Lost Media: The Problems That Plague Film Preservation
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- For over a century, film preservation has faced countless obstacles with some that have left many films permanently lost. Today we explore the history of issues that have plagued the industry as well as future potential problems that have started to hinder preservation efforts.
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Yo I'm talking about lost media again, wowza!!
Note: I want to clarify something about the Netflix segment really quick. It is likely that Netflix is backing up their original films on film stock (although this has never been confirmed as far as I know) but, like I mentioned in the Avatar segment, we’re coming close to a point where film labs all around may be shut down as it is not very profitable. Backing their films up also doesn’t mean they would make them publicly available, which is the ultimate goal of preservation. So, yeah, film preservation is still very much an issue with Netflix.
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What is anime at 5:37?
Silica glass archiving is something studios are turning to for film preservation. There's a lot to be said about it but I'll say that Microsoft is one company that's deploying the technology for studio use.
If you guys haven't seen videos on it yet, I recommend y'all look it up.
"Films weren't considered art"
Yeah you can see that same thing with video games, it's only now that it's being regarded as art.
The myopia of people is that even artifacts not necessarily considered art in their time are still worthy of preservation, for cultural and historical reasons...and of course the possibility that future generations might come to appreciate the artifacts as works of art.
As a Silent Film guy, as interesting as it is, this topic hurts.
It's not just silent films though--every single film (by which I mean footage shot and processed on celluloid) is at risk of disappearing. Even if the content is preserved, the material properties of the film itself, unique and irreplaceable, will be lost without adequate intervention by specialists.
@@barrymoore4470 Oh I know and I’m for full preservation for all films. I just said this because one unfortunate truth to silent films is how the grand majority are lost, fragments, or heavily butchered.
He don't miss. But in all seriousness, the lost of entertainment is concerning, and it of course doesn't just apply to film, but also books, screenplays, and video games. Anyone who isn't aware, but the Nintendo eShop is a prime example of service that is being discontinued soon, effectively nuking all digital games and DLC off the face of the planet, since so few games ever received physical releases, or were moved to the Switch infrastructure. Nintendo has stated that this due to the cost of maintaining the service, which is understandable. The issue lies in the fact that they have no intention of making any housed content available in the future.
Video game preservation is only getting harder too, as more companies switch to games-as-a-service and require active connections to their servers or some other sort of verification which becomes impossible if the game/company shuts down.
Game preservation is held on the backs of pirates.
One of my favorite games right now is a nintendo ds eshop game, a fashion game part of the style savvy series, and its such a little thing but im so sad that even though i have it, it will never be a game i have physically or permanently. It just makes me sad since it's such a fun game, and has cool value in seeing other people's shops/buying outfits they created through online play, which will obviously cease really soon. Its a tragedy to me, even if it is such a silly little fashion game. I have a zelda game (my first, an anniversary 4 swords game from the eshop from so so so long ago) and that ds is almost dead, its going to be gone soon. I hate the impermanence of stuff like that
Sure thing, I’m thinking of buying books of soon to become public domain pulp stories in the future.
People have already modded their 3DS consoles to point of them being able to have every single game available at once. (or on multiple SD cards)
Besides, while you can't buy anymore games you can always redownload games you deleted to make up space or whatever.
This is a really interesting and personal topic for me. In 1927, A relative of mine was was featured in an early type of sound film called Phonofilm giving a speech at the opening of a film studio. The speech was also broadcast over radio. It's incredible to think that there exists a film recording with sound of a relative of mine from this time period. Unfortunately the film seems to be long lost to time and has never been found
I have my masters in library science and took a lot of archival classes and the thing that my professors drilled into is that "there is no finished preservation. Only things in the act of being preserved."
What are the masters for
@@aadenandfriends5869 He literally just said what it is....
Not to change the subject but what your professor stated was something eerily similar to what my environmental science professor used to say in that "there is no saved species, only species in the act of being preserved." He even used a lot of examples such as American Red Wolves in how they went from extinct in the wild in the early 1900's, to being reintroduced and somewhat prospering until the early 2010's, and are now in extremely serious decline again due to a number of reasons but primarily due to a lack of political willpower to protect them anymore and habitat destruction.
In many ways, even this review video could potentially become lost media if not preserved properly, as this is a very informative video, that future generations could potentially look back upon someday.
