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A Thousand Cuts: The Bizarre Underground World of Collectors and Dealers Who Saved the Movies 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

by Dennis Bartok (Author), Jeff Joseph (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 51 ratings
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A Thousand Cuts is a candid exploration of one of America's strangest and most quickly vanishing subcultures. It is about the death of physical film in the digital era and about a paranoid, secretive, eccentric, and sometimes obsessive group of film-mad collectors who made movies and their projection a private religion in the time before DVDs and Blu-rays.

The book includes the stories of film historian/critic Leonard Maltin, TCM host Robert Osborne discussing Rock Hudson's secret 1970s film vault, RoboCop producer Jon Davison dropping acid and screening King Kong with Jefferson Airplane at the Fillmore East, and Academy Award-winning film historian Kevin Brownlow recounting his decades-long quest to restore the 1927 Napoleon. Other lesser-known but equally fascinating subjects include one-legged former Broadway dancer Tony Turano, who lives in a Norma Desmond-like world of decaying movie memories, and notorious film pirate Al Beardsley, one of the men responsible for putting O. J. Simpson behind bars.

Authors Dennis Bartok and Jeff Joseph examine one of the least-known episodes in modern legal history: the FBI's and Justice Department's campaign to harass, intimidate, and arrest film dealers and collectors in the early 1970s. Many of those persecuted were gay men. Victims included Planet of the Apes star Roddy McDowall, who was arrested in 1974 for film collecting and forced to name names of fellow collectors, including Rock Hudson and Mel Tormé.

A Thousand Cuts explores the obsessions of the colorful individuals who created their own screening rooms, spent vast sums, negotiated underground networks, and even risked legal jeopardy to pursue their passion for real, physical film.
Previous page
  1. ISBN-13
    978-1496807731
  2. Edition
    1st
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    University Press of Mississippi
  5. Publication date
    August 25, 2016
  6. Language
    English
  7. File size
    2335 KB
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

A haunting portrait of a soon-to-be-lost world of hidden film vaults, private movie palaces, and the collectors who fought over their precious film prints. A great read for anyone interested in the underbelly of Hollywood. -- Alison Martino, journalist for Los Angeles Magazine and Vintage Los Angeles

A Thousand Cuts is a wild, surreal trip down the rabbit hole of obsessive movie love. The rogues' gallery of characters--from Planet of the Apes' Roddy McDowall, to the FBI, to the man who put O. J. Simpson behind bars--is one of the strangest and most fascinating I've come across. -- Adi Shankar, producer of Dredd, The Grey, Power/Rangers Unauthorized [Bootleg Universe], and A Walk Among the Tombstones

A real eye-opener . . . this book will provide a much-needed boost to the spirits of movie fans who fear that photographic film--the stuff that comes in rolls--is disappearing from our planet. -- David Pitt ― Booklist Online, August 30, 2016

Dennis Bartok and Jeff Joseph's A Thousand Cuts: The Bizarre Underground World of Collectors and Dealers Who Saved the Movies describes itself as 'a book about the death of Film' as opposed to the death of The Movies, but make no mistake: this sweeping, warts-and-all survey of the world of private print collecting is far more elegy that paean. -- Steve Macfarlane ― Cineaste

I've known Dennis Bartok for many years through his work showing rare films at the American Cinematheque. There's no one better to document this strange subculture literally vanishing before our eyes. -- Mike Hodges, director of Get Carter, Flash Gordon, and Croupier

A Thousand Cuts is a beautiful elegy for the death of film, that fragile creation of acetate, sprockets, gears, and shadows. Few books have ever captured the singular and mysterious purity of movie worship like this one. -- Adam Simon, executive producer and writer of Salem; writer of The Haunting in Connecticut; and director of The Typewriter, the Rifle, and the Movie Camera

A Thousand Cuts reads like a collection of lost Raymond Chandler or Jim Thompson stories, detailing the piracy, theft, and out-of-control passions that led film collectors to hoard these precious prints. Thank God they did--or many treasures would have disappeared. -- Monte Hellman, director of Two-Lane Blacktop, The Shooting, Road to Nowhere, and Cockfighter

These are warm histories of eccentrics, each story by itself a kind of minor-key Moby-Dick. Taken together, they amount to an elegiac portrait of a vanishing filmic subculture. ― Publishers Weekly

