This article explores the role 16mm film plays (or does not play) in the traditional Hollywood restoration, using Peter Bogdanovich’s 1975 film musical At Long Last Love as a case study. Although the film’s 2013 Blu-ray release was marketed as the “Director’s Definitive Version,” a survey of 16mm prints used for repertory screenings and television broadcasts reveals several musical numbers missing from the former, complicating the 2013 release’s status as a definitive object of authorial intent. It then describes the author’s attempts to reconnect these missing songs to the film as a whole, discussing tools and options for at-home restorations and the ways in which they—and 16mm film—not only fill gaps left by official releases but also reshape our understanding of a film’s history. The article demonstrates how 16mm prints, often overlooked, are vital to understanding a film’s complete narrative. In doing so, it highlights the crucial role of private collectors and nonprofessional restorations in comprehensive film preservation.

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Archives have been navigating the treacherous waters of copyright since their inception. For most archival items, determining copyright status is a fairly straightforward (if not cumbersome) process: there are charts that can be consulted, donor agreements that can be reviewed, and human-led entities that can be contacted. Even in situations where a work – such as a film – does not have one “author” or “creator,” copyright is usually assigned to a company or producer, and the rights are (usually) not difficult to suss out. As it has in many fields, however, the advent of artificial intelligence (“A.I.”) has upended traditional notions of creation and ownership. There is a sizable gap in the existing literature about this subject, particularly when approached from the angle of archival studies. Archives will need to contend with this change in approach on a theoretical level in order to be prepared for the upcoming practical realities it will bring. This piece explores the ways in which A.I. creates, the copyright issues A.I.-created works raise, and the implications for archives and other memory institutions, using art creation program DALL·E 2 as a case study.

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