“Lost Cinema”
A “lost movie” documentary that becomes lost itself must be the ultimate Borgesian conundrum!
Lost Cinema, shot in the late 1990s, would have been unique among feature films about lost movies. In addition to including never-before-seen footage and original interviews with many of the participants of the unfinished or unseen films, Lost Cinema would have been itself a challenging, provocative work about an “alternative universe” of cinema unknown to the general public and even fans and most scholars.
For example, viewers would have witnessed Blacklisted author-screenwriter Howard Fast discussing his collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock on the unrealized, controversial Kaleidoscope (1966); scholar Pearl Bowser highlighting the work of African-American filmmaker, Eloyce Gist, and Gist’s only recently reconstructed film, Hell-bound Train (1933); and producer Bertrand Castelli revealing the harassment he and his wife experienced by the Nixon White House when they tried to release their parody project, Richard (1970).
After several doomed distribution deals, Lost Cinema remains unfinished and unseen. However, so much of it makes a fascinating narrative about both the productions and the people behind them that it will now become a memoir, detailing my head-spinning journeys from Tyler, Texas to Bradford, England to Courmayeur, Italy–all in my obsessive pursuit to capture these stories and find the lost footage and shooting locations.
I would like to share my adventures, the footage, and the common threads I have ascertained among these seemingly disparate projects, which come from different eras, places, and filmmakers.
Unmade, Unfinished, Unseen: Shadow Histories of Cinema and Television 