I’ve been interested in lost media ever since I found a lost Beatles performance on 8mm film in 2015.
I guess the best way to describe it is like treasure hunting but instead of finding gold and jewels it’s usually either a film reel, video tape, audio tape, written documents, or even a painting.
Although there is one thing I’ve learnt about most types of lost media; the journey is more interesting than the destination.
In other words, when you finally do find the thing that you’ve been looking for for awhile you may be disappointed that did not live up to your expectations.
Anyway, great video. 👍
Love this video!!! The only thing I would add with physical media is that sometimes things like DVDs and LaserDisc are subject to Disc rot which may not sound all that important until you realized that films such as She Gotta Have It and the original Scream only had been released on those formats. Not on Bluray or digital, only laserdisc and possibly a DVD.
If I ever made a shit ton of money, I would give it to those in need and to groups who work to find lost media. Knowing that so much art has been lost saddens me.
Even though Stranger Things has had physical releases, it's incredibly frustrating that Season 3 hasn't been released on Blu-Ray; only DVD.
Season 3 didn't have any physical release. I'm not sure where this DVD has come from, but it's not an official release
It's interesting pondering the cultural context surrounding early cinema.
As an example, I'm sure a big part of early films not being kept around traces back to how it "felt" at the time like just a decentralization of live theatre: when a play is being performed on a stage, you can go see it, but once they stop the run, you can no longer watch those actors perform that play. So they treated cinema in a similar semi-disposable way, rather than thinking of it as physical pieces of art in the same category as a painting.
Let's be honest, today's society has an obsession with collecting things, including movies and media. While there is an inherent aspect to this human behavior, it's only recently become so pervasive, thanks in large part to corporate/capitalistic desire to encourage consumption. This is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Indeed
The compulsion some have to collecting is a naturalistic intrinsic behavior, it existed long before modern capitalism.
"consumption" in the modern context has nothing to do with it. There is no scenario where this wouldnt be other than extinction.
I'm so glad you brought up Netflix because ever since I've heard about the "downfall" they're going through recently I've been panicking about what'll happen to their original content.
I feel like the jerkbeast situation is the fault of both parties.
The internet for treating the creators like shit for their wish.
But also the creators for not realizing that the internet finds a way. And their initial message on the site was… not really done the best.
Hell they end the message with “ also fuck you. “ all for people wanting to keep something from being lost for good.
Really nobody is in the right in my eyes
Agreed, the creators could have handled it so much better, and in many cases were rude themselves. They could have been nicer about it, probably would have had fewer rude responses back
Even if they were nicer about it, I still heavily disagree with their wish since it's gatekeeping (behavior that I often despise). Media like this should be made available to everyone who wants to see it.
Thanks for making me more anxious and paranoid about losing history, Zelch! Good to know though.
Really think about all the interactive shows netflix has. How the hell do you archive those?
I'm sure video players can deal with their branching footage already
Thankfully most of them are garbage and not worth worrying about, most new things are literally not worth the effort, especially how media is over here in the west anymore.
You map a button on a remote/controller to whatever matches in input displayed on screen.
@bob king wanting media to become lost forever because you personally think it’s bad is a very immature way of looking at it
from an non-english standpoint - dubs are also a pain in the ass
looney tunes for example. a couple of the merry melody short had like 2-3 different dubs in my country (probably even more with the public domain ones in mind). now guess what warner did with the blu ray sets.... mainly used none of them! original audio track only. so a LOT of their dubs are vhs only, on super 8 reels, tv airings from 15+ years ago 👏
I hope more people discover more lost media and help preserve these classic movies so they don't disappear forever. Cool video. ^_^
“Unfortunately these collectors faced an issue that still plagues film preservation to this day”
AD: vaping
"Once something's posted on the internet, it's there forever." If that were the case, then the online lost media community likely wouldn't exist. Or at least, it would be on a smaller scale not concerned with internet media and focusing almost exclusively on traditional media.
I don't believe it.
Yep, link rot is a a plague. With every image host that shuts down, every forum that changes to a new format, tons of data and media are lost forever.
I once tried to reverse engineer Fallout: Van Buren, a tech demo for Fallout 3 before Bethesda got it. There were forum communities that had completely taken apart that tech demo, knew every aspect and detail of it... but I could never learn what they knew, because only a few scattered forum threads were left. Any links in those threads lead to 404 pages, any images were now gone, and anyone who had posted on those threads almost certainly didn't remember or care about it a decade later.
