I've always thought of my films as a kind of private history, a record of things that interested me, music, people, events, sometimes politics. They allowed me to watch like a cat, and not have to be a reporter. What made it risky was not explaining anything. When I got rid of the script and the narration in the early films, and went out hunting for films with a camera they were seen as sort of dicey and unorthodox and unfortunately for us, unsaleable, at least to TV. That was what got us into theaters. I really welcome the existence of the National Film Registry and Daniel Eagan's wonderful book-America's Film Legacy-about it. The NFR's determination to collect these early experimental works and not let them disappear is really collecting and preserving the history of our times. I believe that films will eventually be our most important artifact. They may well become a new language.-D A Pennebaker
A fascinating insight into America's cinematic history. - The Stage, 13th May 2010
In this entertaining and thorough 848-page tome, Eagan-a former researcher and story analyst for Warner Bros., MGM, and other Hollywood studios, as well as a journalist whose work has appeared in the Hollywood Reporter and the Nation-writes at length about each of those works in meaty, extensively researched entries, gracefully highlighting the registry's cultural and historical significance as well as charting its formation and reception.Eagan's multifaceted writing elevates his book to something more provocative than a mere reference guide. It's refreshing that he doesn't treat all the films as equally deserving of masterpiece status (the occasional David Thomson-esque toppling of a sacred cow gives the book some bite). America's Film Legacy is a handy, portable archive in its own right, rich in trivia.--Criterion Collection
Each year 25 American films that are deemed culturally, historically, or esthetically significant are selected by filmmakers/historians for inclusion in the National Film Registry. The list of films now totals 500. Each has an entry in this one-volume reference, which is arranged chronologically from 1893 (Blacksmith Scene) to 1996 (Fargo). The registry includes documentaries, propaganda films, cartoons, experimental shorts, and every type of feature film, from Hollywood blockbusters to independent films. Interestingly, with every advance in film technologies (e.g., in film formats and digital sound/effects), preserving films has become more difficult, since new formats threaten the existence of older ones. For preservation purposes, the Library of Congress holds an archival print of each film. Besides the usual classics, some of the more interesting entries include San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, April 18, 1906, Hindenburg Disaster Newsreel Footage, and Zapruder Film (of the Kennedy assassination). For each film, Eagan (independent scholar) has included all the pertinent information about how and when it was made. Each essay is written in an entertaining yet informative manner, indicating the film's significance in American film history. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers.-CHOICE
The tome is invaluable not only for being a compendium of these preserved movies but also for Eagan's writing, which is extensively researched and smartly critical. http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2107-the-legacy-continues -- Criterion Collection Blog
America's Film Legacy is a valuable guide to the films chosen to represent the range, style, and diversity of subject matter of American cinema.-Frederick Wiseman, Documentary Filmmaker
Want a definitive list of the most significant U.S. movies? A panel of experts convened by the Library of Congress has chosen 500, from Citizen Kane to Duck and Cover. Daniel Eagan's lucid analysis of these works provides a comprehensive film history in one volume.-TIME Magazine
The great, the historic, and the lousy (but, alas, influential) all find their place in this engrossing survey of titles selected by the Library of Congress's National Film Registry. Eagan chronologically catalogues 500 Registry films, from 1893's 30-second Blacksmithing Scene to 1995's Fargo, jumbling Hollywood classics together with obscure art films, cartoon shorts, documentaries, industrial and student films, newsreel footage from the Hindenburg disaster and the Zapruder film. Each entry includes complete cast and credits lists and an engaging one- to two-page historical and interpretive essay. These are packed with biographical thumbnails of actors and directors and making-of narratives-from screenplay rewrites to on-set feuds and hysterics to final-cut showdowns-that buffs and scholars will delight in. Eagan dutifully assesses the artistic merits of each film (yes, even Animal House) in critiques that abound in pithy and sometimes contrarian opinions... The result is an erudite, perceptive, always entertaining cinematic encyclopedia.-Publishers Weekly [STARRED REVIEW]
