Archive/found footage in movies

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I like the archive footage in Sam Fuller's "Shock Corridor". Any other good examples of this technique?

― adaml (adaml), Monday, 29 September 2003 00:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I have yet to aquire a copy of said film. Could you please describe the technique?

― Anthony (Anthony F), Monday, 29 September 2003 04:36 (twenty-two years ago)

The movie uses newsreel footage during a crazed war veteran's recollection of his experience. Shock Corridor itself is shot in black and white, but the footage is all in color. Trying to think of other examples of films where fictitious drama is intercut with actual footage.

― adaml (adaml), Monday, 29 September 2003 04:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Also interesting was the use of Poor Cow in Steven Soderbergh's The Limey. Late '60s Ken Loach film starring Terence Stamp, used as "wistful memory" footage for Stamp's character.

― Gear! (Gear!), Monday, 29 September 2003 04:52 (twenty-two years ago)

that scene in Irma Vep

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 29 September 2003 06:05 (twenty-two years ago)

JFK

― Anthony (Anthony F), Monday, 29 September 2003 18:39 (twenty-two years ago)

And Schindler's List, if you count the footage of the actual survivors at the end of the movie.

― Anthony (Anthony F), Monday, 29 September 2003 18:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Truffaut was a great user of this technique, IIRC.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 30 September 2003 04:03 (twenty-two years ago)

does it count as archive/found footage if he shot it?

― s1utsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 14:39 (twenty-two years ago)

I was thinking of the WWI stuff at the beginning of The Green Room, most of which he certainly did not shoot.

Philip Kaufman (or should I say Walter Murch) did a wonderful job editing together real archive footage of the Prague Spring revolts with the re-enactment footage in The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 30 September 2003 18:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Natural Born Killers to thread.

― David Steans, Wednesday, 1 October 2003 12:52 (twenty-two years ago)

no, stay away natural born killers!

― s1utsky (slutsky), Wednesday, 1 October 2003 21:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Surely it's not as bad as all that...

― David Steans, Thursday, 2 October 2003 12:02 (twenty-two years ago)

It isn't. Some people just like to bash Oliver Stone. It's the "in" thing.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Thursday, 2 October 2003 12:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Have you seen the deleted scenes on the DVD? The courtroom, jesus. Really horrible and powerful. I can see why Stone left it out.

― David Steans, Thursday, 2 October 2003 14:48 (twenty-two years ago)

you're crazy, I love Oliver Stone, I just don't like that movie! I resent that!

― s1utsky (slutsky), Friday, 3 October 2003 04:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Order in the court! Order in the court!

― Girolamo Savonarola, Friday, 3 October 2003 11:20 (twenty-two years ago)

YOU'RE out of order!

― s1utsky (slutsky), Friday, 3 October 2003 14:40 (twenty-two years ago)

The whole friggin system's out of order!

― Girolamo Savonarola, Friday, 3 October 2003 15:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Truffaut was a great user of this technique, IIRC.

Ha, you mean like the WW1 montage in Jules and Jim? I don't know where else he's used the technique, but in that movie it was totally generic: "And then world war one happened! See!?"

― Dan I., Sunday, 5 October 2003 23:08 (twenty-two years ago)

See my above reference to Truffaut's The Green Room. Also WWI footage, but still...

Not technically within the definition, but practically the whole of Love on the Run revolves around the use of "archive" Doinel.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 6 October 2003 00:36 (twenty-two years ago)

There is a strange and interesting small budget film called "Wax- Or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees" that is mostly made from archieve footage.

― earlnash, Monday, 6 October 2003 13:33 (twenty-two years ago)

two months pass...

"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" pops into my head, although it's not any special use of found footage. Also "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" as a very extreme version of "archival footage"

Ok, i've got it-- Bill Morrison's "Decasia". Beautiful film love song to the medium itself and it's own decay and death over time through the erosion of emulsion.

Then of course, documentaries a plenty--"Atomic Cafe" is a perfect example--the "duck-and-cover" turtle song will never leave my head...

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Friday, 12 December 2003 20:12 (twenty-two years ago)

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