The focus of the documentary was initially the discovery of a rare collection of some of the earliest motion pictures, stored in an Iowa shed. But it soon shifted to an iconic rural figure, a 6-foot-3 teacher who wears a long white beard, flannel shirts and Wranglers and so loves history that his voice cracks with emotion when he tells stories of it.
Michael Zahs, a retired junior high teacher from rural Washington, Ia., is known all over the state for his history presentations full of items that he dug up from Iowa’s every corner, including these rare films.
He’s a picker for history, not for Craigslist.
“My grandpas were savers,” he says in the film “Saving Brinton,” showing at FilmScene in Iowa City Sept. 29-Oct. 5and at Fleur Cinema in Des Moines Oct. 13-19.
“I always saved.”
Zahs owns the original plant held by a stern woman in a Grant Wood painting. He was given the steeple of a demolished local church because folks didn’t know what else to do with it but give it to Mike. He has the grain wagon that his father started the farm on decades ago, and grows the peach tree progeny from his mother. He kept an old dog that showed up on his farm on a Tuesday.
“I like to save things,” Zahs said, “especially if it looks like they are too far gone.”
And in 1981 he unloaded 10,000 items from a Washington estate sale and they sat in his shedfor 30 years. It was the collection of Frank and Indiana Brinton, natives of Washington who more than a century ago traveled about to show wide-eyed Iowans their first motion pictures on magic lantern slides and cellulose nitrate-based films dating back to 1895.
For years, the rural Washington 70-year-old tried to interest film historians in the collection but settled for dusting off a few slides to show in history presentations.
Then, as the documentary details, interest emerged in the last four years. Humanities Iowa offered a grant. University of Iowa Special Collections and the Library of Congress helped preserve and store them. And film historians took their first look and found footage never seen from George Melies, a pioneer of cinema.
It’s rare to have the films, but it’s even rarer to have them together with catalogs, documents, promotional material and the Brintons' 1905 projector, said Greg Prickman, head of Special Collections at the University of Iowa Libraries, where Zahs donated the collection.
The documentary premiered in mid-September at the State Theatre in Washington, the longest-running movie theater in the world where the Brintons once showed their films during Midwest tours from 1897to 1908.
Iowa City filmmakers Andrew Sherburne, Tommy Haines and John Richard might have produced little more than a fascinating bit of film history had they not realized what lay at its heart.
“We heard about this amazing collection in Washington,” Sherburne said, “but we didn’t know yet the real story was Mike. He’s as close to a celebrity as Washington, Ia., has.”
A celebrity history teacher?
On the way to the showing of “Saving Brinton” at the American Film Institute in Washington, D.C., this summer, they heard shouts of a passer-by: “Mr. Zahs! What are you doing here?”
Just another of the retired teacher’s devoted former students, which includes The Pines, a band thatplays on the soundtrack.
Zahs says the biggest part of the word history is story and that’s how he hooks people “who think they are getting by with ignorance. They are not.”
It is here that the film excels, showing rather than telling how Zahs gathers the past and brings it to light in the humblest of ways, whether at potlucks, class reunions or a gathering of Amish at their country church.
Zahs said at the premiere that he didn’t want the focus on him. One line in the documentary shows that humility. While accepting a film preservationist award at a film festival in Dubuque, he tells them, “I didn’t create anything. But sometimes people have good sheds.”
He said he just wanted the film to show that great things happen in Iowa.
“When we were in D.C. with the film, I heard people say they didn’t think this could come from Iowa,” he said in an interview. “They didn’t know that we were a center of entertainment. Back then, there were 300 travelling theater troops, and 100 of them were based in Iowa.”
The documentary from Barn Owl Pictures allows Zahs' character unfold as he drives his pickup filled with the films through the beautifully shot countryside.
“I wonder how many times this material came down this road,” Zahs says.
It’s his signature way of bringing the past to the present.
Frank Brinton was the son of a wealthy farmer who also owned early air ships. His silent film collection, which shows short comedic moments or hand-colored drama on 35-millimeter film, wowed Iowans of the time.
In the documentary, Zahs took the films to experts in cinema, including Serge Bromberg, head of Lobster Films, noted film preservationist, showman and consultant on “Hugo.” Bromberg was giddy because finding a Melies film, many of them destroyed decades ago, is a “miracle.”
“It is absolutely stunning,” he said. “I need a drink.”
Zahs showed one of the Melies films in Bologna, Italy, and was choked up as he introduced the silent picture to the crowd.
“You will be the first audience in 105 years to see this film,” Zahs told them.
Since the documentary’s production wrapped up, experts have found another lost Melies film in the collection, and Bromberg will show it at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in early October.
The documentary took nearly four years to produce, and Zahs says the filmmakers helped him get through his toughest time with his mother’s failing health.
The hours of footage led to stunning clips of blowing snow across the Iowa landscape and emotional, private moments.
Zahs fed his mother Elaine in the nursing home and reminded her of a painting on the wall, a country school where the entire family attended.
You could be happy for tomorrow, he said, because of yesterday.
And during a reenactment of the Brintons' traveling show at the State Theatre last year, he tells the crowd: “All of this is your story, too. You can impact the future long after you are gone. Let yourself dream and do it.”
In these scenes, Zahs’ lesson was clear to the filmmakers: Slow down and connect and appreciate the place where you live.
The crowd at the premiere rose to their feet as the documentary ended.
“It’s the story of some people who were way ahead of their time told by someone way behind his time,” Zahs said afterward.
In a throwaway culture, Zahs is history’s loving caretaker, whether it’s his mother, rare films or the family farm land he decided to keep.
“There’s just something about growing up on the same dirt,” he said of those waiting to shake his hand afterward, some who appeared in the film. “I call them dirt cousins, just as important as your blood cousins. A lot of these people here tonight are my dirt cousins.”
Where it's showing
Sept 29-Oct. 5, FilmScene in Iowa City
Oct. 5, Pearson Lakes Art Center, Okoboji
Oct 13-19, Fleur Cinema, Des Moines
Oct. 24, Lyric Theatre, Osceola
Oct. 25, Strand Theatre, Grinnell
Oct. 26, Putnam Museum, Davenport
Oct. 28, Iowa Theatre, Winterset.
The documentary is also showing at the Dallas DocuFest on Oct. 7 and the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival Oct. 8-9.
Some materials from the Brinton Collection will be included in the Hollywood in the Heartland exhibit at the State Historical Museum of Iowa in Des Moines prior to the Des Moines showings.
