A View from the Vaults: Recent Acquisitions
March 8–April
5, 2004
The Museum of Modern Art’s Film and Media Archive comprises
nearly twenty thousand titles. With the 1996 opening of The Celeste
Bartos Film Preservation Center in Hamlin, Pennsylvania, the Museum,
for the first time in its history, owns and operates a state-of-the-art
facility to store its moving-image treasures, and provides a controlled
environment for the preservation of materials deemed essential to
film history. Thanks to the generosity of such artists as Ethan Coen,
Joel Coen, Alexander Payne, and Edward R. Pressman, a number of important
films have found a new home in our collection. This exhibition of
recent acquisitions illustrates the diversity of MoMA’s film
and media collection, with classic Hollywood feature productions,
independent works exploring social issues, and foreign films examining
cultural values. Featured in the program is a 35mm print of An-Magritt (1969), a gift to MoMA from the late director Arne Skouen and the
Norsk Filminstitutt.
Organized by Anne Morra, Assistant Curator, Department of Film and
Media.
. 1953. USA. Directed by Vincente
Minnelli. With Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Ava Gardner. Tony Hunter’s
Hollywood career is at an end, and so he makes the switch to Broadway,
with
unexpected results. This jewel of a musical includes the Arthur Schwartz
and Howard Dietz standards “Dancing in the Dark,”“A
Shine on Your Shoes,”and the inimitable “That’s
Entertainment.” 112 min.
. 1953. Italy. Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. With
Lucia Bosé, Andrea
Checchi, Gino Cervi. The rags-to-riches story of a shopgirl who becomes
a movie star. Antonioni offers a pessimistic glimpse of postwar Rome
and its film industry. In Italian, English subtitles. 105 min.
. 2001. USA. Directed by Ethan Coen,
Joel Coen. With Billy Bob Thornton, Frances McDormand, James Gandolfini.
Ed Crane is a content man: he holds down the second chair at his
brother-in-law’s barber shop and never complains. But when
Ed meets a con man, he uncharacteristically becomes involved in intrigue
and mayhem. 116 min.
. 1977.
Hungary. Directed by Béla Tarr. With Kriztina Horváth,
László Horváth,
Gábor Kún. When a shortage of apartments in Communist-era
Hungary forces a family to live in close quarters, a young couple
struggles for independence while the patriarch rails against his
loss of paternal control. Masterful director Tarr creates an unparalleled
claustrophobic world. In Hungarian, English subtitles. 103 min.
. 1969. Norway. Directed by Arne Skouen. With Liv Ullmann,
Per Oscarsson, Wolf von Gersum. An-Magritt lives in an isolated Norwegian
village, where the only means of survival is collecting stones for
the Chancellor. The stones are turned into iron ore, and the Chancellor
grows rich while the villagers fall deeper into poverty. In Norwegian,
English subtitles. 100 min.
. 2002. Hungary. Directed by Ericka Beckman. An all-male
group of factory workers turns wheels and switches machines on and
off, moving in perfect sync with the unstoppable assembly line. The
factory head is a woman who spends her time in a tower, like an industrial
princess, but when three Pokemon-like creatures threaten to take
over the operation, she must leave her lofty perch. 12 min.
. 2001. USA. Directed by Jem Cohen, Peter Sillen. With
Benjamin Smoke. A bewitching profile of a legendary underground musician
from Cabbagetown, Georgia. Benjamin’s heartbreakingly beautiful
lyrics chronicle an original life shaped by poverty, drug abuse,
and HIV. 79 min.
. 2003. USA. Directed by Wayne Kramer. With William H.
Macy, Maria Bello, Alec Baldwin. Gambler Bernie Lootz is perpetually
down on his luck, but then he meets Natalie and his fortunes change.
Set in an outdated Las Vegas casino known as the Shangri-La, this
idiosyncratic film tells the story of a not-so-idyllic gambling world.
102 min.
. 1999. USA. Directed by Alexander
Payne. With Reese Witherspoon, Matthew Broderick, Chris Klein.
Tracy Flick is running unopposed
for president of the high school student council, but her civics
teacher, Mr. McAllister, has a different plan. In the spirit of fostering
a democratic election—but secretly in an effort to thwart the
all-too-perfect Tracy—he talks a jock into running against
her. 104 min.
.
2002. Iran. Directed by Fariborz Kamkari. With Parviz Moasesi, Shilan
Rahmani, Farzin Saboni. A deteriorating marriage is explored with
an ever-present video camera. This work illustrates the social inequalities
facing women in Iran, where the line between life and death is barely
definable. In Farsi, English subtitles. 85 min.
.
1998–2000. France. Directed by Brice Dellsperger.
Dellsperger, who employs the digital reworking of feature films,
based this work on Andrzej Zulawkski’s 1974 film L’Important
c’est d’aimer (The Main Thing Is to Love). In this digital
version, all the roles are played by one actor, Jean-Luc Verna, creating
an effect that is both disquieting and memorable. In French, English
subtitles. 104 min.
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