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Re: Movie Madness!!!



As past Director of the Archives & Special Collections on Women in Medicine
at the former "Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania": the world's first
med school for women (in Philadelphia) I approached a very, pop tv show.
And one would think that for all its schlockosity, the producers of DR
QUINN: MEDICINE WOMAN would've valued the huge repository of fascinating
19th c. social & medical issues.  NOT.  Our repeated attempts at mutual
involvement were barely acknowledged.  They only wanted us to send them
"cool stories" about lady docs on the frontier -- i.e., make the archives
staff do the research and treatment, but don't give 'em a credit line let
alone a financial reimbursement.  As the show took off and more bizarrely
expressed itself, we quietly withdrew our marriage proposal and let it run
amok without our input.

My most recent brush with Hollywood was working at the Philly seaport museum
when Oprah's "Beloved" came to town.  A young architect came and wanted to
design an flatboat for the river sequence.  In two hours she wanted to learn
about hydrostatic pressure, bouyancy and stability of floating bodies, etc.
I gave her plans, textbooks, and two seasoned volunteers (both reknown naval
architects).  She was "out of her depth" and seemed to want the naval
architects to draw up the plans!  Well, ultimately nobody drowned, but the
lesson is the same.  Archives means research and study and many filmfolk
just want the archivist to do the work and then be given the usable results.
In this sense I see moviemakers more like SOME journalists, rather than
genealogists; both are impatient, with impossible deadlines and more willing
use the archivist's voice (without quotes) or use the archivist's research
(without citations) than their own labor.

Resentful, but still star-struck!
Michael
f. michael Angelo
library director
independence seaport museum
211 s. columbus blvd.
philadelphia, pa  19106
<mangel0@indsm.org>



-----Original Message-----
From: Archives & Archivists [mailto:ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU]On
Behalf Of Scott, Kim A.
Sent: Friday, June 30, 2000 10:34 AM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: Movie Madness!!!


Man, oh man!  This list is alive and well for off topic, Friday (or in this
case Thursday) wierdness threads, and I dig it!  I cannot imagine such
chattering on one of the ALA listservs...but then, I have never tuned in to
them.  Moderators? ugh...they would spoil this thing forever...

One thing on the movie thread that struck a distant chord of relevance was
Roy's posting on movie people as archive customers.  How many of  you have
had Hollywood types in your reading rooms?  How do they stack up in
comparison to Genealogists?  Are they almost exclusively interested in your
photographs, or do they actually look at documents too?  My own experience
with them has been very limited, and in each case all they wanted to look at
were photographs.  Once they saw how dismally we had them arranged, and how
much time it would take to peruse them, they fell back on good old Hollywood
imagination for costume and set design...

Kim (wants to star in the film version of Mornings on Horseback) Scott

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