In a week today, I will be driving down to the outskirts of Burlington, Vermont to present a paper at the Northeast Popular Culture Association Conference. In preparation, this week I have been working on finalizing my presentation, which is based on a larger paper “It’s History; or Why Now? How Rediscovered Rockumentary Footage Structures the Past and Reveals the Present.” In this larger study, I focus my attention on lost rockumentary projects, including Tony Palmer’s 1972 documentary of Leonard Cohen’s European tour (of the same year), Bird on a Wire. To supplement my analysis, I explore two additional rockumentaries released thirty and fifty years after they were first filmed. Festival Express features Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, The Band, and Buddy Guy on a cross-Canada train tour in 1970. It had a theatrical run in 2003 and was released on DVD in 2004. Charlie is My Darling documents the Rolling Stones on tour in Ireland in 1965. In November 2012, it was concurrently released in select theaters and on DVD and Blu-Ray.

For those unfamiliar with the story of Bird on a Wire, this is how the story goes. In spring 1972, Tony Palmer accompanied Leonard Cohen on his European tour, filming his onstage performances and backstage antics. When Palmer finished editing the documentary−entitled Bird on a Wire−he showed it to Cohen, who, unhappy with the final product, hired his own editors to complete the film. This second version premiered in London on July 5, 1974 and then vanished. Palmer mourned the loss of his original version of the film, but felt piecing the celluloid back together was virtually impossible; moreover, he was unsure where the footage might be located. In the late 2000s, 290 rusted canisters of film containing pieces of the original footage were discovered in a Los Angeles warehouse. When Palmer found his original soundtrack, he knew he could restore the film. In 2010, Palmer’s original film, now containing 3000 fragments sutured back together, was screened in public for the first time.

In my study of Bird on a Wire, two main questions structure my analysis. First, how does the film highlight issues of historicity? That is, how does our viewing of a film reconstructed thirty years after it was first shot challenge a positivistic view of documentary film as historically authentic and demand a reading of it against the grain? Turning to my subsequent question, which forms the main focus of my presentation at the NEPCA conference, “Like a Bird on a Wire: A Study of the Rediscovery, Preservation, and Circulation of Ephemeral Texts,” how does the ephemeral nature of this film allow us to capture the dynamism of culture and cultural value? Here, I examine how the shifting value of Bird on a Wire illuminates cultural change, analyzing its value in the midst of Cohen’s resurgence in 2010 and in 1974, when the film was allowed to vanish. Using accounts from interviews, biographies, newspaper articles, and official websites, I examine the reasons given for the original neglect of these rockumentary projects. More importantly, I ponder why now; what is unique about this cultural moment that encourages the restoration of lost and forgotten projects? To address this question, I present some of the conditions that lay the foundations for Bird on a Wire, and similar lost footage films, to gain secondary value. In doing so, I consider the symbolic value of these films for fan communities, establishing connections between the genre of rockumentary and fandom and celebrity culture, and their renewed economic value within the context of DVD culture. Through studying Bird on a Wire, I aim to demonstrate the role of value, affect, and celebrity and fandom culture in the rediscovery, preservation, and circulation of ephemeral texts.