One of the oldest films in the world, “Sneeze”, is a gift that keeps on giving. Shot in 1894 and about as long as a achoo, it shows a mustachioed man emitting a single sneeze, a scarf clasped in one hand. The film was directed by W.K.L. Dickson and sneezing delivered by Fred Ott. Working in Thomas Edison’s studio in New Jersey, they gave us the first celluloid sneeze, an open mouth expiration that was supposed to be humorous but which today seems disturbing. Cover your mouth! I screamed when I looked at it again.
“Sneeze” is just one of the many movies you can watch online for free thanks to the Library of Congress, which acquires deposits in part through the United States Copyright Office. The largest library in the world, it has an extraordinary online offer – more than 7,000 videos – which includes hundreds of old (and really old movies. With one click, you can watch the Buffalo Bill Wild West parade on Fifth Avenue in 1902; click again to laugh at Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse in a 1916 cartoon. And while the library is temporarily closed to the public, its virtual doors remain open. It remains one of my favorite places to get lost.
The Library of Congress was created in 1800 by the same act of Congress that moved the federal government to Washington, with a budget of $ 5,000 for books approved by John Adams. The library was originally intended for the sole use of Congress and its role has been debated during administrations and successive crises, including several catastrophic fires. By the time its first dedicated building opened in 1897, however, its status was settled: it was “the palace of the American people’s book,” as a librarian of Congress called it, a classification that has widened when he started adding movies.
You can taste this bonus on the Library of Congress website or via its more limited and organized website selections on YouTube, where load times seem faster. On each platform, movies are organized into playlists like the National Screening Room, a tote that includes everything from educational movies to slapstick comedies. Here’s where you can watch “Mabel and Fatty’s Wash Day” (1915), which was co-directed by one of its stars, Mabel Normand, or dive into “The River” by Pare Larentz (1938), a classic of Mississippi made for the Farm Security Administration. Here too you can find “The Cry of Jazz” (1959) by Edward O. Bland, a political scorcher on jazz who has a bad game, burning documentary footage and great music (by Sun Ra, among others) .
The aesthetic quality of the titles varies, but this is in line with the democratic mandate of the library. Not all films on deposit are copies of art – although the grandeur is abundant – but they nevertheless have cultural and historical value. Some are downright strange and wonderful, while others seem to be memories of a distant land. This is the case of “Television”, a curiosity from 1939 that opens with an audience seated in the dark in front of a small bright screen which suddenly grows, an austere encapsulation of the challenge of television for cinema. “Television now takes its place,” promises the narrator (threat!), “As a new art and American industry”.
Some online registry titles are in good shape, but many look great, and those that have been carefully renovated probably look better now than when they were first played in cinemas. Most are short, which is useful if you have trouble concentrating on anything for a very long time. Mervyn LeRoy 10 Minute Nugget “The House I Live In ”(1945) finds Frank Sinatra breaking a gang of peewee thugs chasing after a Jewish boy. Sinatra calls the Nazi bullies and teaches them to be good Americans. (Hollywood Ten, writer Albert Maltz was quickly blacklisted in Hollywood.) The piety of the film feels even more canned when seen next to “In the Street” (1948 ), a lyrical slice of New York life by James Agee, Helen Levitt and Janice Loeb.
Among the most beautiful films on the register’s reading list, the cartoon by Fleischer Studios “Popeye the sailor meets Sindbad the sailor” (1936), a magnificent example of the work produced by this competitor Disney. The story is simple – it’s the usual smackdown with bragging, jokes and a box of spinach – but the film is a Technicolor wonder with liquid animation, vibrant creatures and choreographed pieces with humor. It is also predictable antediluvian. “Bring me the woman,” said Sindbad with a leer to a giant purple bird, which tears Olive Oyl from Popeye’s ship. She gets some good licks, which is delicious, and gives advice at the edge of the ring (“Give her the punch twister!”). But the victory belongs to the Popeye fortified with spinach.
Among the features of the registry’s playlist, there are a pair of rarest classics from very different filmmakers. Written, directed and produced by Oscar Micheaux, “Within Our Gates” (1920) is a melodrama on black sovereignty and white racism that plays out as a direct rebuke to D.W. “The Birth of a Nation” by Griffith. In turn touching and seriously disturbing, “Gates” is a declaration of passionate independence – political, cinematographic, existential – from Micheaux, the first African-American filmmaker. Micheaux regained his voice despite Hollywood and became a legend. The same goes for Ida Lupino, whose tense and tense film noir “The Hitch-Hiker” (1953) is also available. The two films are essential holdings of the largest American library.