@@pitaden5620 there is link rot related to intellectual property issues.
Glad to say that, as of this comment, the Jerkbeast backups survive. Hadn’t heard of it, but I love how it reminds me of early MST3K. Wish the creators went easy on it.
I'm of the opinion that if corporations don't preserve their stuff and it gets lost, they should lose all copyright of said thing. Those lost Doctor Who episodes should especially tick people off--the BBC is funded by taxpayer dollars. The citizenry paid for that to be made, and it got thrown away. But if someone who did a more capable job than the BBC--and actually preserved it--comes forward, the BBC gets first dibs on it. Why? They didn't take care of it and tossed it out.
Interestingly, about 1 minute of footage from Theda Bara's "Cleopatra", was very recently discovered and digitized!!
Preservation saves not just the media but also the time and effort put into making it in the first place.
A very interesting topic that most people don't think much about. Great video and just keep it up
The fear, somebody could watch without being allowed and the build in self destruction may turn our time into the dark digital age, where nobody has made movies.
as a doctor who fan this topic hurts me so much
This is exactly why I actually hate streaming services.
I'm a dvd/bluray/vhs collector for a reason, to own my favourite things! The Dirt is one of my favourite movies (I'm a huge metalhead) but its on Netflix, so it will probably never have an official release, which is a bummer because apparently there's a lot of deleted scenes and other content we'll never be able to see this way.
I wish there was some archive website that kept things permanently. for example I have been collecting and saving CZcams videos of rare music and music videos to a playlist, only to later find out " oh! it says videos have been deleted, I didn't think about that when I made this playlist " . I know it sometimes has to do with copyright and stuff, but there really are things out there I think are worth saving
Web archive is exactly it
huh i was just rewatching the iceberg videos and here you are
Considering how long mankind has been around, it is a sheer miracle we still have art that survived a thousand years and more. I doubt a digital proprietary file format on a digital storage medium, would survive that long. This is also why i prefer printed books over e-books. And this is also why so much effort is put into archiving mankinds culture to Film that is stores in climate controlled environments somewhere in mountains. Because all you need to read the contents of these Film reels is a candle as a lightsource and a magnifying glass. No special technology.
Damn Zelcher and his habit of posting just before my finals
my dad told me that one day at some point in time the world will be destroyed and that got me thinking a lot of this stuff that you talked about in this interesting video of your's
One of the main reasons many black-and-white films disappeared was because many film laboratories didn't bother with the hypo clearing stage of processing, as nobody knew the difference. Nobody knows this. I used to work in film labs, and it's true.
A funny story from a guy who used to work at Jam Handy: he and another guy used to take a truck loaded with old nitrate film out to the countryside, strip it off the reels into a big pile, run a single strip out for about a thousand feet, light it with a match, and duck until the pile exploded.
Also, acetate film has as short a lifespan as nitrate: it turns into vinegar.
I don't know how accurate this is, but I've actually read that nitrate, stored under optimal conditions, has a LONGER shelf life than acetate stored under its optimal conditions.
What if the real lost media were the friends we made along the way?
NEW ZELCHER PRODUCTION LESSS GOOO
Hey man. Love your work. Because a fan of your channel after watching your iceberg films videos
in all honestly i feel like physical media will win in the long run but we still no matter what have to preserve film even if we have to find ways to preserve it
Amazing video as always
amazing video, love how this covered this!
this video was great! man film history is cool I always was into it and also lost media, keep uploading about these topics💪🏻
I watch a lot of video essays channels, and I must compliment your work. Very well done! Your narration is really good, and your points are super relevant. Already a fan. Your graduation is on cinema?
I really like this video and its a topic that i think is very interesting! you did a great job here
Great art bestie, you always make bangers
One of my favorite subjects. Absolutely loved this video
The mother 3 music enhances the video so much
The pvz music at the beginning was a pleasant surprise! Great video!
Oh awesome. Cheers! Love vids like this
100 % would be gone, if every projection man would have respected copyright.
The fear, too much people could have pleasure by a movie, causes lost media.
Short films. Almost never make it past film festivals and are generally lost to time.
Fan efforts like the de-specialized edition of Star Wars are awesome for preservation
they turned the movies into
shoes
wowwwwwieeee
Nice watch as always man, you're doing great! Its a fascinating topic!
