Film on film

The title of this book, A Thousand Cuts: The Bizarre Underground World of Collectors and Dealers Who Saved the Movies, excited me and gave me pause. The good part: a book about the world of people who collect film--not DVDs, not videotape, but movies on film. I know that private collectors have been responsible for restoring missing sections of classic films and in some cases have had the only extant copies of some movies thought missing, so this seemed like an interesting topic. What gave me pause: the word "bizarre." That could be either promising (colorful interesting characters) or threatening (are we talking about mentally ill people here?). As it turned out, they are definitely more colorful than ill. Calvin Thomas Beck, the editor of the legendary horror movie magazine Castle of Frankenstein, is mentioned in passing as being a little like Psycho's Norman Bates, but due to his love for his mother, not for any murderous activities. Unfortunately, the book turned out to be a missed opportunity.

The authors, film collectors in one way or another themselves, have essentially put together a collection of short magazine article-length interviews with a number of these collectors, even giving some pages to a couple of famous people (Roddy McDowell, Kevin Brownlow). Some individual chapters are fairly interesting, but what's missing is a chronological, overarching narrative that explains the whole phenomenon: How did the private collecting of film prints get started in the first place? Where do most of them come from--pilfered from studio archives? Duped from theatrical prints? Why were studios, for a time, so hot to crack down on the collectors? (McDowell was the subject of a sting-type operation in the 70s that got a lot of press.) Unless I missed something, I didn't get comprehensive answers to any of these questions. I did spend some time in the company of some unusual folks--though many of their stories are blandly sad--but I wish there had been more ambition on the part of the authors to tell a fuller story.