process, which involves cleaning each individual frame one at a time.  Given the state of some of the original nitrate prints, it’s a miracle and testament to the society that any of these films are rescued.  

The Amazing Shadows bounces between loving homages to well-known classics, historical tidbits and the reasoning for the unconventional selection process.  I especially enjoy one fan rejoicing the moment when Blazing Saddles got selected in 2007 and how he could finally rationalize his repeated viewings during college–he was studying!  There’s also the surprise 2009 selection of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the first music video induction. 

The wealth of history and complex Registry selection and preservation process deserves a more elongated miniseries rather than an abbreviated 80-minute run time.  But I relished in the countless film moments and the nobility of the Registry’s mission.  Shadows works best when the films are able to speak for themselves.  Hundreds of films are sampled in their respective full screen and wide screen (all in HD) presentations.  Seeing glimpses of the dazzling 2001 and Blade Runner will encourage established fans to crank up the blu-ray player.  You will walk away from The Amazing Shadows more inclined to rewatch a classic or even sample one you’ve never seen.  Amazing Shadows mirrors many of the propaganda features that the Film Registry aims to preserve.  And you will will be thankful these films are not laying in ashes.