Filmpreservation.org helps to preserve early films (mostly shorts). Our library has the four DVD set they’ve put out, which contain a total of 200 early American films. I grabbed volume two and watched D. W. Griffith’s The Loandale Operator, a good little train robbery movie from 1911, plus several other things. I’m still working my way through it. I also caught a great film with William H. Macy in the lead role (Panic) and, a few days ago, I watched Jean de Florette, which I hadn’t seen in many years (I also tried a bit of the sequel, but it was impossibly melodramatic).