Congrats on graduating, Zelcher!
Looking forward to seeing your content, congrats on your graduation
The use of the iCarly clip to introduce Nitrate Film spoke to me
We need multiple copies of these things, multiple online copies.
Piracy isn't the problem if your example if it is the dilemma of the creator's antipreservation ideals.
Especially now with Tubesites like CZcams.
Had to have the Jerma clip didn't ya??
I often wish that time travelling would be like going to the cinema and watching these movies.
Ooof 15:00
There's no way to watch Bravest Warriors season 4 Because the platform doesn't exist anymore
Physical media isn't even a perfect solution because there is the risk of the equipment to play it on no longer being manufactured and the media it's self becoming unplayable for one reason or another. For example they no longer make VCRs and working machines are becoming harder to find, in addition VHS tapes themselves are prone to decay, such as demagnetization, oxide shedding, tape damage and even mould on badly stored tapes (I recently cleaned about 80 VHS tapes which went mouldy). According to some sources online VHS tapes lose about 10% of their quality every 10 to 25 years or so, it can even happen with sealed tapes but is quicker on tapes which have been played a lot (I have some tapes from the mid 1980s which still play fine and some tapes which have been played to death which are still fine). While most stuff that was on VHS is now on DVD and newer formats officially and a lot of people have converted there old tapes to newer formats the fact is not everything on tape exists in a digital format and soon those old tapes will become unplayable. I gave VHS as a major example but this could happen to any physical media, especially if people decide to stop buying it, this even happens in the professional realm as the BBC copied there 2 inch and 1 inch videotapes to D3 cassettes in the 1990s and are now converting those D3 tapes to LTO data tapes.
There is no perfect method of preservation so preservation methods must continue to advance as the world changes so future generations can gain access to said works.
Also I had no idea The Evil Dead was ever tampered with so cheers for the information.
There's a VCR repair shop in Milwaukee, but the guys working there take forever to get anything done
@@telophasemusic Yeah, I mean in general, also I don't live in the United States.
@@DVDandFilmBloke It was a RLM Reference.
A very interesting topic! When you mentioned creators taking down their own films and wanting them to fade into obscurity, I'll admit at first I was thinking "Wait, but what about the people who enjoyed it? Is that fair on them?"
And then I remembered the channel Unus Annus, which was - by design - only up for a year and then they deleted the whole channel, as well as all the videos. In fact, the creators still will take down any videos people reupload. They do it because that was the point of the original channel - to film themselves trying a bunch of new things, upload those videos once a day every day for a year, and then at exactly one year, they would take the channel down completely. It was a finite thing because life is a finite thing.
And, remembering that, I thought "Well... it's their art. They get to choose what they do with it. So, I guess, if anyone wants their stuff to fade into obscurity, as hard as that may be for fans, it's their work to do with as they choose for whatever reasons they choose."
Mark was honestly naïve for thinking that was ever going to work.
@@connorbeith3232 I think they knew they'd have to contend with people reuploading the channel's content. They probably hoped that it would be less than it is, and that people would accept their decision, but I don't think they were blind to the fact that someone would try to reupload their stuff.
Loss of Jerkbeast is no loss
I thank you for pointing out the new archive of you-know-what (not saying it so the creators aren't tipped off,) gonna download the torrent as fast as I can before it's nuked
discovered it late into high school like, 3-4 years back while rips were on youtube. Got some oddly fond memories of it, and i'm glad it's available, even if it's temporary.
Time to keep circulating the tapes.
Yo, I hear that Tazmily Inn theme, nice.
I found this video "par hasard " thanks a lot ! Maybe it will help my friends To understand my fascination of lost medias
Anyone who can’t remember that the main character’s name is Jake Sully or that their god is called Eywa just straight up didn’t pay attention while watching Avatar.
The big question with films(and music, art, etc) is when does it stop being owned by the creator/studio and start being owned by society and I don't mean by whatever public domain date a government sets. There is a lot of talk now about property rights returning to the original creators or their estates(Terminator rights returning to Cameron, comic character rights returning to the estates, etc) and most people seem to be in favor of that saying the original creators should own their creations. If we agree with that, then what right do we have to say that they shouldn't alter them like with Star Wars or that they need to share them like with that show mentioned here? After all, they created and own them, they can do whatever they want. If you owned a classic Mustang and wanted to paint it lime green, should Ford be allowed to tell you no? After all, they created it. Yet that is what we are doing here, telling the person who created it what they need to do. Don't get me wrong, I am fully behind restoration and preservation as I think it is important and I think the fact that we don't have good versions of the original Star Wars film saved for people to see is a disgrace but if we really do respect creator and owner rights, then it creates a problem because how can we tell them that their rights don't count?
