Lyrical Nitrate (Dutch: Lyrisch Nitraat)[1] is a 1991 collage filmbyPeter Delpeut.[2]
The film consists of clips from various silent films printed on decaying nitrate film stock, including shorts, documentaries, and travelogues.[3] There is no formal narrative.[4] Delpeut followed the film with 1993's The Forbidden Quest, which also uses found footage; the two were released together on video and DVD.[5]
The films were drawn from the Desmet Collection of the Nederlands Filmmuseum (Eye Filmmuseum), where Delpeut worked as deputy director for a decade.[6] Jean Desmet (1875–1956) was an early Dutch film distributor. After Desmet's death a cache of film prints was discovered in the attic of a theater he owned in Amsterdam, and subsequently added to the museum's collection.[3][7]
