The message instilled into Bert Salzman’s “The Many America Series,” was one of hope and self-exploration. Photo by Ryan Lely
The sheer number of creative pursuits in which Bertram Salzman has participated throughout the decades renders the term “Renaissance man” useless to describe him. “Renaissance machine” is probably more apt, though it abrogates the human factor that could be said to be Salzman’s métier. One of the many ways this notable Sonoman has manifested his unique vision is through a series of “human values” films he wrote and directed in the mid-’70s which were released to classrooms across the nation. Now they’re available free online.
Salzman’s nine-film suite, “The Many Americas Series” was born of the Johnson administration’s “Great Society” philosophy in which educational programs embraced themes of ethnic awareness and diversity. As Salzman describes it, school districts were then comparatively flush with funds and demanded media materials that provoked classroom discussion.
“The schools were loaded with money. They invested in hardware and after the hardware was constructed, from screening rooms to projectors, et cetera, it came to ‘What are we going to show?’” Salzman recounted in a refreshing brass-tacks manner. “The next year, when the bloated budgets of the school systems came, they started buying films. The majors found out this was profitable so they all made little educational divisions.”
The Learning Corporation of America, the largest of the era’s educational program producers, was launched by Hollywood juggernaut Columbia Pictures to get a toehold in the burgeoning new market. An executive who was familiar with Salzman’s work as an artist tapped him to write and direct what eventually blossomed into a series celebrated for its broad appeal and the emotional impact of its storytelling. Among the films was 1975’s “Angel and Big Joe,” a tale of friendship found by a young migrant worker, which leads to a difficult choice. The film won Salzman an Academy Award.
“They wanted stories and I was a fiction writer, so I started creating these stories based on little ideas I had. Those films were very successful,” he beamed.
Through his films. Salzman endeavored to instill hope into the hearts of young people through a simple message: “Have hope, go deep into your self; you are more than you think you are!”
Despite their success, LCA was reticent to re-release the films when the preferred classroom media switched from bulky 16 millimeter film prints to slimmer profile VHS tapes.
“The majors abandoned the project and stopped promoting the stuff,” said Salzman. “I went to the distributor and said, ‘How about doing mine and the other LCA films on DVD?’ They said, ‘Not enough profit,’ and refused. What I saw was all of this work I had done for years and which won an Oscar and other prizes was going to end.”
Fortunately, technology made another advance and Salzman’s opus has been given new life in digitized form.
“A friend of mine, who knows about these things said, ‘Why don’t you put them on the Internet?’” recounted Salzman, who pointed out that the material explored in his films is universal in nature and not dependent on any particular cultural precept to be understood. “The stories are timeless because they’re about the lives of a particular child in an environment, which could be any environment.”
The films are now available at the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco’s Presidio with a mandate to aid “permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format.” Moreover, anybody the world over can enjoy Salzman’s work anytime by searching the organization’s Web site at www.archive.org.
“Now, I feel the world owns these films. They’re ubiquitous and all over the place. Whether they’re in Connecticut or in the Belgian Congo, a teacher, if they wanted to download these films, could.”