So now that you're officially apart of the lost media community what is one piece of lost media YOU want found, Zelcher?
Jerma’s lost Minecraft streams from when he first started out on CZcams
I’m going to college for this .
With all its issues, digital is still far better and easier to preserve films than traditional film, isn't it? Everything is gonna be preserved digitally.
That said, it's bullshit how Netflix doesn't release much content of them in physical media, or any other place really.
Anyway, piracy can help a lot of cases in preservation.
Only if corporate stop being greedy, but there no way corporate stop being greedy, so sadly piracy is the only answer we can have now.
Is that furio tigres theme i here 👀
Let's not forget about movies released on screen x theaters. Majority of them are impossible to view the screen X versions outside of theaters because we don't have the technology to watched these films in their screen x versions and the only way to view them is to see them in theaters that have screen x. A bunch of films were already released in screen x like godzilla King of the monsters and the batman
What's screen X?
@@nathanpollard1223 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ScreenX
Cheers. There was something like this (or maybe it) at the Titanic place in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
I find it interesting that no one but the pioneering artist see their medium as art until someone finds a way to make money off it... then everyone but the artist claims it as art...
13:57 yeah let’s see things that aren’t in the internet Mario screamer various blameitonjorge videos various flash games a doodlebob ytp I’ve have been looking for and various bad bluey animations
9:24 LMAO
Funny that u use that screenshot for bright stating how bad it is bcoz it has a super high user score 4.5/5 😂
Avatar is a masterpiece
so basically we need to destroy capitalism for the sake of film preservation. i'm on board with that!
The whole Jerkbeast thing is just another example of copyright abuse.
Nobody was making a cent off uploading their content on the internet, so there's literally nothing copyright protection can do about it.
The creators clearly aren't making money about it, so they have no right to remove the videos for "copyright issues" when no copyright laws have been broken
That’s not true at all. Even if the Jerkbeast creators aren’t profiting off their work, a second party still isn’t legally allowed to upload their videos in their entirety no matter if they monetize the content or not. If the uploader isn’t transforming the content in any way, such as it being part of a review or something, then that is literally breaking copyright law. A similar thing happens with lost tv show pilots. For instance, the original Drake and Josh pilot used to have a hard time staying reuploaded because Viacom would copyright claim them. Even if they neither uploader nor Viacom were profiting off the material, the act of reuplaoding it was still technically breaking copyright law. It’s best recognize that a lot of lost media preservation from online communities is built off of breaking copyright law; stuff usually never gets taken down because the media is either too old or obscure but in certain cases this can and will happen.
@@ZelcherProductions This is what happens when copyright abuse goes way out of hand.
If a dead IP is just randomly thrown onto the internet, normally the people behind it can't do anything about... *Once it's on the internet it stays on the internet.* So most of the time (back then) they just let it exist. Recently that tons of lost media that was found like 10 years ago is being randomly taken down because the creators (or corporations in most cases) have decided to looks at the remains of the IP and try to hide it from everyone... Only for HauntJohnny29492 to upload it again and have it get taken down in 20 years. Jerkbeast will return one day, and no matter how many times it's creators want it to be obscure too many people know about it (which defeats the whole idea of it being obscure lol) and they'll eventually have some place to have it permanently available for free.
Jerkbeast is over. Nobody can do anything with the existing episodes, it doesn't get as much protection as a modern TV series. Plus it was on PUBLIC ACCESS TV. If they really wanted it to be obscure, why would they put it in a public tv broadcasting network?
False copyright reports are harming efforts for preservation of media, which is actually something copyright really can't protect against if it's proven to be the sole purpose of the media's upload.
Sure, I agree, but I don’t think insulting them in a Reddit thread is going to make the original creators of Jerkbeast any more receptive to uploading their work. They aren’t a corporation, they’re individual people that should be treated with respect even if we disagree with how they want their work to be accessed. It’s one thing to want media to be preserved which is good, but it’s a whole other thing when people feel they are entitled to have someone else’s work. When it comes to dealing with independent creators, I’d prefer if people were more respectful with how they preserve stuff.
