MOMA HIGHLIGHTS ACQUISITIONS OF BARRY LEVINSON'S BALTIMORE MOVIES WITH SPECIAL SCREENINGS
A Special Donation: Barry Levinson’s Baltimore Films
November 8, 29–30, 1999
The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters
This past summer, the Department of Film and Video approached filmmaker Barry Levinson about presenting his debut feature, Diner (1982), in its exhibition To Have and Have Not, a series of films MoMA would like to add to its collection. In response, Mr. Levinson has generously donated four films to the Museum: Diner, Tin Men (1987), Avalon(1990), and the new Liberty Heights (1999), all of them semiautobiographical works made in his native city, Baltimore. To mark this gift, MoMA will screen Diner, Tin Men, and Avalon on November 8, 29, and 30, in the program A Special Donation: Barry Levinson’s Baltimore Films.
“Barry Levinson’s gift to The Museum of Modern Art of the four films that will come to be known as the Baltimore Quartet is a significant addition to our collection,” says Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film and Video, who organized the series. “Not only are the individual works deeply felt and immensely engaging, but seen as an organic whole they provide an invaluable social portrait of an American community that never stops changing.”
In conjunction with this program, MoMA will also host the New York premiere of Liberty Heights on November 8, which opens commercially later in the month.
