Our latest blog comes from museum volunteer Natasha Thompson, who has been working on the amazing collection of scrapbooks donated by Michael Fritz. We are so grateful to Michael for this wonderful gift and Natasha explains below why this is such an important acquisition, which shows the importance of cinema in our lives.
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When I started volunteering at the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, I was immediately drawn to Michael Fritz’s film scrapbooks, which had just arrived at the museum following his donation in April last year, for two main reasons. Firstly, because the collection itself is a staggering body of work and a study resource in regard to cinema and film, but secondly, because of an element of personal connection. I have also been involved in some aspects of fan culture - and have created fan work in the past – and am always interested to understand what compels and drives someone to create such a representation of their love for a medium.
The scrapbooks are incredible in this regard, because they are not only dedicated to one specific individual, but a diverse range of topics relating to film: directors, countries, festivals, and genres. The appeal of this collection lies in the sheer scope of the content and subjects, the time and effort which Michael Fritz has put into curating them and designing the covers, and the wider context in which these articles were written.
Museum Curator Phil Wickham and the Museum's Academic Director Prof. Helen Hanson with Michael Fritz when the museum picked up the collection.
Over the past few months I have been cataloguing and photographing the collection so that it can be shared with the public, and I have also curated an exhibition of some of the scrapbooks, which can be viewed just outside the upper gallery of the museum.
One of the most striking initial observations one might make about the Michael Fritz Collection is that it numbers over two hundred scrapbooks – over ninety of which are dedicated to directors, such as Sergei Eisenstein, Spike Lee, John Ford, Satyajit Ray, Andrei Tarkovsky, Andrzej Wajda and Steven Spielberg. All of the scrapbooks have been continually updated over sixty years, and have all been created and maintained by the same individual. Much like Stanley Kubrick’s appreciation of cinema as an art form, which started as a high-school student attending film screenings, Michael Fritz’s own love of film - which has been touched upon in a previous post, really took root when he visited the cinema, unaccompanied, for the first time. “Squeezed in between a real audience and lost inside the darkness left me spellbound,” he recalls. “I was glued to my seat.”
From then on, he was hooked; and with a growing fervour for the medium, he soon began consuming articles and reviews avidly, collecting and assembling the basis for what would soon become a passion project for many years to come. His developing interest and experience with film at such a young age bears a resemblance to more recent childhoods. His nascent awareness of the magic of film was born when, as a child, he received a toy projector with cartoon moving figures on as a Christmas present, much as children today might interact with a flipchart, or create animations on Scratch.
After moving to the UK, and as technology developed, he would soon develop a ‘kitchen cinema,’ in which he and his partner Dante would watch a vast range of films from different countries and in different languages after supper, constantly fuelling his interest. In the previous article about his donation, he also cites other inspirations which propelled his love of cinema - hearing renowned director Thorold Dickinson speak on ‘Renoir, Griffith, Keaton and more,” and Kevin Brownlow’s award-winning Hollywood series in the 1970s about the silent film era, narrated by James Mason.
If scrapbooks are a physical representation of an individual’s passion for a subject or medium, Michael Fritz’s work is reflective of a lifelong devotion to cinema and his own remarkable life. As he puts it: “They became my readings, my references, my entertainment all along my life.” It is incredibly important to note that this was, as he puts it, a ‘hobby.’ When he started, he had no ostensible links to anyone in the film industry. Throughout his working life, he was a carpenter by trade in West London, after moving from post-war Germany to join Dante, who beacme his civil partner. The collection’s scrapbooks are truly an expression of his pure love for cinema; and like much fan work, not created for commercial gain.
The art and process of scrapbooking is not uncommon amongst film enthusiasts. In fact, the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum collection holds a variety of scrapbooks created by different individuals. One such example can be found in an excellent post earlier this year by Dr Sabine Starmanns, who has worked on cataloguing and studying scrapbooks from the 1930s.
