Romana Javitz on cinema and the document

Cinema and the Document


"The slow appreciation of the cinema as an art
form may be laid at the oversight of dual but compatible functions of all art, of all pictorial productions. While the moving pictures document and record realistically
that which we have seen, experienced and heard, nevertheless they are designed and produced under the same basic principles which condition all other types if pictorial composition. Consideration of any film discovers that the amount of story-telling elements and the subjective content is slight when compared to the amount of
production craftmanship required to make the finished work. Photography in the moving film form has within its projected image every element of art, merged into a whole by editing, direction and conception of the relations of time sequences
of events portrayed, of images moving and the balance of tone, light, sound and shape. And just as other art forms, moving pictures are good sources for facts... All films, whether fantastic, comic, unreal or stupid are useful in a library. They, bad or good, record the times in which they were popular, the moral and social standards, the level of beauty, fashions and humor.”

On Pictures in a Public Library. 1939. Words on Pictures. Ch. 1, p.14.


[Vaudeville Theater advertising the silent movie Tigris next to the Brill
Building at 46 Broadway, Times Square.] c.1913. Yampolsky Collection.

 Words on Pictures: Romana and the New York Public Library’s Picture Collection. edited by Anthony T. Troncale. New York: Photo | Verso Publications, LLC, 2020.   ISBN 978-1-7346409-0-8 (hardcover)  Identifiers ISBN  978-1-7346409-1-5 (ebook)

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#wordsonpictures, #RomanaJavitz #newyorkpubliclibrary, picture collection, #photography, #visual arts, #fphototgraphs, visual resources, #branchlibraries, #librarians, #documentaryphotography, art libraries, circulating pictures, theater, performing arts, television, New York Public Library, New York City, Farm Security Administration, Library of Congress, visual literacy, American Model: Origins of the Index of American Design, a Federal Art Project, Ruth Reeves, Holger Cahill, WPAWords on Pictures, #wordsonpictures, Romana Javitz, picture collection, #photography, #visual arts, #photographers, visual resources, #librarians, #documentation, art libraries, art history, theater, New York City, Farm Security Administration, Library of Congress, visual literacy, Sol Libsohn, illustration, advertising, Anthony Troncale, publishing, children's, art, photo, WPA, Federal Art Project, #archives, #specialcollections, #subjectsmatter, #subjective, #photohistory, #historyofphotography, #images, #visual, #visualresources, #WorthBeyondWords, #graphicarts, #posters

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