Documents from WVLC Film Services 1978-1998
One of the first major newspaper stories on my work in WV - Charleston Sunday Gazette, June 27, 1982 standing in front of the Cultural Center
WVLC Film Services existed as a division of The WV Library Commission from 1976-98. Founded by librarian Steve Christo, federal funds were used to create the last 16 mm film library in the world. I came to WV in September 1978 and was director until 1998 when the department was folded into Library Services. I ran across these pictures and documents recently, and thought they were were posting for people to see.
Here is one of my first film columns that I wrote for Mike Pauley’s Appalachian Intelligencer street mag. It must have been written after Dec. 1, 1979 since I am writing about the film about the Lilly Brothers, “True Facts…in a Country Song.” Note my list of films by filmmaker Les Blank. I wrote for AI for a year or two, then WV Arts News.
Dave Martin, graphic designer for WVLC and now longtime webmaster for the WV Legislature, designed many posters at WVLC including this one promoting the WVLC film collection. Published in national magazine American Libraries Sept. 1983
WVLC Film Services had lots and lots of visitors. One graduate media course was even taught during lunch hour in our screening room and thousands of touring school children saw clips of movies including “Steamboat Willie,” the first Mickey Mouse movie. Here are two visitors from an African country who came to Charleston to study our legislature. My friend Greg Gray, clerk of the House, brought many guests over. This is one of the few pictures of the visitors from all over the world.
Barton Weiss, who returned to WV for the first time since he left to attend the 25th anniversary of the WV Filmmakers Guild which he co-founded, is shown teaching at West Virginia State College in Institute. Weiss is a well-known video programmer, founding the Dallas Video Festival.
Film Services always purchased any and all 16 mm films about WV and Appalachia. We also bought many of the first copies of films including many important documentaries Here is a letter from Seymour Wishman, president of First Run Features, who sold us the very first copy of a landmark film that was part of a series called “28 Up.”
This is a letter I wrote to Betty Carver, now director of the WV Tourism Dept., about Lawrence Kasdan making a visit to WV. Kasdan did eventually visit, and WVPBS made a film of it as part of Rachel Worby’s Arts & Letters Series at the Governor’s Mansion. I did finally get to shake Kasdan’s hand after speaking to him on the phone many times. He had to chance his visit in 1981 because he suddenly had to travel to Paris to open up the first film he directed, “Body Heat.”
Myles Horton, cofounder of the Highlander Center in Tennessee with Don West and others, wrote me this letter in 1984 after watching the new indie feature “Northern Lights.” WVLC purchased, as always, the first 16 mm copy, presenting the world library premiere at a WVLA conference in Morgantown. There is a recently reissued film about Horton called ” You Got to Move.”
Nancy Adams, arts editor for the Charleston Gazette, wrote a story in 1986 about Film Services, stating that we had failed to move into the world of VHS. Fred Glazer, director of WVLC, had told me that we were “not going to purchase individual viewing experiences.” This story caused some discussion around WV libraryland.
Here is a two-page letter from one of the world’s greatest documentary f ilmmakers, Pare Lorentz, born in Clarksburg and raised in Buckhannon. He donated special 16 mm copies of two of his films, “The River” and “The Plow that Broke the Plains” to Film Services. I screened them plus another one of his films, “Nuremberg Trails” as part of the June 20th, 1982 50th Anniversary Celebration of the State Capitol. I did not meet Lorentz at this time but did eat with him once at the Plaza Hotel. I also met him when he was flown by Gov. Caperton and Culture Commissioner to Charleston in 1990. He died in 1992. The International Documentary Association gives out the Pare Lorentz Award for socially activist documentaries each year. Note his comment on Huey Long. He was hired by FDR to make a film after he wrote a book about FDR. At the time he was a NYC music and film critic and had never made a film. The media room at the FDR Library is named in his honor.
Photo I took of Lorentz at Plaza Hotel in NYC. I did a cable TV show with Bill Drennen about his life and work as part of my WVLC cable series, “Film Festival.” Drennen wrote the entry on Lorentz for the WV Encyclopedia.
