A-1 Video remembers Rusty
Cassleton
Our list of fallen comrades has grown again
most tragically.
Harold “Rusty” Casselton, 53, died at
Rochester (Minn.) Methodist Hospital from complications of cancer.
Thanks to Rusty's efforts throughout the years we've had many great silent era
comedies available to us that otherwise would have been unavailable on 16mm. He
had a great joy for our hobby and unlike some collectors, shared his wealth of
material and his knowledge with us. I'll miss his friendship and my condolences
go out to his family. He left us far too soon.
Casselton became director of MSUM’s film studies department in 2001 after
spending 22 years at Concordia College.
He was internationally known for film preservation and restoration, had an
enormous film collection and worked with the Fargo Film Festival every year.
“Rusty was a phenomenal leader in his area; just always very full of
energy,” said Kathleen Enz Finken, MSUM dean of arts and humanities.Rusty
Casselton was director of film studies at Minnesota State Moorhead. Forum file
photo
RELATED CONTENT
Amy Dalrymple Archive Students and others who knew Casselton will likely be
shocked to hear of his death because few knew he was sick, Enz Finken said.
Casselton discovered he had cancer in March and doctors said he’d have two to
five years to live, said his wife, Cindy Casselton. He chose not to tell many
people about his illness, she said.
“He decided to live and not give in to the cancer,” Cindy Casselton said. “To
tell now meant that everyone would be wondering and waiting. He just didn’t want
that.”
Casselton died of complications from a procedure to shrink the tumors on his
liver, his wife said.
He was surrounded by his family and friends, including daughters Hannah, 16, and
Amanda, 14.
MSUM sent e-mails to students in the department notifying them of Casselton’s
death. Assistant professor Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson said many students will
likely return to campus early to attend his funeral.
“Rusty was very well-liked by the students and very well-respected,” she said.
“They just really liked him and his classes.”
Casselton’s predecessor and business partner, Ted Larson, a longtime MSUM
professor, died unexpectedly in 2000 at age 60.
Casselton took over the department after that difficult time and built it into a
strong program for the region, Kristjansson-Nelson said.
When the film studies major was approved at MSUM, there were 30 students in the
program. Three years later, MSUM has more than 120 film studies majors, Enz
Finken said.
“He really dedicated a tremendous amount of time and energy into that program
and it was all for students,” she said.
First and foremost, though, Casselton was a father and husband who
shared that passion for film with his family, his wife said. “We would watch
films in a different way,” Cindy Casselton said. “I would watch it for the
story; he would say ‘Did you see that bad edit?’ ”
Amanda Casselton remembers getting excited about Charlie Chaplin when her
friends had never heard of him.
“I was my dad’s little film girl,” she said.
Rusty Casselton also was involved with the Fargo Theatre, serving on the
board, providing films for silent movie night and working with the Fargo Film
Festival.
His preservation and restoration work has appeared in numerous documentaries and
is played on television and at museum and archive showings around the world. “He
has a real legacy for a very young man,” said Margie Bailly, the Fargo Theatre’s
executive director. Readers can reach Forum reporter Amy Dalrymple at (701)
241-5590
Thanks to Tom
Stathes for this Related Content information.
MORE ON RUSTY
Careful readers of Film Forum’s repertory
calendar over the past 20 years will recognize that name. On just about any
series that included a silent movie, it could be found in the “special
thanks” section, appearing scores of times.
Harold “Rusty” Casselton
was a collector, archivist, private preservationist, and college instructor,
who died on December 30 , 2007 at age 53.
A notice in his local
newspaper described him as “a film buff,” but the word “buff” doesn’t begin
to describe who he was, or his contribution to film culture.
Rusty was a passionate
collector, who, with his late partner and mentor Ted Larson, built up one of
the world’s great private film libraries; a cinevangelist, whose love of
movies (silents in particular) was infectious; and a gifted teacher, who
turned his students, far from recognized film centers, into ardent
aficionados for life.
He established a film
studies major at Minnesota State University Moorhead, in the small city
where he lived with his wife and two daughters. (Moorhead is adjacent to
Fargo, North Dakota -- yes, the same town immortalized in the Coen Brothers
movie.) When his program began in 2000, thirty MSUM students elected it as a
major. That number quadrupled within three years.
The film collection amassed by Rusty and Ted, with virtually no public
funding, is legendary. Thanks to them, Film Forum has been able to show some
super-rare silents not available elsewhere, films with Clara Bow, Colleen
Moore, Marion Davies, Buster Keaton… you name ‘em. The Larson/Casselton
collection even includes rare films by foreign masters like Murnau and
Lubitsch.
Even more impressive is
that Rusty also restored films, normally
the work of big archives and an extraordinary job for an individual.
One of his restorations
was the 1920 "Headin’ Home", starring
Babe Ruth, which we presented on the 100th anniversary of the Sultan of
Swat’s birth. Rusty rushed the restoration through to meet the date.
That’s the kind of guy Rusty Casselton was.
- Bruce
Goldstein, Director of Repertory Programming, Film Forum
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