At last, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures has opened its doors to the general public, and it means something different to everyone. Some people describe it as the Death Star, whereas others playfully term it a bubble formed from soapy water. Actor-director Tom Hanks deems it a laterna magica. On the other hand, for some LA people, it evokes nostalgic moments of looking at the May Department Stores Company’s lavish window displays in the holiday period.
The Academy of Motion Pictures (AMPAS) has long been dreaming about the museum, a seven-story location spread across around 28,000 square meters. The architectural brainchild behind the spacious building is Renzo Piano from Italy. Situated amid the Miracle Mile in Los Angeles, the museum uses the artistic resources of AMPAS to operate. The opening exhibition at the AMPAS museum entitled ‘Stories of Cinema’ offers critical, personal and celebratory views on the influence and disciplines of filmmaking.
The temporary exhibition devoted to Japanese anime filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki is North America’s first retrospective of its kind in a museum. For the uninitiated, Miyazaki is best known for his collaboration with Studio Ghibli and the animated film ‘Spirited Away’.
The installation named ‘Backdrop: An Invisible Art’ represents the Mount Rushmore painting that filmmaker Alfred Hitchock used in his masterful film ‘North by Northwest’, with Cary Grant. ‘The Path to Cinema: Highlights from the Richard Balzer Collection’ has choices from the holdings of devices and toys before the development of cinema, including magic lanterns.
The interactive and fun simulation that is The Oscars® Experience allows visitors to envision what it would be like to enter the famous Dolby Theatre stage to accept an Academy Award. There are trophies from many historic Oscar Award wins in the gallery part of the namesake Academy Awards History rooms. There is a bigger gallery nearby that contains a chronological demonstration of Oscar Awards history, right from its first edition to the last one. The gallery named Director’s Inspiration has objects from the private collection of Oscar Award-winning director Spike Lee, which includes the guitar of musician Prince. For the uninitiated Lee and singer-songwriter Prince were collaborators and friends for a long time.
The museum has four levels of endless film memorabilia, including the ruby slippers of Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane’s Rosebud sled, and The Dude Robe from The Big Lebowski. There are Star Wars movie characters, the Oscar-winning Black Panther costume, the spacesuit that filmmaker Stanley Kubrick used for 2001: A Space Odyssey, and other historical stuff on display here.
The museum also houses two theaters named after producers Ted Mann and David Geffen, respectively. The so-called David Geffen Theater can accommodate a thousand viewers, whereas the other theater can seat 288 people. It is an odd number for a theater seating capacity; after all, something or the other associated with the Academy of Motion Pictures is odd. There will be educational and familial programs in the museum’s exhibition galleries, the education studio named after actor cum public official Shirley Temple, and theaters. The programs will include school tours, studio activities for family viewers, and teen programs.
The lobby space of the newly designed May Department Stores Company building houses Carl Schuster and Bill Chait’s Fanny’s restaurant cum café. It will not only commence business with breakfast lunch service but will add dinner service in the autumn season as well. The location is also named after a celebrity, actor Barbra Streisand’s based-on-real-life character Fanny Brice. It has a bar with Julian Cox in the role of its mixologist as well as an open kitchen featuring Raphael Francois serving as its executive chef.