As the use and very existence of physical media continues to dwindle in the modern era, A Thousand Cuts reminds us that many movies would be lost today if not for the obsessive archiving of reels of film by often fascinating individuals. The familiar and detailed ways in which the authors describe their subjects solidifies the connection between aging technology and the aging people who appreciate it. -- Sara M. Cole, Johns Hopkins University ― The Journal of American Culture, Volume 43, Issue 1

Best Film Books of 2016 ― Huffington Post

About the Author

Dennis Bartok is a filmmaker, a screenwriter, and the head of distribution for art-house distributor Cinelicious Pics. He was formerly head of programming for the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

Jeff Joseph is a motion picture archivist and was formerly one of the best-known film dealers in the United States. Jeff and his wife Lauren were the owners of SabuCat Productions. He is currently working with the UCLA Film and TV Archive in restoring the Hal Roach/Laurel and Hardy library.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01LZ5VZBC
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ University Press of Mississippi; 1st edition (August 25, 2016)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 25, 2016
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2335 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 266 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1496807731
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 51 ratings

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
51 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

CinemaStuff
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully Entertaining - Buy This Book!
Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2016
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If you love the movies & have ever collected anything you need to read this book, and if you actually handled any gauge of film (8mm, Super 8 Sound, 16mm or, gulp, 35mm) this book is a moral imperative!

A fascinating, no-holds-barred tour de force of the underworld of film collecting and the characters that populated the hobby during its heyday (including famous celebrities!), "A Thousand Cuts" will keep you riveted from start to finish. Dennis Bartok and his writing partner Jeff Joseph have done a magnificent job chronicling this rarely explored corner of Hollywood cinema history and collecting.

Even if you never touched a single frame of film, if you enjoy TV shows such as "Pawn Stars" and "American Pickers" you'll love the tales told here (it's not hard to imagine more than a few of the characters profiled showing up on either of the aforementioned shows). As stories are presented as vignettes, it's fun to pick up, read a bit and then revisit later for more adventures (it's like having late night drinks & conversation with a fascinating friend!). One of the most honest books I've read in ages and probably my favorite read of 2016.
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K Chiba
4.0 out of 5 stars Film collecting journey
Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2017
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If you have even a passing interest in film history or the lives of a collector this is the book for you. I love both so found it very interesting. The interviews they got throughout the book are very revealing and interesting reads. Good stuff
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drmdm
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting insight into individuals who helped save film history
Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2021
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THis is a well curated gathering of stories, one chapter per collector, altho they may appear more than once as chronicles weave and dance. Stories of how some films were hunted down or simply saved because they happened to hear of a huge dumpster being filled with old film. However, the stories don't focus on long lost titles as much as the characters who create home theaters and allow their hobbies to bleed over into real life concerns.
Film collectors as a whole (and I understand because I am one, but on a much lower scale than others) tend to be territorial about their libraries, but always want a better version for the best price. The collecting, curating and handling of film is a mostly vanished subculture nowadays, but this book gathers a lot of movie collecting lore into one place.
I enjoyed it and read a few chapters at a time so I could digest.
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Timothy L Mayer
5.0 out of 5 stars A Vanished World
Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2016
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A Thousand Cuts is a painful book to read. It’s painful to me because I remember the vanished world of 16mm film collectors who used to populate the cinema landscape. Once upon a time, in another life, I ran a film society. Through my thankless efforts to show movies and publish a journal devoted to film, I became acquainted with the collectors where I lived. They were a different breed, dedicated to the silver shadow on the screen. I worry they may all be gone.

As the authors say:

“Is film collecting truly dying? As of the writing of this book, the major Hollywood studios have almost completely phased out striking 35mm prints of new feature films for commercial distribution, and the major theater chains are likewise completing their conversion of cinemas to digital projection. So, in short order, there will be almost no new supply of 35mm prints to feed the collectors market—and very few places to show them even if there were, outside of cinematheques and museums.”

