JB Kaufman to visit the SSO on 11/21 and 11/22

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Lzcutter
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JB Kaufman to visit the SSO on 11/21 and 11/22

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The month-long celebration of authors continues in time for the holidays and those needing ideas for holiday gift giving or receiving-

The Silver Screen Oasis is proud to announce that film historian J.B. Kaufman will be joining us on Saturday, November 21st and Sunday, November 22nd.

Mr. Kaufman, is a writer and film historian who has also been one of the film scholars who has contributed to the ongoing Griffith Project, an international retrospective held by the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Italy devoted to research into and distribution of the work of the pioneering film director, D. W. Griffith. The innovative filmmaker's legacy of some 500 films is being systematically documented and, when possible, restored through this project, allowing more of us to see and understand how much we have inherited from the earliest films.

In addition to the Griffith Project, he writes about silent film at his website: http://www.jbkaufman.com. But he may be best known for his work on Walt Disney. A few years ago, J.B. was in the news as he introduced the Blu-Ray restoration of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), commenting that the film "just looks spectacular" after the "dust-and-dirt removal as well as the brightening of the Technicolor picture to conform with the original intentions of Walt Disney's artists." Speaking about the restoration, Kaufman told the press that "As an historian and loving these films, one of my pet peeves is not being able to see them in a form that does justice to them -- and I think we're finally getting into a form that does."

The film historian has written several books related to his passion, among them the following:

South of the Border With Disney: Walt Disney and the Good Neighbor Program, 1941-1948

An examination of the complex cultural and political history of Walt Disney's cartoons set in Latin America as part of the Good Neighbor program initiated by Nelson Rockefeller during the early 1940s. As described by the publisher, the book begins "with the extraordinary research trip Disney undertook in 1941, leading a team comprising his top animators, artists, and writers from Mexico to Chile, renowned animation historian J. B. Kaufman reveals the story behind Disney's contribution to Rockefeller's program.

Walt in Wonderland: The Silent Films of Walt Disney

This examination of the early efforts of Disney to master his life work, was described by Linda Rosencrantz at The Miami Herald as an examination of the "whole fascinating 8-year period predating Mickey is chronicled in [this] meticulously researched book... The authors point out interesting links to the work of other animators (of such characters as Felix the Cat and Krazy Kat) and also demonstrate parallels to the routines of such silent clowns as Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin."

Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies: A Companion to the Classic Cartoon Series

As fellow film historian Leonard Maltin wrote when this book was released: "With perfect timing, Indiana University Press has taken on distribution of this valuable (and beautifully-printed) book, just as the second volume of Disney's Silly Symphonies cartoons has become available on DVD as part of my Walt Disney Treasures series. In truth, Merritt and Kaufman have been working on this definitive compendium for years... but it was well worth the wait...Every short is exhaustively chronicled, with information you will find nowhere else: when it went into production, who animated each individual shot, how much it cost to produce, where it debuted, and much, much more. No detail has gone unexplored...What's more, the book is beautifully designed and filled with rare illustrations in both black & white and color."

Snow White: The Fairest One of All .

Divided into three sections, the book traces the history of the “Snow White” tale in folklore, theater and film; records the making of the film in intimate detail; and follows with the film’s impact on the Disney studio and the world, immediately after its release and in the decades that followed.

Pinocchio: The Making of a Disney Epic

Based on years of archival research and interviews with the surviving filmmakers, this book traces the history of Pinocchio from the story’s roots in 19th-century Italy, through the Disney studio’s historic, painstaking efforts to produce the film, through the surprising events that followed the film’s release to a wartime world.

He is also working with Disney on the release of a Silly Symphony music set that is in pre-order now and due to be released in the months ahead. The Silly Symphony Collection is a first-of-its-kind box set from Walt Disney Records and Fairfax Classics featuring the complete restored soundtracks from all 75 Silly Symphony shorts from 1929-1939, with more than 8 hours of music over 16 vinyl LPs.

So please join us this weekend as JB takes questions about Walt Disney, Snow White, Pinocchio, the Silly Symphonies, South of the Border and silent film.
Lynn in Lake Balboa

"Film is history. With every foot of film lost, we lose a link to our culture, to the world around us, to each other and to ourselves."

"For me, John Wayne has only become more impressive over time." Marty Scorsese

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