Home Movie Transcript
- That's my brother and me splashing around, in what must've seemed like an ocean inside that plastic pool. Years later, I grew up to be a folklorist. A folklorist is someone who studies the artistic expressions of mankind, folk songs, tales, customs, rituals and in our modern technological society, even photography. The home movie is a unique form of photography, and as such a unique folk art. The art comes into it in the act of selection. Why, for instance did my parents film that particular scene? I figured out that I spent close to 150,000 hours at home before I went to college. How many of them could have been spent playing in a pool? Clearly home movies are not a random sample of our past but an idealization based on how we choose to preserve, remember, and be remembered. From one perspective, home movies reflect the ideals of a particular family. To my parents it was their home, their kids, their puppies, their little yellow pool with the four horses on it. It was what was distinctive and what was memorable about their own family that they sought to preserve on that sunny afternoon. I watched hundreds of home movies and saw hundreds of water sprinklers and plastic pools. I began to realize that on another level home movies are an American tradition. And as such they tell us something about American values and ideas and that simple scene of youthful parents, happy children and a backyard swimming pool. We catch a glimpse of an American dream. In these scenes we have glimpsed what is of value to individual families and on another level, what is of value to America as a whole. But there is a third and universal level of values depicted in home movies. By attempting to preserve that which is most beautiful in his life, the home movie maker might be seen as partaking in what seems to be a universal desire to create a golden age. From Shangri-La to Eden, man has always needed visions of peace and harmony to guide him through the inevitable complexities of his present world. The home movie maker may be no more aware of the fact that he is filming a golden age than Adam and Eve were that they were living in paradise. Yet to an individual family, the world depicted in home movies might serve as their own golden age. And so we move from the way people record themselves to the way they remember themselves through their films.
- [Mrs. MacDonald] Yeah, you remember, you know, the good times and you forget the bad times and so forth. I think you remember the things that were good and happy, and this is what you want to keep, because there were bad times, I'm sure.
- [Interviewer] Mrs. MacDonald, the first person we interviewed in our effort to learn how people react to their home movies had written to us that she had 10 reels of film taken by her father in the pre-Depression days. We put together a clip of some of our favorite scenes and showed it at her home in Arlington. She reminisced about her childhood as she watched the films.
- [Mrs. MacDonald] Yeah, this is what this is. Yeah, the new cars.
- [Interviewer] Did your father use to have a car like that? Oh yes, yeah, we had a new one, when each new model would come out we would have a fancy new car. This is down at Guilford battleground. No, no, no, this one is definitely North Carolina, one of the last little coal-driven engines I guess that they were going to retire. And so they ran it through one day to have everybody see it and big crowds went down, saw the little engine. I love the hair ribbons. We all had the great big hair ribbons and the hair. We dressed, you know, everybody always dressed up. You didn't have any casual clothes. You just dressed up all the time, or I guess I had little school dresses but whenever you went out, you got all dressed up, picnics and everyone had their best clothes on. I really do remember this. I remember this other than just seeing the movies. That was so exciting. Oh yes, yes. This is at the high school gymnasium. I guess that's where they figured the most people could come. And the mayor is walking along there. Yes, I think it was within the year, after he flew across the ocean he made this tour all around the country. He stopped at all the towns or not all of them, but many. It's hard to believe when you see this plane that it actually got across the ocean.
- [Interviewer] So is he sort of a hero? Oh yes, yes. I was going to marry him. Oh, here's all the family on a picnic.
- [Interviewer] So, the whole family sticks together?
- [Mrs. MacDonald] Yes, we all would take two or three cars and go on a picnic up into the mountain somewhere and everyone would take their own food. And you see, everybody's all dressed up. Those were the days when we had the money to do all sorts of things.
- [Interviewer] Did the Depression change your life?
- [Mrs. MacDonald] Oh yes, I think so, yeah. I wasn't aware that it was as bad as it was. I knew that we just didn't have a whole lot of money to buy new clothes and we got rid of the camera and the projector too. So that was the end of the movie.
- [Interviewer] You never bought a camera?
- [Mrs. MacDonald] No, no. Even when he died, he was just getting out of the depths of the Depression. I don't remember seeing them until way in the forties. When all of a sudden they said "Here are your daddy's films." And then we had to round up a projector, because this is why we couldn't see him, no one had a projector. So I rented a projector from the camera shop and showed them. I think it was about, oh, it must've been 1948 or 49 before I saw them, you know, since I was little.
- [Interviewer] Well that kind of must have reminded you, you know, it must have been a while since your father died ten years before that.
- [Mrs. MacDonald] Yeah, yeah. And also it bothered me very much and my mother wouldn't look at them. So, you know, she in fact they bothered her to look at them.
- [Interviewer] Really?
- [Mrs. MacDonald] Yeah, she doesn't... It reminds you of good times and then they ended, so I guess, you know, it makes her sort of sad.
- [Interviewer] The second family we visited where the Chanceys of Philadelphia. The Chanceys had not watch their home movies in 20 years, and they made our visit a group occasion. Present that evening were not only their children and some close friends, but also Mr. Chancey's father, now 86 years old For this clip we selected some of the highlights of our evening with them. The 1936 Bar Mitzvah, the 1947 graduation and the 1950 honeymoon.