In some ways, A Thousand Cuts is a sequel to another book about film collectors, Land of a Thousand Balconies by Jack Stevenson, published in 2003. The other book came out when DVD’s were supplanting film collecting and there were still plenty of video stores you could rent movies from every day. Now, the video stores have gone the way of the Drive-In. I count myself fortunate to have seen two forms of entertainment medium rise and fall. Everything can be found on the Internet these days and you can always order the special edition Blu-ray if you’re really dedicated. Gone are the days when I had to see Animal House a third time to hear what Dean Wormer and Carmine were discussing because the laughter of the audience drowned out their conversation.

The authors were involved with film preservation over the years, so they were able to meet many of the people in this book before deciding to do the interviews. Because that is what this book really is a beloved rogue’s gallery of renegades who made it possible to show Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter in your living room to a group of friends (so long as you didn’t tell the wrong people). These were the completest, those who had to have every copy of film they could find to show every other week. They survive today in the form of The Secret Cinema in Philadelphia.

The book talks a lot about the fragility of movie film. The best prints are those made with the dye transfer method, I. B. Technicolor. In film collector circles I used to hear the words “I. B. Tech” mentioned with holy reverence. One friend of mine bemoaned most of his collection would someday fade to read because it wasn’t blessed with the I. B. Tech transfer method. At least the modern film isn’t explosive, although is prone to vinegar syndrome, i. e. breaking down from the release of acetic acid in the film (if not stored properly).

“…It’s not only lack of access to new prints that’s suffocating film collecting: the existing prints all carry the seeds of their own destruction inside them. The basic composition and processing of film slowly, inexorably eat away at the stock itself, producing a gripping odor and physical decay known as “vinegar syndrome,” or film rot. As my writing partner Jeff (a former film dealer himself) explains it, “acetate plastic decomposes on its own over time; that produces the odor (acetic acid) that smells like vinegar. Things like unwashed chemicals, scratch-removal chemicals, and mostly heat and humidity all exacerbate a natural process.” Properly stored, current film stocks should last for well over a century—but for older prints, the best guess is usually a smell test to see if there’s a whiff of vinegar syndrome, which can hop from print to print like an airborne virus. (Some collectors put their vinegared prints in the freezer to try to slow the process, a habit that probably sits well with the non-film-collector partner.)….”

But it’s the portraits of the people who worked so hard to out-maneuver the big studios and sell prints of films that make this book shine. It’s hard to remember the day before VHS tape was everywhere. In the pre-Empire Dark Days, you had to own a physical copy of the film if you wanted to watch it. This also meant owning a 16mm film projector to show the film. There sprung forth on the horizon a clandestine industry of men who had access to movie labs. They could make you a “dupe” of just about anything.

This led to a crackdown as the FBI went after people who trafficked in bootleg film in the 1970’s. It’s not well known, but a certain adult film was duped so many times it’s doubtful if anyone ever saw an original. Several famous movie actors came home from their daily calls to greet a man with a badge. Roddy McDowell had his film collection seized. Rock Hudson built a secret film vault behind a fireplace in his mansion. Some people ended up doing time.

But there is also the moment of discovery in this book. The dedicated collectors who found their own personal Holy Grails:

‘’’…For Philadelphia-area collector Wes Shank, it was realizing in a blinding flash that he’d laid his hands on four minutes of missing footage from the original 1933 production of King Kong, including censored images of Kong the ape toying erotically with Fay Wray’s dress and stomping/munching on a handful of doomed natives. As Shank remembers the moment of the discovery, “I started unwinding the film and letting it go onto the floor. ‘That’s interesting … wait a minute. I don’t remember any such scene in the film.’ Then it hit me: ‘invaluable’ … ‘Kong.’ Could it be? I went down and put it on a pair of rewinds. Oh my god. This is the lost footage.” “’

I can’t give this book a high enough recommendation. I read it through it in several sittings. Time became still as I flipped through each page. And all I could hear in the background was the whirring of a projector.
20 people found this helpful
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Mitch E. Eakin
5.0 out of 5 stars Next on my reading list,
Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2023
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The book arrived ahead of schedule and in very good shape.
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Top reviews from other countries

R. C. Myers
5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended to film collectors
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 14, 2017
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Very interesting book about film collectors,especially in the USA ,although there is a chapter on the English collecting scene.Highly Recommended to film collectors.
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Jan Andresen
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 12, 2017
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Great seller and Great book 😊
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