FILMS (STATUTORY DEPOSIT) (Hansard, 4 February 1969)

§ Dr. David Kerr (Wandsworth, Central)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the deposit of certain copies of moving pictures in the National Film Archive of the British Film Institute. I hope that I shall have the sympathy of the House, after this rather long wait, if I am more likely to give a sigh of relief than make a sparkling speech.

The Bill would endow the British Film Institute with a statutory power to acquire for deposit in the National Film Archive any film selected as suitable for that purpose. The growth of interest in the film as a medium of artistic expression as well as a document of social and historical importance has been one of the most remarkable features of the artistic world in recent years, and it has done something, though not nearly enough, to rescue the film from the commercial and aesthetic depression of the post-war years.

The film is essentially a popular art form, perhaps the most popular. The British Film Institute, with its National Film Archive, has played an integral part in promoting the film as an art form, by studying methods of storage and by introducing new scientific and technological methods of preserving film. It has a national and international reputation which, unfortunately, is not paralleled by a public appreciation of its work, despite the fact that it costs the taxpayer about £90,000 a year.

The aim of the Archive was stated in 1935, when it was established; it was to be responsible for film records and to maintain a national repository of film. The aim was redefined more broadly, and more recently, as being to maintain and develop a permanent national collection of moving pictures from all sources shown in Great Britain of lasting value to the study of film art and its development and as an historical record of every aspect of contemporary life and behaviour.

Unfortunately, the Archive is frustrated in this work and in its aims by its failure to acquire the films which are selected. Only one feature film in five shown in this country is thought suitable 239 for deposit in the Archive, yet the records over the past 10 years show that of about 1,000 feature films which were selected for deposit, only 286 have been acquired: from the United Kingdom, 126 out of 237; from the United States 110 out of 360; and of Continental and other films which come to this country because they are, broadly speaking, of high quality, only 50 out of 401 have been acquired for the Archive.

Nearly all the films which are deposited at present are donated by the film industry. I must speak plainly here: if all the film industry were as good, as far-seeing and as generous as the best, there would be no need for me to be speaking today. But of the 286 films which have been received, thanks to the generosity of a section of the industry, a large proportion are old used prints no longer suitable for commercial exhibition. The Archive faces problems of maintenance and examination, and of maintaining a bureaucracy for cataloguing and retrieval. The deposition of new films of mint quality would relieve the Archive of much of this burden.

The Bill would give the British Film Institute the right to require for the Archive any film selected from among those which have received public exhibition. The selected films would include not only films ordinarily so called but television material as well. Further, it would be an important principle that the British Film Institute itself would undertake to pay the cost of preparing the copies for deposit.

I stress that the Bill, if it becomes law, will in no way intrude upon the copyright of owners of the films nor in any way infringe the possibilities of commercial exploitation. There would be no difference from the arrangements which now apply to the deposit of film on a voluntary basis. Second, the cost of preparing the prints would fall in the first instance on the British Film Institute. It would not fall on the Government or on the taxpayer.

I must in fairness quote from what the Estimates Committee said in its recently published Report reviewing the work of the British Film Institute. It said: Your Committee would not consider the introduction of a payment for the right to 240 acquire a single archive copy an appropriate solution to the problem. and it added: At present your Committee could not recommend the allocation of part of the existing scarce resources to this task, though in improved economic conditions they would welcome reconsideration of the question. I have quoted those words in fairness to the House. I wish to make plain that the British Film Institute recognises the difficulty which my Bill might impose for a time on the process of archiving. However, I emphasise that there are difficulties already, and it is not envisaged that the passage of the Bill would do anything to increase them. Moreover, the actual cost of archiving on a 100 per cent. selected basis—that is, if we received all the films selected, not if we took all films which were shown—has been estimated at its maximum to be £150,000 a year, slightly more than 1 per cent. of our national expenditure on all gallery and museum activities—not, I suggest, even if it were to fall wholly on the Government, an entirely disproportionate amount.

The industry has expressed fears that the cost might be made to fall on its side, through, perhaps, the National Film Finance Corporation or the Eady Fund. This is not the intention. There are alternative sources open to the Institute upon which it could call. Second, even to maintain the present level of deposit would mean a cost not of £150,000 but of £20,000 a year.

In the long run, it would still be open to the Institute not to select any films for archiving if it found that it had not the necessary resources, and there is, as I say, the possibility of deriving financial support for this important purpose, which has a commercial significance, from such sources as television and even on a voluntary basis from the industry itself.

The Bill would not solve all the problems facing the Archive, but it would begin to solve one of the most pressing which faces the Archive and the nation as a whole. I hope that the passage of the Bill and the debates which, I trust, will take place on it will encourage a more positive attitude by the film industry and by television. In this respect, I am much encouraged by the failure of the industry to express any opposition to the terms of the Bill as I have brought it 241 to the House. We need to serve not merely the film-going public but tele-viewers too, and, above all, we must have in mind the need to serve the social historian 50 years hence.