The Fragile Emulsion Author(s): JON GARTENBERG Source: The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, Vol. 2, No. 2 (FALL 2002), pp. 142-153 Published by: University of Minnesota Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41167089 . Accessed: 31/07/2014 15:46 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. University of Minnesota Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 142.103.160.110 on Thu, 31 Jul 2014 15:46:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ИН!142 dispositionfor those experimentalfilmmakers TheFragile Emulsion afflictedwith AIDS, theircinematic legacies JON GARTENBERG are the most endangered. Given the ever- shrinkingvenues supportingthe showingof One of the mostvital and richlytextured art these works,the decrease in exhibitionde- formsthreatened with extinction centers around mand has createda tendencytoward neglect. the historyof avant-garde filmmaking.1 Experi- Thetitle of this article, "The FragileEmul- mentalfilmmakers work in relativeisolation, sion," aptlyunderscores the status of Ameri- creatingtheir films with the hand of an artist, can experimentalfilms and theirmakers both ratherthan as productsfor consumption by a in the cinematographicculture as well as in mass audience.The style of the films frequently filmarchives.