RECOVERED TREASURES

In the film world, "orphan films" are those that have been abandoned by big Hollywood studios. Early silent works, avant-garde experiments, documentaries and even the first cartoons have been left to the care of film archives throughout the world, without whom these historical documents would be lost. But still, they are seldom seen.

Now, however, the National Film Preservation Foundation has endeavored to make these landmarks available to the public in a four-DVD box set titled Treasures from American Film Archives: 50 Preserved Films.

Declared by The New York Times to be "the best DVD set of the year," the 11-hour collection traces film history from its origins in the late 1800s through independent films of the 1980s. Blacksmithing Scene, at about a minute long, debuted in 1893 and was the first film shown publicly in the United States. Another 19th-century short is Luis Martinetti, Contortionist (1894), representative of a group of films from that time that focused on the human body engaged in gymnastics or dance. The turn of the century saw the introduction of slightly longer features, like Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy (1909). This piece tells the humorous tale of a smoker teased by a miniature girl and was the first film to earn a mention in a scientific magazine for its innovative special effects.

The set also includes some of the earliest color films, like The Toll of the Sea (1922), which was done in two-strip Technicolor using just the red and green color spectra. This piece retells the story of Madame Butterfly in China and stars the famous actress Anna May Wong.

The project's curator, Scott Simmon '72, M.A. '75, Ph.D. '79, stresses the importance of preserving these works as records of American culture. Simmon is a visiting associate professor of English at UC Davis, where he teaches film history. His praise of the DVD project stems from the fact that "there's absolutely nothing previously like it." Most of the films in Treasures have never been publicly available, and those that have been were of poor quality. The uniqueness of the collection earned the set the National Society of Film Critics' 2000 Film Heritage Award, their only award given for older films.

Some of the most historically fascinating pieces in the set are those from the World War II era. Tevye (1939), filmed entirely in Yiddish, deals with the cultural tension of the time by telling the Fiddler on the Roof story in 19th-century Ukraine and focusing on the relationship between a young Jewish girl and a Christian boy.

The most recent work in the set is 1985's Battery Film, made by two New York filmmakers who died of AIDS shortly after the film's release. Simmon emphasizes the importance of this film as representative of a generation of filmmakers whose families would not be able to afford the preservation of their films without archives and projects like Treasures.

Simmon collaborated with 18 archives, museums and libraries across the country, including the Pacific Film Archive at UC Berkeley and the UCLA Film and Television Archive, to determine the titles to include in the set. With support from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Pew Charitable Trusts, Simmon then assumed the painstaking task of transferring the preserved film prints onto digital video for the DVD format.

Treasures is accompanied by special features such as on-screen text explaining the background of each film, music composed exclusively for the project by pianist Martin Marks and descriptions of the archives themselves narrated by Laurence Fishburne. A 150-page book, written by Simmon, completes the set.

For a complete list of the contents of Treasures or more information on the project, visit the National Film Preservation Foundation's Web site at www.filmpreservation.org.

NEW HOG HEAVEN

The historic Hog Barn

Change is, well, in the air. The Hog Barn can no longer lay claim to being the oldest building on campus still used for its original purpose. Pig-related teaching and research activities moved this November from the historic old wooden structure in the center of campus to a sleek new $2.4 million facility out near the campus airport.

Tucked between the Crocker Nuclear Lab and Academic Surge, the old hog barn had been the subject of debate for years. Built in 1913, the two-story barn was to some people a quaint reminder of the campus's agricultural roots. To others, particularly residents of downwind buildings, it was simply an odoriferous nuisance.

Relocating the swine facility became imperative two years ago when construction of Engineering 3 just northwest of the hog barn required removal of several outdoor pigpens. A home for a new swine facility was found on the west side of Hopkins Road, just north of the beef cattle feed lot.

Approximately 1,100 pigs are raised at the hog barn each year for teaching and research purposes. The barn is a crucial research facility for animal science faculty members like Trish Berger, who studies the molecular basis of fertilization in pigs, and Jim Murray, who is doing research on gene transfer in pigs.

Furthermore, some 600 students, many of them undergraduate animal science majors, take courses that make use of the facility. Veterinary students also train at the barn, learning to provide medical care for pigs.