Many of the scrapbooks in the museum’s collection are normally singular creations - dedicated to one person - normally a film star - or a film. They are a physical extension of the scrapbook creator’s passion or love for the individual, or the creative piece; very much in keeping with the Museum’s own aim to showcase the ‘changing dynamics of the moving image and the history of our relationship with it,’ and ‘the moving image’s…reception.’ There is, therefore, no more fitting place for the Michael Fritz Collection than the museum, as it is a key example which encapsulates the history of visual culture and its relation to the audience.
The scrapbooks contain great variety and depth: the content of the scrapbooks is easily accessible and has been meticulously assembled. The wide variety of cuttings feature interviews with the directors and cast, critics’ reviews, and commentary on the director’s work and life.
Michael’s approach to the subjects of his scrapbook is quite unique in comparison to other scrapbooks in the collections. As previously mentioned, rather than focusing on film stars, the subjects of the scrapbooks are often the individuals behind the camera. It becomes of especial interest when these names reappear in contemporary news, such as Ridley Scott – with the advent of Gladiator II (2024). Another example is Bill Douglas himself – whose work is featured in a ‘Scottish and Welsh Cinema’ scrapbook, and who has recently been the subject of a well-received biographical film. The scrapbook also includes Philip French’s 1979 article, in which he states that Douglas’ Trilogy would “come to be regarded not just as a milestone, but as one of the heroic achievements of the British cinema.” The scrapbooks can also be used as a point of reference by readers and researchers when comparing and contrasting similar films.
EXEBD 89955 Scottish and Welsh Filmmakers: Philip French Review of The Bill Douglas Trilogy
(This does not discount the presence of actors in the scrapbooks as a source of interest - famous names hired by differing filmmakers, who drift from scrapbook to scrapbook like ghosts, much as they would go from role to role. In some cases, such as Charlie Chaplin and Clint Eastwood, actors are celebrated because of their directorial work).
Another interesting element about the scrapbooks is that many of the books often chart a director’s career by chronological filmography, as well as the films’ reception by film critics and cinema-goers – another example of the perennial relationship between the moving image and its audience. It is entirely possible to track a director’s career from their early days, through reading the articles in their corresponding scrapbook. One example is Richard Attenborough – the articles in his book run from his debut, Oh What a Lovely War! (1969) to feature films such as A Chorus Line (1985), and Gandhi (1982), and the films’ reception by contemporaries. The same applies to Martin Scorsese; the first article in his scrapbook is a review of his debut film ‘Who’s That Knocking at My Door?’ (1967) in which the reviewer for Time opines that the ‘film’s several weaknesses and excesses prevent it from being totally successful. But it introduces a young director who might just turn out to be one of the brighter talents of this eager new generation.’ Scorsese would later go on to win twelve awards on the American and British film circuit, as well as the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, among others.
EXEBD 89942 Martin Scorsese Scrapbook
As one might have surmised, the cuttings which Michael Fritz sourced for the scrapbooks came from a wide variety of British papers. They also, however – were sourced from American newspapers and magazines such as Time, Newsweek, and Village Voice. Beyond English-language newspapers, the scrapbooks are filled with articles and reviews from Swiss and German media, including Die Welt, Der Spiegel and Die Zeit, and French newspapers such as Le Monde, Le Figaro and magazine Les Nouvelles littéraires. The occasional article from Italian newspapers, such as Corriere della Sera will sometimes surface. This diversity of sources was a deliberate choice.
“The variety of opinions on films was always an interest of mine,” he says. “And I thought it worthwhile to read views from different countries and document them in my books.” He was not without favourite film critics, either: “In Britain: Dilys Powell, in France: Jacques Siclier, in the US: Andrew Sarris, in Germany: Friedrich Luft.” The multitude of papers from many countries is an asset in itself, as it allows readers to gain some insight into how films were received in differing regions, and the cultural attitudes which may have influenced their views on particular films and directors.
Reflecting his enjoyment in seeing differences of opinion regarding films, Oh What a Lovely War! (1969) - to expand on this example, received mixed opinions upon debut; many British critics lauded the film, not least Dilys Powell, who wrote of ‘a fantasia, beautiful, dreadful, heart-breaking, on history,’ and ‘could not restrain…tears,’ when watching the film, recalling her own childhood.
