Boleslas Matuszevski’s revolutionary “new source of cinema history” (1898)

The photographer Boleslas Matuszewski was the first to advocate the creation of a public deposit for cinematographic film, writing in Une nouvelle source de l’histoire du cinéma (A new source of cinema history) and La photographie animée (Animated photography) of the need to preserve films, which he considered to be significant historical records. Although his writings failed to attract much attention, his key ideas were nonetheless implemented when France founded the national cinema archives and film libraries for teaching between the two world wars. Public libraries – at least in France – had little contact with such institutions for many years, but have begun to forge ever closer links with them over the past three decades or so.
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