“Paul was born August 2, 1931 in Arcada California to Peter and Inez Spehr. He is survived by his three children, Elizabeth Ann, Christopher Fox (Elizabeth Gettins), Katherine Helen (Michael Zabrucky); and his grandchildren Timothy, Christopher, Daniel, Samantha, Julian, Nicholas and Alexander. He is predeceased by his son Mark Stephen in 2003 (Elizabeth Lord), in 2013 by his second wife Susan E. Dalton in 2017. Paul graduated from Kenyon College with a degree in Liberal Arts. After graduation Paul married Barbara Fox and moved to Washington, DC to pursue a graduate degree. They started a family and he began working at the Library of Congress. His work at the library lead to a lifelong passion for film history and preservation. He worked at the library from 1958- 1993 where he retired as the acting Chief of the Motion Picture and Recorded Sound Division. He went on to author several books and many articles related to film history and archiving. He has received many awards and is a distinguished member of several film preservation and archival boards. Paul has been an avid traveler and has visited just about every continent in the world. He especially loves Italy and visited often. He also has a passion for his beloved Irish wolfhounds that also preceded him in death, Mina, Harry and Molly. He lived in Carroll Valley, PA and was active in the community. He enjoyed living in the peaceful community for over 20 years.” (The Washington Post)
In Memoriam Paul Spehr, Eileen Bowser and Thomas Elsaesser
By Tom Gunning
“It has been difficult for me to write about the losses our field and myself personally have suffered with the end of 2019. Difficult, because of the pain of the loss, but also because I feel some need to try to indicate how important these people were, which is hard to describe in the midst of grief. This loss was so personal to me, which makes it more painful. These people were not only my colleagues but my friends, indeed my mentors. To tackle this personal connection first, I can state with no exaggeration that without the support of these three people I cannot imagine my work on early cinema being possible. Paul Spehr was at the Motion Picture Division of the Library of Congress when I first undertook my research into D.W. Griffith’s Biograph films in 1974. Although I think he was skeptical about my need to book so much time in the Library’s viewing facilities (I was there watching films on the Steenbeck every day from 8:30 in the morning for the whole summer of 1974—the summer of the Nixon impeachment hearings), he ended up unwavering in his support of my research. As my work began to emerge he was a most valuable critic and advisor. Thomas Elsaesser’s anthology Early Cinema: Space Frame Narrative published in 1990 officially recognized early cinema as an important field for film studies, and I was honored that he included four of my essays in it. Finally, speaking of Eileen Bowser is the most difficult because I owe her the most. As curator of film at the Museum of Modern Art, she preserved the Griffith heritage, and when she launched the Griffith retrospective in 1975 she brought me on board along with Ron Mottram as guest curator. Working with her on this retrospective forged a friendship and interaction that then led to my involvement with the FIAF project she devised with David Francis, Cinema: 1900-1906, which undertook to view all prints existing in FIAF archives from those years and present our findings at a FIAF conference in Brighton, England in 1978. Not only did this symposium of international scholars inaugurate a revision of the way early cinema was thought about, it also brought together film scholars and archivists in a new way. This was Eileen’s dream and her achievement, and it led to many other projects that followed in the wake of Brighton. Eileen was essential to my dissertation on the Biograph films of Griffith as a most trusted adviser, and I dedicated the book version to her and my PhD advisor Jay Leyda. As long I lived in the New York area she was my touchstone for both information and inspiration. I regret now that as I moved away geographically I did not do a better job of keeping in touch.
“I apologize that my personal involvement takes up such a large part of this tribute to these three scholars, but I could not avoid acknowledging my personal debts. Neither the loss nor the debt are purely my own. Our field of film studies owes so much to these three. As I have indicated, they had a tremendous effect particularly on the field of early cinema: Spehr and Bowser as film archivists preserved our heritage as well as writing brilliantly on this period as film historians. Thomas Elsaesser was not only (or even primarily) a film historian, but quite simply one of the founders of contemporary film studies with an enormous list of publications in so many areas and an international career as a teacher of film and founder of the film studies department at University of Amsterdam. Spehr and Bowser were what we might call activist historians, influential within the archival field, but also willing to venture out into the realm of academic conferences and make contributions as important authors in their own right. Eileen Bowser’s volume in the Scribner’s History of American Cinema book, The Transformation of Cinema 1907-1915 is not only the definitive treatment of this important era, it is a model of scholarship and clear writing. Paul Spehr’s still fairly recent book The Man who Made Movies: W. K. L. Dickson is, in my opinion, along with Charles Musser’s book on Edwin Porter, the finest work on a figure in early cinema, the most thorough treatment not only of Dickson, but also of the whole process of the “invention” of film as it emerged from Edison’s laboratory. Eileen and Paul were of the generation of archivists who went beyond mere preservation to creating a full understanding of film history based in its material remains. They were guardian angels of cinema.
“I cannot undertake an attempt to summarize Thomas Elsaesser’s work, covering as it does as many decades as subjects: European Cinema of recent years; German cinema from Weimar to Fassbinder and beyond; Film theory; and Media Archeology. Thomas covered everything. He was voracious, curious, insightful, and sometimes almost seemed intent to absorb everything to do with film. His essays could illuminate a neglected area in a new way. I think not only of his discovery of early cinema or his thoughts on 3-D film, but especially his pioneering essay on melodrama in film which opened up a new realm of critical investigation with the most illuminating and clever prose. He was the most international of scholars, having taught in the UK, the Netherlands, the US and lectured everywhere. Born in Berlin during WWII in spite of his Jewish identity, it makes odd sense that he died in Beijing. Like the movies, he could travel anywhere and be understood, a cinematic pilgrim.