But there were others, such as Paul D. Zimmerman in American publication Newsweek, who posited that the film ‘comes on like a self-righteous man who believes himself the first to have discovered true evil.’ In this, the scrapbook not only reflects a difference of opinion - but also a cultural dissonance in the way in which films can be received by critics who may have grown up and work in differing socio-political contexts - and perhaps suggests that sometimes, film can be as equally divisive as it is uniting.
Mixed opinions can be found in Sam Peckinpah’s scrapbook too, a director noted for his often brutal work in the ‘anti-Western’ genre. While some of his films are highly regarded now, this was not often the case at the time of their release. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974), for example, did not attract much positive attention from critics at the time. In a rare showcase of unity across British media, many critics had negative reactions to the film: Derek Malcolm in the Guardian stated ‘the moment you start to think, it falls apart,’ whilst D. Robinson in the Times believed the film was ‘not an effort I would care for,’ and Patrick Gibbs in The Telegraph, thought that it was ‘contrived and stilted.’ This was not entirely a reflection of a difference in cultural and social attitudes either; across the pond, Zimmerman, still writing for Newsweek, was also unimpressed, writing ‘the story…deals with totemic concerns which simply do not concern denizens of the twentieth century.’
EXEBD 89929 Sam Peckinpah scrapbook
Certainly not favourable reviews - but the beauty of the scrapbooks and their consistent maintenance and organisation, is that the reader can detect and easily find a sea-change in opinion. In 2009, nearly four decades after the film’s release, Sukhdev Sandu, writing for The Telegraph, would counter Gibbs’ review, and laud Peckinpah’s ability to make the ‘banality of brutality compelling.’ Wendy Ide, writing for the Times, noted that the film ‘demonstrates the…film-making talents of Peckinpah at their purest.’
This allows the reader to contrast and compare differing opinions, both contemporary and retrospective, and highlights how subjective a film can be to different audiences and critics in different countries. The above quotes are only excerpts taken from British and American reviews; at the time of release, H.G. Pflaum in Süddeutsche Zeitung praised it, calling it Peckinpah’s ‘latest and most profound’ production, whilst Michael Schwarze, writing for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung takes a more nuanced approach, stating that although Peckinpah shows ‘the full meaningfulness of violence,’ his ‘analytical efforts have their limits.’
In tandem with the development of many directors’ careers, it is also interesting to note that the reader can track the careers of many film critics throughout the years - Peter Bradshaw, writing for the Guardian, for example, or Zimmerman – like a Greek chorus, commenting on the ebb and flow of cinema. The content of the scrapbooks allows consistent and ongoing glimpses into the academic cultural climate surrounding film and cinema; Camille Paglia and Susan Sontag are intermittent features in some scrapbooks. The scrapbooks themselves also offer some insight into socio-politics in cinema - there are two sizeable scrapbooks, for example, which cover pre and post Second World War German film.
The scrapbooks’ multiplicity of languages also allows the scrapbooks to focus on a wider variety of directors and genres. Although there are scrapbooks which focus on some directors who may be more well known in the English-speaking sphere, there are an equal number of scrapbooks dedicated to directors who became more prominent in Europe. These scrapbooks include several directors associated with the French New Wave and Left Bank Group, including Francois Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet. There are scrapbooks which focus on the body of work coming out of regions which were then known as Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and scrapbooks that focus on Soviet directors such as Sergei Eisenstein, often known for his innovative cinematic direction and ground breaking propaganda films, such as ‘Battleship Potemkin’ (1925). There are scrapbooks devoted to Dutch, Spanish, Polish and Scandinavian, South East Asian and Indian cinema. In the case of individuals, directors such as Nagisa Oshima – known for barrier-pushing works such as ‘In the Realm of the Senses,’ (1976) and ‘Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence’ (1983), also have their own scrapbooks.