Some students even go on to pursue careers that involve pigs—as did Max Rothschild '74, a UC Davis alum and now professor at Iowa State University. During the early 1970s, Rothschild recalls he was a longhaired "city kid" from Southern California who came across the hog barn as he walked to chemistry class. Intrigued by the pigs, he signed up for the Little "I" livestock show and soon found himself showing a pig named Gwen.

As a freshman, Rothschild also worked on a research project with the late animal science professor Hubert Heitman, who did extensive research on the nutrition of pigs. Rothschild's job was to observe how long it took for individual piglets to find a particular teat on the sow.

"I learned my first lesson in data collection," recalled Rothschild ruefully. "I left my lab book on the fence post and the sow ate it."

Rothschild went on to work at the hog barn—a job that included cleaning the pens with a fire hose every month.

Despite the smell and the lost lab book, he has fond memories of his hog-barn years.

"I learned a lot about pigs working at the swine barn and it probably really shaped my career," he said.

Today, Rothschild is coordinator of the national Swine Genome Mapping Project, focused on mapping the entire genome of the pig and identifying genes that are responsible for economically important traits such as growth, reproduction and meat quality.

And Rothschild's story is not unusual, according to Gary Anderson, chair of the animal science department.

"This really is the end of an era, and for many of us it's a little sad," said Anderson of the closure of the old barn. "But the new swine facility with its modern equipment offers tremendous opportunities for faculty, students and staff."

The new facility includes a long, covered outdoor pen building and an enclosed barn building. The stainless-steel pens all have concrete floors with alleys that will be automatically flushed with water each day to remove waste.

The new barn also includes a classroom, laboratory, office, break room, and storage and work areas, plus two apartments for the student residents who feed and care for the pigs.

The old barn, built 87 years ago, will be preserved, although a new use for it has not yet been determined. But potential new residents can rest assured, said swine facility manager Kent Parker, that the infamous odor will not linger.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'

When State Librarian Kevin Starr put the University of California Press' latest anthology into the hands of Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg, he gave California one more reason to celebrate in its sesquicentennial year: a collection of the state's literary history.

In January, more than 300 people gathered in the State Capitol's California Room to honor UC Davis English professor Jack Hicks and three California writers for their recently published anthology, The Literature of California: Writings from the Golden State, Volume I. Standing in front of an ornate mural titled The Naming of California, Assemblyman Joe Simitian commended the four editors for "a book that captures the diversity of California for future generations."

Hicks, who has been teaching the course "The Literature of California" since the 1970s, saw the need for a book that would "tell multiple stories about the state—there are many Californias" and represent "the diversity of the literary culture." In 1996, he began discussing the possibilities of an anthology with California writers Maxine Hong Kingston, James D. Houston and Al Young. "We felt that we could, given our individual interests and experiences, do a very rich and inclusive book of California literature," Hicks said. By 1997, the book had been contracted, and the real work began.

The first challenge the editors faced was defining exactly what makes a California writer. The editors agreed, Hicks said, that being born in California would not be a prerequisite. Instead, they included writers who "in a body of work illuminate or vivify an aspect of California literature, culture or history."

Jade Snow Wong

The anthology, which covers California literature from its Native American beginnings to 1945, includes such literary staples as Mark Twain, Jack London and Mary Austin as well as many lesser-known authors such as Jade Snow Wong, Sarah Winnemucca and Carlos Bulosan. The literary subjects—as diverse as the writers—range from Native American creation myths and tales of the Gold Rush to the Hollywood scene and urban life in California's megacities. As Hicks put it, these are only some of the ingredients in California's "literary stew."

Compiling 633 pages of California writing required the support and assistance of many on the UC Davis campus, including students. Each quarter, one graduate student research assistant and two undergraduate interns assisted with Web research and with the daunting task of electronically scanning the various texts included in the book. All along the way, student responses and opinions had a direct impact on editorial decisions and helped shape the anthology, Hicks said, "because students are a major part of the reading public we want to engage."

Hicks dreamed of an anthology that would provide the reader with "a rich sense of the literary history of the state." The unprecedented celebration of the book at the State Capitol suggests that this was a California dream come true. When asked how it felt to have the book recognized in that fashion, Hicks replied, "This was on a scale that we really hadn't imagined—it was very gratifying."

Hicks, Kingston, Houston and Young have already begun work on a second volume, which will include writings from World War II to the present. It is scheduled for publication in 2002 or 2003.