''Precious Images'' is a 1986

short film A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film o ...

directed by Chuck Workman. It features approximately 470 half-second-long splices of movie moments through the history of American film. Some of the clips are organized by genre and set to appropriate music; musicals, for example, are accompanied by the title song from '' Singin' in the Rain''. Films featured range chronologically from '' The Great Train Robbery'' (1903) to ''

Rocky IV ''Rocky IV'' is a 1985 American sports drama film starring, written and directed by Sylvester Stallone. The film is the sequel to '' Rocky III'' (1982) and the fourth installment in the ''Rocky'' franchise. It also stars Talia Shire, Burt You ...

'' (1985), and range in subject from light comedies to dramas and horror films.

Production

''Precious Images'' was commissioned by the Directors Guild for its 50th anniversary.MacDonald, Scott (2005) ''A critical cinema: interviews with independent filmmakers,'' University of California Press, p238-239 Workman had previously produced two documentaries, ''The Director and the Image (1984)'' and ''The Director and the Actor (1984),'' for the Guild. Editing took two or three months to complete. ''Precious Images'' features half-second-long splices from approximately 470 American films. Chuck Workman described the film's editing structure as "a sprint. You take a breath and you ''go''."

"Of course, I had so many movies I wanted to include that the time constraint forced me to compress the film more and more. The cutting got faster and faster, but I realized that the film was still working. And I was moving things around, and it was ''still'' working. I started finding these wonderful little combinations of shots, the kind of edits that I'd been doing for years in other things, but suddenly in this film I wasn't selling anything. It was a wonderful moment for me."

Release

''Precious Images'' won the

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People and fictional and mythical characters * Oscar (given name), including lists of people and fictional characters named Oscar, Óscar or Oskar * Oscar (footballer, born 1954), Brazilian footballer ...

for Live Action Short Film during the 1987 ceremony, where it was featured in its entirety. In 1996, the film was reissued with new scenes from more contemporary films up to that point. It was also shown every 15 minutes within London's

Museum of the Moving Image The Museum of the Moving Image is a media museum located in a former building of the historic Astoria Studios (now Kaufman Astoria Studios), in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens in New York City. The museum originally opened in 1988 as the Am ...

since its 1988 opening, but this very popular attraction was closed in 1999. The film was screened out of competition at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival.

Recognition

In 2009, ''Precious Images'' was selected for preservation in the United States

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation (library and archival science), preservation, each selected for its cultural, historical, and aestheti ...

by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

References

External links

''Precious Images'' essay by Dale Hudson and Patricia R. Zimmermann at National Film Registry
*
List of all films featured in ''Precious Images''Original 1986 version
an
1996 reissue
(latter officially posted by Workman on

Vimeo Vimeo ( ) is an American Online video platform, video hosting, sharing, and services provider founded in 2004 and headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices and operates on a ...

) *''Precious Images'' essay by Daniel Eagan In America's Film Legacy, 2009-2010: A Viewer's Guide To The 50 Landmark Movies Added To The National Film Registry In 2009–10, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2011, pages 178-17

{{Academy Award Best Short 1986 films American independent films American collage films 1986 short documentary films Live Action Short Film Academy Award winners Films directed by Chuck Workman United States National Film Registry films Compilation films 1986 independent films 1980s English-language films 1980s American films English-language documentary films English-language short films English-language independent films American short documentary films