EXEBD 89945 Francois Truffaut Scrapbook
Assorted examples of scrapbooks
This broad range only emphasises the idea that cinema is a medium that can transcend boundaries; despite philosophical or political differences, the content and proliferation of ideas can inspire others and capture the imagination of the viewer.
The scrapbooks’ compelling interior qualities are also matched by their covers. The main intention in their creation was to emulate book covers - in order to make the scrapbooks appear appealing and readable. The styles used to present the director’s name was often deliberated over. For Michael Fritz, ‘the lettering on the covers was important for me since the “books” should look attractive.’ The driving thesis behind the French New Wave was that all films created by the same director must have a particular signature or tone to them, demonstrating that their creations were indelibly a product of their imagination and creativity. In a similar vein, he emulated this by ‘trying to reflect the mood of the filmmakers,’ on the covers of his scrapbooks - by using ‘carton in different colours, shaped A4, on which I glued pictures, or elements of pictures, cut out from magazines, which could have some connotation with the director or the subject of the book.’
It is evident that a great deal of thought was directed towards this; Stanley Kubrick’s scrapbook cover, which features his name superimposed on a disjointed and dismantled picture of the director, was designed to emulate 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), reflecting how the director’s head was ‘bursting with ideas of new ways of film-making.’ One of the weightier scrapbooks, which focuses on Alfred Hitchcock, was created with one of his most famous works in mind - ‘the mutilated ‘K’ and a shred of red added…evoking… ‘Psycho.’”
EXEBD 89915 Stanley Kubrick Scrapbook
The scrapbook for the director Luis Bunuel at the beginning of the blog, was created with ‘the extraordinary colours used in his “Belle du Jour”’ in mind. One of the striking elements about the Bunuel scrapbook is the intentional use of autumn leaves on the front cover, instead of paper, which ‘added a sort of “shock”-effect, a trade-mark much used and beloved in the director’s oeuvre.’ The Ken Loach scrapbook has an evocative cover that references the working class settings in many of his films and documentaries, while Monty Python’s scrapbook cover - which features the troupe’s name with a snake’s tongue interlacing through the lettering, rather fittingly, originated from a chocolate box.
Another prominent example is a German Directors’ scrapbook, inspired by Nosferatu (1922) directed by F. W. Murnau – which is especially pertinent, considering Robert Eggers’ recent reinterpretation and adaptation of the story. In regard to this cover, Michael Fritz states: ‘I tried to generate “movement” by graphics, letting Nosferatu emerge in stages from shadows into his frightening shape,’ perhaps emulating Murnau’s affiliation with German Expressionism - using dynamic composition and positioning of shapes to generate reaction.
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German Directors Scrapbook
This play with shapes is also evident in other covers, such as the David Lean scrapbook, which features a clever piece of visual wordplay: ‘the “Lean” is “leaning” at the left corner of the cover.” Regarding the scrapbook on Yugoslavian cinema, he adds, ‘The cover for what was once called Jugoslawia had lettering evoking patterns one would find in ornaments from Eastern European folk art (or so I believed).’ This is emulated in the ‘Film Kuba’ scrapbook, which is a striking red - with pictures of Cuban leaders on the front cover.
And occasionally, as he phrases it: ‘sometimes one creates and shapes [the covers] without knowing why it was done this way and not another.’
The scrapbooks also, to a lesser extent, reflect a changing social and cultural landscape in London throughout sixty years of residence there. To learn more about the context behind the scrapbooks is to gain a fleeting glimpse into the life which Michael Fritz led in the past. Amidst the many different British news sheets, such as the Guardian, the Telegraph, and the Times - home to Dilys Powell’s reviews, many of the non-English language papers which he took cuttings from were fairly obtainable: ‘at the time there existed kiosks at nearly every station well stocked with national and international press. [These are] long gone since.’ Older articles were sourced from unexpected places; stall-holders who used old newspapers for packaging their products, including fish and chips.
