The National Film Registry has announced their 2006 list of inductees, and whilst Dave Kehr can't resist turning up his nose at the body's annual, token appeals to populism ("Now remind me: what was the historic importance of Blazing Saddles? The first fart joke in a major studio film?"), I find the list to be, once again, the most fascinatingly schizophrenic document of film historiography since ... um ... last year's list, I guess.

For those of you who don't await the NFR's annual press release with bated breath, and/or are perhaps unaware of how this nebulous government-sponsored preservation board functions, or why, allow me to quote directly from their website:

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington seeks nominations for the National Film Registry. To be eligible for the Registry, a film must be at least 10 years old and be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The number of public votes a film receives is a factor weighed during the selection process.

At a press conference today, Billington stressed the need to physically perserve films as relics of the past; it's about maintaining quality prints, almost irregardless of the perceived quality of the content imprinted on them. Which I think is GREAT -- throw it all together. Acknowlege that high and low brow, commerical and independent, would be substantively indistinguishable were we not all -- and not just you and me, but anyone living in a world steeped in moving imagery -- de facto film scholars with an ingrained knowledge of How Hollywood Works. Rocky on the same shelf as Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania? Perfect.

This year's roster also includes the charmingly scrappy debut from a sharply underrated studio hack; star-studded candy for pre-Code fetishists; a silent satire of Hollywood by Josef Von Sternberg; and two decent 90s AmerIndies from wildly overrated filmmakers. Plus, St. Louis Blues, which allegedly contains the only existing filmed record of Bessie Smith singing, and Harold Ramis' masterpiece.