- [Female viewer] His face is priceless!
- [Older Woman] Ellen hasn't changed at all.
- [Mr. Chancey] Is that Hannah?
- [Female viewer] That's your Hannah. And that's you, handsome.
- [Older woman] He hasn't changed much, I'll tell you.
- [Mr. Chancey] You can notice the difference, like, the kids aren't dancing.
- [Interviewer] Mr Chancey, how did you learn to dance like that?
- [Mr. Chancey's daughter] Papa, papa, pop, how did you learn how to dance like that?
- [Female viewer] Oh, look at him.
- [Mr. Chancey's Daughter] Mom and dad, you look like two little kids.
- [Mrs. Chancey] Honey in this video you're older than I am. I was 19 there. These are really gorgeous, it's a shame.
- [Mr. Chancey] Oh that was on our honeymoon, down in Florida.
- [Mr. Chancey's Daughter] Mom you always knew how to be chill like that.
- [Mrs. Chancey] It's 25 years next week. It's our 25th anniversary next week. Oh come on now. I didn't like my behavior on my honeymoon. I did not. I really don't approve of that. If you're preserving these for posterity... That was terrible of me.
- [Mr. Chancey] You don't remember, you had ice in your hand.
- [Mrs. Chancey] You're right. Yes I did. That's exactly what it was. And you were trying to put it down my bathing suit and I was...
- [Mr. Johns] See, we were married as I say, I was 30 years old and in that picture my wife was 28. And of course this church is where we grew up.
- [Interviewer] Almost the same time as the Chanceys were on their honeymoon, the Johns of Silver Springs were starting a family. Since their daughter is getting married, this August, their films cover a generation. Mr. Johns told us that the Christmas scenes and birthdays were the most precious for him. And his wife and daughter shared with us some of their thoughts on their home movies.
- [Mrs. Johns] I'm awfully glad we have them. Truly, I think I told you before, that, if the house ever caught on fire the first thing I'd do would be to come down, grab the films and get out because to me they're the most precious part.
- [Interviewer] Why do you think that?
- [Mrs. Johns] Why? Because when you look at the film it brings back all the feelings you had when children were growing up and you just relive, you know, a very happy time. It just makes me aware of how fast time goes. You know, they were marvelous, marvelous times. I just loved it. And I'm glad we have this memory and really that they can relive it too, because I think it makes their childhood much sharper for having films that they can, you know, bring back things that have happened to them.
- [Interviewer] Do you think they watch it?
- [Mrs. Johns] Oh they love watching it. They truly do. And they, say they remember, now you wonder sometimes when you see them at maybe three years old or something, and they'll say yes, I remember that and notice all the Band-Aids on my legs, and you always used to put colored Band-Aids on my legs and that kind of thing. Madeline will remark about that. And she'd say that Pete now, and she had talked about he at the same time growing up, he used to have these colored Band-Aids. I don't know that they even make them anymore.
- [Mr. Johns] Do you remember the swing?
- [Mrs. MacDonald] I love Madeline's third birthday. That to me is precious. Oh, I don't know I think I just love them all, but she very strongly remembers those colored Band-Aids.
- [Interviewer] I think you said it was her first memory?
- [Mrs. Johns] It very possibly could be. But I don't know that she would remember it, unless it was reinforced by seeing it on film.
- [Interviewer] You think that happens?
- [Mrs. Johns] I do, I truly do, I think it kind of reinforces...
- [Interviewer] But sometimes you don't remember if you're actually remembering a thing or remembering just because--
- [Mrs. Johns] Because you saw it. That's it. But I think that they will appreciate these films even more as they get older. I mean as they themselves have children and they will be able to show their children pictures of their childhood I would think that would be very beneficial.
- [Interviewer] Well are you glad that all the arrangements made to take pictures of the wedding?
- [Madeline] Oh yes I'm really pleased. We've got all of our film bought, six months in advance. I don't know, I guess when kids are growing up, especially, you just never want to lose track of that. And you know your kids change from day to day, I know that's how I feel about mine, and you know, God, you can't replace it, you just can't replace how kids looked ten years ago.
- [Mr. Johns] Yet it doesn't seem that long, on film you know, it just seems like yesterday, last week, last month, last year. And it doesn't, to think with Madeline 21 years now, almost, and Walter 19 and a half, it just doesn't really seem that long ago.
- In the Bible we are never told whether Adam and Eve were able to look back on the Garden as they lived out their days. Perhaps they would not allow each other to speak or think of it again. Or perhaps they did reminisce about it. The families we interviewed were more than happy to reminisce about the old days. Watching their home movies brought them more joy than sorrow. Perhaps it was because all of them seemed happy as they were, happy enough to look back without remorse. On the other hand Mrs. MacDonald spoke of her mother, who would not watch her home movies, after her husband had died. Of course, whatever sorrow home movies may bring, they bring only for the family that took them. For the neighbors who have watched the films as we have, it may often seem that they're meeting lords and ladies who are simply waving to us from a dream of happiness.