The wide range of important films in the Registry makes it a terrific starting point for anyone wishing to study the history of American cinema (as well as an excellent refresher course for veteran film buffs), and journalist and researcher Daniel Eagan's America's Film Legacy provides a lively guide to the collection....[Eagan's capsule histories] are riveting and extremely addicting - it is very easy to open the book looking for information on one film and then get lost for hours browsing among the various titles. Yet the book is best read from beginning to end because Eagan's expertise as a film scholar is so vast; he constantly refers back and forth across the Registry to show the ways various careers, genres and technologies evolve, and to read his book as a continuous narrative is to grasp the history of American cinema as a whole.America's Film Legacy is as vital and indispensable a compendium as Andrew Sarris' The American Cinema or David Thomson's A Biographical Dictionary of Film; in fact, in its breadth of scholarship is far superior to the others.As the National Film Registry continues to grow with each passing year, one hopes Eagan will update his guide, broadening and deepening its overview of American film history. Already, America's Film Legacy is one of the most complete and entertaining works of its kind and a recommended addition to the library of any cinema fan.-American Cinamatographer
For each film he provides a critical essay, fundamental facts and figures, and relevant information about archival sources and availability, which is crucial for any student or film buff who wants to take the next step and see the film in question. ...Eagan has done his homework well, and brings his own critical eye to each article. A generous 818 pages long, America's Film Legacy is a worthy survey of our homegrown film culture, as expressed by the selections of the National Film Registry; it also makes for good reading.-Leonard Maltin, www.leonardmaltin.com
This weighty volume catalogs 500 films currently part of the National Film Registry, which selects 25 historically or artistically notable films each year for preservation, in order to further memorialize, in print, these ephemeral records, many printed on fragile celluloid. Studio researcher and story analyst Eagan (MGM) organizes each brilliantly written entry chronologically, starting with an 1893 30-second film of blacksmiths and ending with 1996's Fargo. Each entry opens with details on cast, director, set, production, and current availability. A multipage essay of each film's backstory follows. A genuinely exciting and absorbing read, it relates vital details about early filmmaking and film culture.-Library Journal, STARRED Review
This valuable and highly readable book will serve equally well as a primer for newcomers to film history and a refresher course for more experienced viewers on the vast spectrum of American cinema. Best of all, it will introduce novices and veterans alike to a number of offbeat and unjustly-forgotten titles on the National Film Registry.-Leonard Maltin
A book on the National Film Registry will be a wonderful asset.-Leonard Kamerling, co-director, The Drums of Winter
Daniel Eagan informs as well as entertains in this lively, opinionated reference guide to a treasure trove of cinema history in the Library of Congress's National Film Registry.-John Canemaker, Academy Award-winning animator, director, and author
America's Film Legacy is a brilliant, insightful and invaluable breakthrough book which makes American film history and the men and women --both the legendary and the all but unknown--who created it, come to life in fresh and vivid detail. This superb book offers a startling and wise appreciation of the essence of their film achievements.-Terry Sanders, Two-Time Academy Award-winning Filmmaker
The opportunity to revisit and be inspired by the past is one of the purposes behind the National Film Registry. The 1915 film The Italian was preserved from a single paper copy. If prints were readily available at the time I made The Godfather, I would have enjoyed having access to it. I'm proud that The Godfather and The Godfather Part II join The Italian on the Registry, an attempt to preserve our cinematic heritage. America's Film Legacy doesn't just explore the films on the Registry, it ties together the past and the present, showing how the great movies of today can be built on the those of an earlier era.-Francis Ford Coppola
The Library of Congress' National Film Registry is the most important list today in the recognition of American film as art, entertainment and cultural history. Daniel Eagan's America's Film Legacy is the first book on this subject and it is essential reading for anyone wanting to know the remarkable breadth of accomplishment throughout the 120 years of the history of the cinema. Every film fan and every library should have a copy of this book.-Dennis Doros, Co-founder and VP, Milestone Film & Video
Although readers often ignore introductions, Eagan's is relevant. It is a persuasive argument for film preservation, emphasizing the fragile nature of celluloid, which can catch fire, decompose, or rot from mold and mildew. Some films are irrevocably lost, but the Registry is committed to acknowledging the best of the survivors. -- Bernard F. Dick, Fairliegh Dickinson University * American Studies Journal *