Some newspapers such as Village Voice, whilst readily accessible in the 1960s, went out of print; he would obtain copies of this on a running route which he often took through Charing Cross Road. Village Voice also employed one of his favourite critics, Andrew Sarris, author of the ‘auteur theory,’ who features prominently throughout his scrapbooks on directors. US magazines such as Newsweek and Time were procured from bookshops and second hand bookshops.
After taking the cuttings, they were then pasted onto A4 pages, using UHU glue - and were filed in chronological order of film and article date, ‘which enabled me to add new sheets with additional material to [them] whenever necessary’. It is also interesting to observe how some of the A4 sheets have yellowed with time, emphasising the age of their creation – and also the composition and discolouration (or lack of) of the paper itself; constant shifts from glossy, high quality magazine paper to that of cost-effective newsprint. In many of the scrapbooks, as the years progress, the reader may notice there is a noticeable shift towards primarily British sources, although some non-English language articles do manage to squeeze into the pages.
“In the later years it became more cumbersome to chase foreign papers and other materials used to create my books,” he says. Thanks to an ‘ever-growing archive,’ storage problems started to emerge, as time passed. Even now, ‘many scrapbooks still contain pages which need proper filing. I have a bag with cuttings which still need glueing and cataloguing.’
And yet, despite this – and whilst the internet has made fan-generated work more accessible and widely documented - the impact, and the feat which he has achieved with his scrapbooks is still remarkable. If the French New Wave focused on the idea of an artist leaving their imprint on their work, then he has certainly left his on his own creations, through the palpable love and care which he poured into maintaining such a vast amount of scrapbooks, the quality and attention to detail within them, and his craftsmanship.
They are incredible resources for research for several reasons; as a study in one man’s devotion to cinema as a fan, as a way of contextualising films and their reception by the audience at the time of release, a collection of otherwise near-unattainable works reviews by a multiplicity of critics - but what stands out, above all, when one looks through these books, is that they are above all, a labour of love, a passion for a medium in pure, undiluted form; a creator, inspired by creators.
It must have been incredibly hard to part with so many years of history - but Michael Fritz views the donation of the scrapbooks as serving a greater aim: ‘I am happy and grateful, and a bit proud, that my books found a good home in your museum amongst appreciative friends, and where they might bring enjoyment and aid and encouragement for future research, to lovers and students of the CINEMA.’
Examples of the collection’s scrapbooks can be seen on display in the museum.
References
Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. (2024). The Michael Fritz Collection. The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. Available at: https://www.bdcmuseum.org.uk/news/the-michael-fritz-collection/ (Accessed: 02 January 2025).
Questions and Answers for Michael Fritz, (2024).
Michael Fritz Collection, ‘Francois Truffaut Scrapbook’ (1959 – 2011). Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, Exeter. Catalogue Number: EXEBD 89945.
Michael Fritz Collection, ‘Luis Bunuel Scrapbook’ (1965 – 2013). Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, Exeter. Catalogue Number: EXEBD 89885.
Michael Fritz Collection, ‘Martin Scorsese Scrapbook’ (1969 – 2014). Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, Exeter. Catalogue Number: EXEBD 89942.
Michael Fritz Collection, ‘Richard Attenborough Scrapbook’ (1968 – 2013). Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, Exeter. Catalogue Number: EXEBD 89879.
Michael Fritz Collection, ‘Sam Peckinpah Scrapbook’ (1963 – 2009). Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, Exeter. Catalogue Number: EXEBD 89929.
Michael Fritz Collection, ‘Scottish and Welsh Cinema Scrapbook’ (1972 – 2013). Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, Exeter. Catalogue Number: EXEBD 89955.
Michael Fritz Collection, ‘Stanley Kubrick Scrapbook’ (1962 – 2013). Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, Exeter. Catalogue Number: EXEBD 89915.
Starmanns, S. (2024) Movie scrapbooks from the 1930s. The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. Available at: https://www.bdcmuseum.org.uk/news/movie-scrapbooks-from-the-1930s-by-sabine-starmanns/ (Accessed: 02 January 2025).