The earliest days of cinema were some of the most creative and fascinating in the medium's history, and the best surviving films from the period continue to deservedly top 'best film' polls and win over new viewers almost a century later. Unfortunately, in-depth research on the subject has revealed over two-thirds of Hollywood's earliest feature films have disappeared, and in many other cases are only available in incomplete or low-quality versions.
The Library of Congress has released a report entitled The Survival of American Silent Feature Films: 1912-1929 that sheds light the availability of Hollywood classics from the era. Only 1,575 titles, or about 14% of all American-produced silent films, have survived in their original form. Another 5% still exist in 35mm version, but only in incomplete or abridged form. A further 11% only exist in foreign or lower-quality versions.
In the early days, few studios paid much heed to preserving their films, often simply destroying prints when they were finished with them. 35mm is also highly flammable, and many films were lost in fires over the years. In other cases, it was simple decay and deterioration that led to the loss of films.
While key early film figures such as actress Mary Pickford and director Cecil B. DeMille personally archived their work, vast amounts of other silent stars' filmographies are irretrievably lost. Early adaptations of The Great Gatsby and Cleopatra are among the missing films cited in the report. Eric von Stroheim's 1924 classic Greed is an example of an incomplete film. Initially running at over eight hours, less than half of the original footage has survived. The full feature has been called a 'holy grail' of film historians and archivists.
Many Hollywood silent films were only preserved in international archives - 26% of the 3,300 surviving American silent features - while rare 'lost' films are often rediscovered in the most unlikely of places. Most famously, an original version of Carl Th. Dreyer's silent classic The Passion of Joan of Arc (which was produced in France rather than Hollywood) was found in a janitor's closet in an Oslo mental institution.
The Library of Congress' James H. Billington says the organisation "can now authoritatively report that the loss of American silent-era feature films constitutes an alarming and irretrievable loss to our nation’s cultural record. We have lost most of the creative record from the era that brought American movies to the pinnacle of world cinematic achievement in the 20th century."
Director Martin Scorsese has been one of film preservation's most active and influential supporters. He helped establish the Film Foundation and World Cinema Foundation, both of which are dedicated to preserving and restoring neglected films. His film Hugo was a celebration of of silent film, specifically the life & work of Georges Méliès.
Scorsese says of the new report, "Any time a silent picture by some miracle turns up, it reminds us of the treasures we’ve already lost. It also gives us hope that others may be discovered. The research presented in this report serves as a road map to finding silent films we once thought were gone forever and encourages creative partnerships between archives and the film industry to save silent cinema."
