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Everybody’s a star
BY CAMILLE DODERO
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As a filmmaking genre, home movies don’t get much respect. The dusty celluloid reel of Grandma gamboling around in a flowered muumuu? Laughable, but not widely considered a valued commodity. The sequence of your older brother paddling nude in the tub? Blackmail material, but little else. Yet to film archivists Andrea McCarty and Liz Coffey, two New England members of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, such antiquated antics preserved on film are priceless. So priceless that McCarty and Coffey helped establish the first-ever national celebration of small-gauge and amateur filmmaking, to be held this Saturday. "It’s really easy to dismiss [homemade filmmaking] as not culturally significant. And we think it’s just the opposite." Showing 8mm, Super8, and 16mm reels, McCarty and Coffey will run three projectors simultaneously at Boston’s version of Home Movie Day, an event originally scheduled for the Berwick Research Institute but moved to MassArt, now that the Berwick’s on hiatus. Not enthralled by "Christmas 1974"? Move on to "Family Vacation — Ireland 1965." More in the mood for a gang of neighborhood adolescents aping Tarzan in a swamp? Dr. Robbins Barstow, an octogenarian whale expert residing in Connecticut, has promised to unfurl 50-year-old footage of his childhood friends swinging from trees like Johnny Weissmuller. There’ll also be camping trips, an Amsterdam expedition, and a print of the Boston Common from the 1940s — plus whatever anyone else brings. But don’t bother hauling over homespun porn. "We don’t want to offend anybody," says McCarty sheepishly. One reason at-home filmmaking is considered junk more than folk art is that most contemporary home videos mirror Andy Warhol’s Sleep more than Jean Rouch’s Chronicle of a Summer. "We’ve all sat through an interminable video of somebody’s vacation," says McCarty. "Home video allows you to set up the camera at the dinner table and record you having an argument in real time." But back in the days when film was the only available technology, McCarty believes, the person behind the camera was more selective. "With film, you had a 50-foot cartridge, you had three or five or 10 minutes of film to work with," she points out. "They would take a short shot and then wait a while to see what else happens, instead of leaving the camera running. Which is why [film] home movies are more like highlight reels." Bowling for Columbine and Capturing the Friedmans are fresh in the mainstream’s eye, and McCarty and Coffey hope that attention helps their cause of making home-movie preservation a wider practice. Even typical behaviors caught on film demonstrate cultural shifts that could be useful to historical societies. "In the ’30s, you’d see home movies of children in the back yard playing with one ball," says McCarty. "Then in the ’70s, the kids would be outside with a lot more toys: kiddie pools, bikes, swings. It shows the American affluence that came postwar." McCarty doesn’t think it’s possible to be too analytical. "If you just give yourself over to it and sit down and watch, there’s a lot to see." Home Movie Day will take place on Saturday, August 16, at the Massachusetts College of Art, Screening Room 2, 621 Huntington Avenue. Free admission. Visit www.homemovieday.com
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