ORAL COMPREHENSION

MAC KENZIE PART 1

found old chest most extraordinary collection of 5mm films tins rusty strange names made
between the turn of the century and late 1920s by a new zealander : coleen mac kenzie jonathon morris: archivist gets lots of family parades, babies on lawns, (interesting ex:dress
fashion)
on the other hand, CMK's collection is unique
director costa botes: call from Peter Jackson did i know anything about CMK not much not
unknown to me little info no films attributes to him
HW reels ......... quite badly within 5 years it would have disappeared for ever
CB imagine discovering citizen kane : dead exciting and intriguing
Harvey Weinstein: miramax film film maker is gonna rank with the greatest (...W griffith) even
better !
Leonard Maltin (historian) : just a name i had read in books no impact until this great discovery:
flabbergasted
Harvey Weinstein: greatest film discovery of last 50 years
MAC KENZIE PART 2
nz was growing in to a prosperous dominion even the poorest had some leisure time most spent
it at the pitures 1905: broke joined MCK to form the MCK borthers picture cy filming parades
and wedding , amassed a small fortune but coleen's dreams were more ambitious 84 mn the warrior season = wolrd first feature length
film + revolutionary technical reolution: by 1908 had perfected a way to record synchorizzed sound
with pictures
historian : conventional film history ? 1927 + only sound of bacon frying ! Had found a way to ?
(gunfire horses: recorded it all and all came through most of all had dialogues
just forgot one thing - all his subjects talking were chinese didn't think of making subtitles : fatal
flaw
audience walked out amused for a few minutes then lost interested disilusioned and financially
crippled MCK abandoned his recording experiments forever
MAC KENZIE PART 3
6 months ago we wrote to every spanish requesting footage from spanish war credited to
cameraman MCK
in last 6 months nothing until this morning
roll of film was confiscated by the fishers 1937 - sitting in archive for 60 years credited to a man
named CMCK
when we screened the film we couldnt believe what we were looking at
battle of Malaga coleen behind republican troops as charge Franco's fascists oblivious to
personal danger soldier falls in front of him puts camera down, runs to help, stumbles, both men
are killed