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Museum devoted to magic of cinema to open in LA
LOS ANGELES, Dec 14, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Nearly a century after the idea was
first floated, a museum dedicated to the magic of cinema is finally set to
open in Los Angeles, with the first temporary exhibition devoted to Japanese
animator Hayao Miyazaki.
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, slated to open by the end of 2019,
will be devoted to the past, present and future of film, offering visitors a
look behind the screen and into how movies are made.
“Los Angeles was at one time and still is to some degree one of the major
capitals for the production of film… so it seems the natural place to have
a major museum to ensure that the legacy of film lives on,” said Kerry
Brougher, director of the museum, which is the brainchild of the Academy of
Picture Arts and Sciences, the institution behind the Oscars.
Dorothy’s famed ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz,” a copy of a script
annotated by Gregory Peck for the 1962 drama “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the
doors to Rick’s Cafe Americain from “Casablanca” or the typewriter used by
Joseph Stefano to write the screenplay to Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” are
among a trove of objects that will be on display.
– Animation master Miyazaki –
Designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, the near $400 million museum
will be housed in a historic building — the Saban Building formerly home to
the May Company department store — and will feature six floors that include
exhibition spaces, a cafe, a store, plus a 1,000-seat theatre.
“The Museum will be a gathering place for film lovers and will invite
people from all over the world to re-experience and deepen our collective
love of this art form, accessible to all,” said Dawn Hudson, CEO of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.”
“Like the experience of watching a movie, a trip to the Museum will be a
kind of waking dream in which visitors feel as if they’ve slipped through the
screen to see how the magic is created,” she added.
Several Hollywood A-listers, including Tom Hanks, Annette Bening and Laura
Dern, have been involved in the project, hosting fundraising events and
drumming up support both at home and abroad.
“It’s going to be a combination of the Louvre, the Museum of Modern Art and
the Hermitage,” Hanks told reporters on a recent tour, referring to world-
class museums in Paris, New York and St. Petersburg, Russia.
“Everybody who comes to Los Angeles will want to see what’s inside and they
will linger for more than just a few hours.”
The museum will open with a retrospective devoted to Miyazaki, whose
animation masterpieces include “Princess Mononoke” and the Oscar-winning
“Spirited Away.”
Brougher said that apart from paying tribute to the genius of Miyazaki, the
exhibition was also intended to reflect the global scope of the museum.
“I wanted to make sure that we came out of the gate with an international
figure to show people that this museum isn’t going to be just about Hollywood
or American cinema,” he told AFP. “I was concerned that being in Hollywood
and being part of the Academy, the museum might be seen as being too much
about Hollywood and the Oscars.”
Jessica Niebel, curator of the exhibition, said the retrospective, the
first of its scope in the United States, will take visitors on a thematic
journey through Miyazaki’s world and will include more than 200 concept
sketches, storyboards and film clips, with the animator himself hopefully
launching the exhibit.
“Animation plays a big part in the mystery of film and is sometimes
overlooked,” Niebel told AFP. “And Miyazaki is a genius… and a filmmaker I
admire because he is making movies generally about life… and what it means
to exist in this world.”
The retrospective will be followed by an exhibition on the history of
African-American filmmakers and their contribution to American cinema.
BSS/AFP/GMR/1211 hrs