Forgotten Silver (1995) (TV)

Directors:

Costa Botes
Peter Jackson

Writers:

Costa Botes (written by) &
Peter Jackson (written by)

Release Date:

3 October 1997 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Forgotten Silver is a mockumentary which details the prodigious life of "lost" filmmaker Colin McKenzie...

Plot Keywords:

Interview | Director | New Zealand | Photograph | Spanish Civil War

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Peter Jackson	...	Himself
Johnny Morris	...	Himself - Film Archivist (also as Jonathon Morris)
Costa Botes	...	Himself - Film Maker
Harvey Weinstein	...	Himself - Miramax Films
Leonard Maltin	...	Himself - Film Historian
Sam Neill	...	Himself - Actor / Director
Marguerite Hurst
John O'Shea
Lindsay Shelton	...	Himself
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Beatrice Ashton	...	Hannah McKenzie
Peter Corrigan	...	Stan the Man
Sarah McLeod	...	May Belle (research assistant)
Thomas Robins	...	Colin McKenzie
Jeffrey Thomas	...	Narrator
Davina Whitehouse	...	Herself

Runtime:

53 min

Country:

New Zealand

Language:

English | Cantonese

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Certification:

Finland:K-7 | France:U | Iceland:Unrated | Singapore:NC-16

Filming Locations:

New Zealand

Company:

New Zealand Film Commission

Trivia:

The interview with Sam Neill was taken during the filming of Cinema of Unease: A Personal Journey by Sam Neill (1995).

Goofs:

Continuity: Also relating to the close-up: there are many in the footage from "The Worrior Season" which was made before "Solome" where Colin supposedly invents it.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Film Geek (2005)

alternate histories

This is a short little "mockumentary" done by Peter Jackson for NZ TV, I guess, about the life of film maker Colin McKenzie, who was a pioneer in many ways in early film making, including talkies, color, and smut. This has a very dry humor to it for the most part and I found it to be wonderful from start to finish. This begins with Peter Jackson talking about how he was asked by McKenzie's widow if he'd be interested in a bunch of old films in a trunk in her garden shed. So Jackson takes the films to a historical archive where they are quite amazed at the contents. According to this, McKenzie filmed the first airplane flight, which preceded that of the Wright Brothers by 9 months. He also filmed the first 'talkie', which was a failure because all the actors were speaking Chinese. He was also the pioneer in color film, because he went to Tahiti to get some special berries that could be used in the creation of color, and when he was using the resulting film to capture images, topless and curious Tahitian women wandered into the picture, resulting in his arrest for portraying smut on film. This also chronicles the creation of the never-finished film "Salome", for which McKenzie built an entire city somewhere on the est coast of NZ. This is a film that suffered numerous setbacks including financial problems and WW1. At the time McKenzie partnered up with a comedian, Stan the Man, who's big claim to fame was throwing pies in people's faces, but it paid the bills. Too bad at one point he didn't recognize the Prime Minster, after which he was beaten by cops. Of course McKenzie had that all on film too, and Leonard Matlin, in one of his usual over-excited commentaries, compares it to the filming of the Rodney King beating. Forgotten Silver is vastly entertaining and the humor is wonderful and droll. It's too bad it's only an hour but I suppose that's better than overstaying its welcome. 9 out of 10 stars.