@@ZelcherProductions Yes, they don't deserve to be insulted for their ideas...
But that doesn't mean they're completely free from criticism. If they just had a nice conversation with them then they probably would of changed their minds and maybe let it be available in a controlled manner. Unfortunately Reddit is Reddit and they made them regret making an account. But no matter how many mean comments they get, it simply doesn't allow them to change the rules just because they feel like it. The videos were posted under fair use, suddenly putting a copyright claim because some 14 year decided to be edgy is immature and wrong.
Everyone deserves as much respect as they are willing to give to others, I definitely agree with that. The part I don't agree with is removing a piece of history because someone hurt your feelings. But that's just my opinion.
I don't think Film is the Answer I think it has got to the point now that a 4k scan can capture all the detail in a 16 or 35mm film stock. And the benefit of a digital version is you can make a million copies that are all identical, which can be not just in a vault, but on a bunch of different computers in a bunch of different countries.
Excellent production and research .... BUT, BUT, BUT, BUT would you please have an older person read all the names for you. It's embarrassing to hear you say the actress' name as THEY-dub BAR-uh. Damn.
I will continue to do this to spite people like you, thank you
@@ZelcherProductions I was not being negative, you do wonderful work. I will stop commenting.
I mean..you cant preserve everything lol. You take the most important and influential and preserve those...
1. We actually do have the technology to preserve most, if not all, films. We've had access to this technology for years at this point. The only reason we don't is due to a lack of funding.
2. Of course we should prioritize films that are the most influential, that's LITERALLY what most historians are trying to do now, but even cinema's most important films were burned by studios to make a quick buck.
My guy, did you even watch the video?
@@ZelcherProductions I love how simple you make it sound! Thats a really awesome fantasy world you live in. Acting as if every movie should be preserved lol. Yes, lack of funding, hence MY COMMENT SAYING WE CANT PRESERVE EVERYTHING.
My guy, did you even use any common sense?
Yes, even bad films should be preserved, in fact, modern archivists already preserve every new release that comes out. It's old films that we're having an issue preserving. If your point was that we should only prioritize the important films, well we already do that too. My initial confusion with your comment was because I didn't expect someone to just state the obvious.
@@ZelcherProductions You mean like you did with this entire video? Also, no, bad films do not need to be preserved. No one will benefit from seeing Land Shark in 50 years. You're idea is a literal waste of money lol
@@OrphanCrippler1 Yeah cuz America famously never wastes any money on useless things. If you wanna argue the arts are useless than so be it, but clearly I don't agree. Land Shark is probably atrocious and lacks artistic merit, but yeah it should still be preserved. It may not mean much to anyone now, but 100 years later someone might find their great grandfather acting in it. It may sound silly but that already happens now with people looking into old obscure films. Having a recorded moment in time, no matter how stupid, is actually very interesting to me and its an interest that came to me after watching an old, thankfully preserved, film called La Jetée. Also, how do we define importance? Cuz clearly what's important to you is probably very different than what's important to me. Yeah the arts are useless, they're a waste of money, and they don't aid us in human survival; but I don't care I find it interesting, that's why I advocate for it.
aight imma be real. nobody is tryna sit down and literally watch a movie with 0 dialogue and weird exaggerated movements. i dont think the loss of the films is even such a tragedy. sure its history, but why would you have film students study outdated films where 90% of the techniques, transitions, etc don’t apply today.
i can guarantee nobody sat down at a silent film and was as utterly moved as when most people watched the pianist, or 1917, or interstellar. our modern day films are just better than the ones from a century ago. yes they in part made film what it is today, but who cares. honestly it seems so pretentious to just cry over this lost media like it really matters no offense.
Cringe.
I find it extremely funny how you call other people pretentious after writing this comment LMAO
100% of those techniques, transitions, etc absolutely apply today because that's when they were pioneered, innovated, and they revolutionized any film that would ever come to light in the future.
Even if they're applied or not learning film history and seeing these old movies is hella important so we can learn from the failures and victories of the past so we can apply and improve things in the future. This is the basis of learning history in general and pretending it doesnt matter is ignorant.
You're ignorant of silent films if you genuinely believe no one today can or has been moved or amazed by one.