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Mr. SiT.vENs. It occurred to mo in thinking? about this hearing that this flammable material we are talking al>out, which causes great grief and risk to our firefighters, is material that requires continual custody and care by several of our agencies.
I think back to one of the more exciting events of last year in Washington, which was the National Gallery exhibition of the artifacts and remnants of the tomb of King Tut of Egypt from some 5,000 years ago. What a remarkable window on another civilization that relatively small group of artifacts was.
I think of our own civilization, which has invented this absolutely remarkable device for recording, dramatizing, and illuminating our life and our history.
The King Tut materials have lasted over 5,000 years and here we are struggling, somewhat helplessly, it would seem, in an effort to preserve the record and the culture of our own century.
We are a country with such great resources, technologically and financially, and yet we permit this to happen.
The American Film Institute, w^hich I represent here today, has, since its founding 12 years ago, been concerned with the preservation of what has been recorded on motion picture film and on television tape.
It has been a somewhat frustrating struggle because it is very hard to give strong and active attention to the importance of it.
I think the case was made very well this morning by the brief showing of excerpts from our history as recorded on newsreel film. I think these scenes and Miss Gish's presence, as an artist whose career has spanned this century, are two of the most indelible arguments for the need to preserve this material.
The fact that it is explosive and that it can be compared with dynamite does not argue that we should treat it like waste from the Three Mile Island.
We are talking about what is dangerous material, but it is material that is subject to a very simple solution — that we act as sensible citizens to preserve it.
This is essentially a financial problem.
You will hear testimony from people from the agencies who have this responsibility and who have done, in mv view, remarkable work over the years to safeguard and transfer to permanent stock the newsreel material and, in the en se of the Library of Congress, w'hat we might call the cultural material, or the artistic material, which comprises much of motion picture films.
As long as I have been alert to the situation, I have heard people advocate rather eloquently the need to deal with it.
It seems the only time it really comes to our consciousness in a serious wav is when we have a fire or a catastrophe.
Chief Estepp made an excellent argument for the need to deal with this matter as it relates to human life and safety.
I think Miss Gish and I are here to advocate that it is not simply a safety matter, ratlier, as the chainnan suggested a few moments agf that the simple, direct, and only obvious solution is to appropriate funds so that these materials can be preserved once and for all .
There is a fixed amount of nitrate film that exists in the United States. It is a task that can be undertaken and over a period of years