Preserving the Past for the Future

(cc Jim Ferreira)

It was a dark and stormy night. I could hear the rain beating down on the pavement like the drums of a high school marching band.

Rat-a-Tat-Tat… Rat-a-Tat-Tat … Rat-a-Tat-Tat …

The night was quiet and not much was going on. I was reaching for my jacket to call it an early night when she walked into my office.  She told me her name, but I wasn’t listening. She looked like money wrapped in her fur, holding her cigarette between her fingers and smelling like perfume that cost more than my wrinkled, five-dollar suit.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always loved old movies. They have elegance – a sense of style and class that today’s films just don’t capture.  The way the characters spoke, how they carried themselves, everything had a perfect sense of symmetry.

I recently found out that the Castro Theater in San Francisco is hosting a film noir festival – Noir City.

I will definitely be making the time to attend at least a couple nights, but it also got me thinking about how important it is to preserve things for the future. In a previous Digital Den post, I talked about all the “stuff” I have saved on my hard drive and how difficult it is for me to get rid of anything.  While that’s me just being a rat pack, I believe some things need preservation.

Noir is a film genre that has almost gone the way of the western. You may get a couple modern takes on it through a movie like L.A. Confidential or the video game L.A. Noire (sidebar – Give this rap review for the game a listen, it’s amazing.) But overall the genre has been forgotten.

The preservation of things that we love is important, whether it be a photograph, a composition or a film. It’s a time capsule that allows us to take a look back at once was, while never forgetting what is. It is something to be shared with future generations with the hope that the past can inspire the future. I hope we never forget our artistic history.

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[Image Source Life After Hall.com]