ABSTRACT
Three different views on nitrate material are apparent during the period under investigation: the nitrate copy was seen as a functional item, as a perishable, fragile object, or as a unique print. These varying attitudes not only directly determined how film museums and institutions coped with the active and passive preservation of the nitrate films in their archives, but were also closely related to the positions film historians adopted towards this material and the value they attached to ‘original prints’. Hence, the most interesting question is how ideas about the value of this material as a historical source were synchronised with contemporary attitudes towards nitrate in film museum practice.