“I hold on not only to the lessons I learned from these three, and my memories of them, but to a few particular mementos, tangible and intangible. From Eileen is my copy of The Biograph Bulletins 1908-1912, precious documents that she edited, its binding in a sad state due to constant thumbing during my work on Griffith. With Paul it is a postcard of a drawing by the German caricaturist Heinrich Zille which he sent me in tribute to my book on Lang. With Thomas there are two intangibles, our last meeting, about a month before his death at my retirement event at the University of Chicago, where he projected an image from a recent conference in Rome of the two of us in conversation that had been posted on Facebook, and which someone had commented on in Italian, saying, “Excuse me, but who are these people?” I was in Beijing in the end of November but left shortly before he arrived there for his last lecture. We had thought we might meet, but realized our schedules were off by a day or two. That failed meeting will always haunt me.”
In Memoriam Paul Spehr
By Richard Abel
“Ah, such a generous, knowledgeable, wryly humorous colleague was Paul Spehr. He was always so helpful, as he was with so many others, in suggesting early film prints I should view and early trade press and newspaper resources I should consult.
“I can’t recall when we first met, but it must have been sometime when I was doing research at the LoC’s Motion Picture and Recorded Sound Division in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Over the years, Paul and Susan Dalton would have lunch or dinner with me during the Giornate del cinema muto in Pordenone and sometimes during Domitor conferences. More recently I always made certain to arrange a lunch or dinner with Paul during the Cinema ritrovato in Bologna as well as the Giornate. It was such a pleasure to find him looking relatively well while attending the Giornate for a full week last October.
“I was so grateful that he agreed to write superb entries for the Encyclopedia of Early Cinema (2005). When Routledge allowed the publication of a revised paperback version, Paul argued, rightly, that I had to add an entry on the Mutoscope. Luckily, there was space on the last page of the M section, and the publisher easily accepted the insertion of one more of Paul’s entries.”
In Memoriam Paul Spehr
By Dan Streible
“One of the leading experts on early cinema, scholar and archivist Paul Spehr passed away this weekend. His son reported Paul was active and traveling until recently but was diagnosed with advanced liver cancer just weeks ago.
“As some Domitor members know, Paul was at the Giornate del Cinema Muto this year. He continued to travel, research, and write until the final days of his life, though long retired from the Library of Congress.
“Safe to say Paul Spehr was one of the leading influences on film preservation worldwide, presenting LOC at meetings around the world. He generously shared his knowledge and often his unique primary source materials.
“His essay-memoir, ‘The Education of an Archivist: Keeping Movies at the Library of Congress’ was published in the spring 2013 edition of THE MOVING IMAGE journal.
“Among his many publications are the books The Man Who Made Movies: W.K.L. Dickson, and The Movies Begin: Making Movies in New Jersey, 1887-1920.
“Like many others, I found my own research enriched if not kickstarted by knowledge Paul shared. As recently as this summer he set me on a new research project about cinematographer and pioneering film preservationist Herford Tynes Cowling. He helped me identify the on-screen performer in THREE AMERICAN BEAUTIES (1906).
“His late wife Susan Dalton was also an important figure in our field, and an officer in Domitor.“
In Memoriam Paul Spehr
By André Gaudreault
“Je me rappelle avoir connu Paul à Brighton en… 1978 !
“Depuis le temps, il a souvent partagé avec moi ses connaissances, de pointe, et m’a prodigué des conseils, toujours judicieux.
“Laurent Le Forestier (Université de Lausanne) and I have been lucky enough to have been able to count on Paul himself, and his immense personal knowledge, in the research that we have been doing in the last 2 or 3 years, for a book for TECHNÈS, on the advent and standardization of film editing.
“Tu nous manqueras Paul, tu nous manques déjà. Tu es l’un de ceux qui, au cours des dernières décennies, a contribué à donner une âme aux archives du film, et à favoriser le rapprochement entre recherche universitaire et recherche en archives.“
In Memoriam Paul Spehr
By Ian Christie
“His enthusiasm and work ethic would have been remarkable for someone ten years younger, but extraordinary at his age. Paul’s sustained research on WKL Dickson was an inspiration for me in my own work on a relatively neglected pioneer, and his enthusiasm for so many aspects of life – well beyond early cinema – should be an inspiration to all of us getting older!”
In Memoriam Paul Spehr
By Jean-Jacques Meusy
Paul Spehr, je le rencontrais tous les ans avec Susan Dalton aux Giornate del Cinema Muto et nous avions été amenés à travailler ensemble sur les débuts de la première multinationale du cinéma, je veux parler de l’American Mutoscope and Biograph Company qui possédait un studio et un laboratoire près de Paris, à Courbevoie. J’ai apprécié au cours de cette collaboration sa gentillesse et sa rigueur scientifique. Nous avions publié notre travail dans une revue française ainsi que dans Griffithiana et nous étions restés en contact régulier. Il avait l’habitude de lire ma page Facebook et de laisser des commentaires. Puis, plus aucun commentaire ni mention “j’aime”. J’ai compris que quelque chose s’était passé et j’ai essayé en vain de le contacter.
C’était bien plus qu’un collègue: un véritable ami.