Synopsis
In rural Iowa, a beloved history teacher uncovers the century-old showreels of one of America's first motion picture impresarios and sets out to premiere the films at a historic local opera house.
Saving Brinton
2017 Directed by Tommy Haines, Andrew Sherburne
Cast
Genre
Popular reviews
More-
-
A beloved Iowan history teacher in 1981 discovers some boxes of silent films from the late 19th century into the early 20th century. He tries to tell people he had them for years, yet no one listened. Until suddenly, everyone became interested in these films he stored in a shed on his property.
It's a story too strange to be true, but this is a documentary and is completely true. Old George Melies films people had assumed were lost are sitting right there in rural Iowa. Recommended for film buffs, especially silent film buffs. It's engaging and gives a charming and friendly view of this Iowa small town that for a moment becomes the film cultural epicenter of the world.
-
A disjointed documentary on some really exciting subject matter: finding and saving silent films. Tommy Haines and Andrew Sherburne have stumbled on to a great story, but a lot of it is filler. The man who discovered some reels in a family basement is a great guy, but we see footage of his mother and places where he grew up. It basically is irrelevant to the story at hand.
Recommended to all film history buffs. Serge Bromberg from Lobster Films in Paris makes a significant appearance to ooh and ahh over a found Méliès film. The pronunciation of some French names are botched by Americans, but that is okay. When the documentary actually focuses on the subject matter at hand,…
-
In 1981, a Washington, Iowa native named Michael Zahs claimed a discarded collection of films and memorabilia that was left in a local basement for disposal; and he pack-ratted it in storage on his properties ever since. The collection had originated from the years 1895 through 1908, remnants of the belongings of a theater owner and his wife, Frank and Indiana Brinton. Eventually Zahs convinced film historians to take notice; and one of the great troves of restored B&W and color films from the earliest known cache of such surviving material resulted (including some previously lost, priceless Georges Méliès special effects marvels.) This documentary follows the white-bearded Zahs as he discloses his find to the world, traveling to Paris and…
-
-
-
The story of finding incredibly rare films in a shed and fighting for decades for the world to take notice is a fascinating subject, but I'm not sure if the filmmakers ever come to terms with an approach. Is it a history lesson about preservation? The story of how these kinds of things get lost? Or even a bio about the people who originally collected the materials? The picture never really settles on any of those options and decides instead to touch on them gently, while fleshing out the everyday Iowa world of the guy that found them in the shed. It's interesting at first, but not necessarily very compelling by the end.
-
the whole class started clapping and cheering when we saw kathy like she was a spiderman guy /srs
last screening of the sem so i just want to say kathy is my favorite professor i’ve had at UT and i’m going to miss her lectures so much!!
-
-
-
-
☆"No other living people have ever been in this room..."☆
An interesting premise for a documentary, the resurrection and saving of countless silent films thought lost to time a hundred years ago, that due to its insistence on a folksy front of Iowa and "the heartland" just doesn't pack the punch for a cinephile that it should. This got some acclaim last year but I'm just catching it now, and while it's admirable it's also unfocused.
In Ainsworth, Iowa a small-town collector found the films years ago, and has struggled to give them cultural relevance and to find the resources for restoring the reels for exhibition. Michael Zahs tells the story of a family and company who brought projected images…