Final Cut

I was surprised to be told on a transatlantic phone call recently that the British Film Institute was apparently planning to withdraw from circulation the three films which I had made for them - Riddles of The Sphinx (1977), Crystal Gazing (1982) and Friendship's Death (1987) - as a result of an administrative decision to 'phase out' their 16mm film distribution service. When I got this information, my first reaction was one of weary surprise and irritated disbelief. It seemed strange to me that the BFI would want to undo its own work by making films and then removing them from public view. It turned out, of course, that they still wanted to distribute them (or some of them) but only on video cassette. This seemed even stranger to me. Video is itself a medium known to be on its way out, already being replaced by laserdisc. Laserdisc, in turn, will be replaced by compact disc (CDI) and then by some other new technical system, as yet undreamed of.

It is clearly a good idea to distribute films in these electronic forms, so that they can be made more accessible and can find new audiences and be widely watched at home or in suitably equipped classrooms. However, it is still far from clear which of these technical systems will ultimately prevail and there seems little point in prematurely transferring the whole 16mm film library onto a technology which is soon outmoded. In any case, if the BFI cannot afford to cover its own 16mm film print costs, it is unrealistic to think it can meet the capital costs of transfer to a series of expensive new media. The end result would only be a narrowing of choice.

16mm became an important filmmaking medium during the 40s. After the war, second-hand 16mm equipment - cameras, editing tables, etc - were released on to the market (as war surplus) and this gave an enormous boost to personal filmmaking, especially in the experimental and documentary areas. Since then, in effect, experimental film has been a 16mm form. The BFI, through its Experimental Film Fund, and then the Production Board which succeeded it, has been the major patron of low-budget personal filmmaking in Britain, certainly since the 60s. Recently I taught a class on the history of British cinema at the University of California in Los Angeles, where I now work. It became clear to me, as I thought about this subject, how crucial the BFI - and its 16mm production - has been in the overall history of British film. First, there was the BFI's patronage of Free Cinema, the early work of Lindsay Anderson and Karl Reisz. Then, in the 60s, the BFI produced films by Stephen Frears and Ridley Scott. Later there was support for a whole generation of new filmmakers - Terence Davies, Bill Douglas, Peter Greenaway, Derek Jarman, Sally Potter, the Quay Brothers, Julien Temple and so on. In effect this was the generation which finally produced a British New Wave and dispelled the widely-held myth that Britain was essentially an un-cinematic country.

By turning its back on 16mm, the BFI would be turning its back on its own major contribution to the art of film in Britain. 16mm work in BFI distribution includes, for example, early BFI-produced avant-garde films by Peter Greenaway, such as The Falls (1980) and Vertical Features Remake (1978); personal and experimental films by Derek Jarman, such as Broken English (1979) (with Marianne Faithful) and Pirate Tape (1983) (with William Burroughs), as well as his features. There are Sally Potter's Thriller (1979); Anthony Balch's The Cut-Ups (1967) and Towers Open Fire (1963); the extraordinary Borderline made in 1928 by Kenneth MacPherson; historic films by Len Lye and Humphrey Jennings, by Jeff Keen and Malcolm LeGrice, by Cerith Wyn Evans and Richard Kwietniowski, a long and still lively tradition. At the very least, these are films which anybody seriously interested in British film would want to look at for historical reasons alone. Many will endure as classics.

Even if a wise decision could currently be made as to the best technological system for contemporary distribution, it would still be essential that work of this importance and calibre remained available in the form in which it was originally made. Paintings can be looked at in slide form, reproduced photographically in books, and on postcards, posters, T-shirts, and so on. But the original works continue to exist as paintings. We can still look at them in their original form in museum exhibitions. The National Film Archive does not function in the same way. It is extremely expensive to order a film for personal viewing. Moreover, sporadic one-off screenings at the National Film Theatre in London do not make work available in any substantive sense to enthusiasts, scholars or simply interested viewers.

Talking about 16mm distribution with people working at the BFI, I began to get the sense that some of them had fallen into the trap of thinking that because we live in a postmodern period of electronic communications, 16mm film was simply outmoded. 16mm may well become a historic form like the daguerreotype or stained glass or even the book. But that is no reason for robbing people of the opportunity to see the work in its original format, with its own visual specificity. The main reason for transferring film onto cassette or disc would be to increase the audience, but, by doing that, we should also aim to increase interest in the original. A viewer who becomes seriously interested in stained glass through photographic reproductions will want to see what it looks like in its own right. The same is true of film. While film culture continues to exist - and with it a modernised British Film Institute - the art form with which the BFI is itself most associated, and where it can feel most proud of its own record, should not be summarily abandoned in the name of cost accountancy and ill-conceived futurism. We need to provide for our future, but we also need to preserve our history.