Edison: The Invention of the Movies

Mar 12, 2005

MoMA

A special program celebrating the recent release of a new DVD boxed set, jointly produced by MoMA and Kino International. This landmark project presents 140 films on four discs, spanning the years 1891 to 1918, each mastered from the best surviving archival copies in the collections of the Museum and the Library of Congress. Each film is accompanied by an original musical score specially commissioned for this set, or by Edison cylinder recordings from the period. From the Edison staff’s earliest motion picture experiments in 1891 (Dickson Greeting) through Edwin S. Porter’s narrative milestones from the early years of the 20th century and up to the company’s final release in 1918 (The Unbeliever), Edison: The Invention of the Movies makes available for the first time ever a comprehensive collection of films from this pioneering studio.

Organized by Steven Higgins, Curator, Department of Film and Media.

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].