The problem of integrity of the author's text in art is often perceived as axiomatic: any use of "someone else's" text within the “author’s own” work is declared as plagiarism. However it has been demonstrated that the problem of “quotation”, “collage” etc. is not so simple: the history of world art offers many fascinating examples of “playing” with someone else’s art texts in the context of one’s own work. The most complete form of this kind of creativity is historical documentary or montage movie. The article examines the innovative experience of the acknowledged founder of this trend Esfir Shub, who not only collected what would later become film archives, but also started a new field of creative work.Further experience of using archival chronicles in world cinema to create substantive works opened up many creative paths both for historiographic screen texts and free-form author essays. The article traces the attempts of Alain Resnais, Paul Rotha, Frederic Rossif, Artavazd Peleshian, Alexander Sokurov to create original movies based on the already existing screen texts of the past. Particular attention is given to the methods of distancing archival frames, transition from chronicle narrative to figurative metaphor.