4 movies / September 27
When it opens in Los Angeles on September 30, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will be the world’s premier institution dedicated to the art and science of movies — their technology, history, artistic achievements and social impact. Among the many exhibitions and programs illuminating the world of cinema, the museum’s far-ranging collections will contain iconic props, costumes and significant objects from motion picture history, such as a full-scale model of the shark from Jaws (1975), a matte painting of Rome from Spartacus (1960), the typewriter Joseph Stefano used to write the screenplay for Psycho (1960) and, of course, Dorothy’s ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz (1939).
The programming for this special evening includes four films that will be represented at the museum. One of the most significant films in Hollywood history, Citizen Kane (1941) is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all time. Orson Welles’ stunning and controversial directorial debut ingeniously follows the rise and fall of a powerful newspaper magnate. (Three guesses what the iconic prop from this picture will be!)
Spike Lee skillfully told the story of the influential Black leader and activist in Malcolm X (1992), which received two Academy Award nominations for Denzel Washington’s powerful performance in the title role and for the costume design by Ruth E. Carter, who later became the first African American to win an Academy Award for Costume Design for Black Panther (2018). (Might the object on display be Malcolm X’s iconic glasses that Carter fitted for Washington?)
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!/¡Átame! (1989) is an outrageous dark comedy from acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar. Antonio Banderas makes his fifth appearance (of eight to date) in an Almodóvar picture as a man just released from a mental health facility who concocts a plan to kidnap a porn star (Victoria Abril, another frequent Almodóvar collaborator) in order to get her to marry him. (What will it be? Rope and restraints? The red lasso? That hideous “rock star” wig?)
The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) is iconic in its own right as the oldest surviving animated feature film. German filmmaker Lotte Reiniger used her self-invented silhouette animation technique to tell this story based on elements from One Thousand and One Nights (aka The Arabian Nights), a collection of folk tales compiled during the Islamic Golden Age, a flourishing of arts, science and culture from roughly the 8th through the 14th centuries. The process involved frame-by-frame manipulations of cutouts made from cardboard and thin sheets of lead, producing a look similar to Javanese Wayang puppet theater. Working from the few surviving nitrate prints, archivists from Germany and the U.K. restored the film in 1998-99, reinstating the color tinting that had been lost with the original prints.
