Los Angeles – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences wanted to open a museum dedicated to cinema and filmmaking, on condition that its members make films with audio and present Oscars. It finally happens Thursday with the opening of the Academy Film Museum.

Here’s a spoiler-free view of the new seven-story, 300,000-square-foot Los Angeles cinema.

a long time ago…

The museum has hung in the air of Hollywood for so long that the word “finally” was found in almost every story and commentary for the opening.

“Finally, finally, welcome to the Academy Film Museum,” Tom Hanks said in a media preview last week. Hanks, a board member, led funding for the $ 388 million project with actor Annette Bening and Walt Disney executive chairman Robert Iger.

Announced in 2011 and slated to open as early as 2016, the museum has a typical delay for such projects and novelties such as the discovery of Ice Age fossils that better suit the La Brea tar pits below the boulder. I was disturbed. .. Then came the wave of postponement of the pandemic.

Academy president David Rubin told The Associated Press the institution has played a long game, and at least conceptually, the museum has been under construction for almost a century, not ten years.

“We’ve been burning candles for 92 years,” said Rubin, the fifth president since the project was announced. “We’ve been through a lot of transitions to get here, but it’s about time. “

What is playing

A blue shark in a “Jaws” mold hangs from the edge of the museum’s escalator. It is one of the few features that visitors can see in an open space. To capture the Wizard of Oz’s Ruby Slippers, Citizen’s Cane-specific Sled, and Star Wars Droids, you will need to enter a dark gallery as if entering a theater. ..

The movie making tools are the main theme inside. An exhibit is built against the backdrop of Mount Rushmore, which was used for Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest”. The other is fitted with over a century of filming machines, including today’s standard giant cutting machine used by Thelma Schoonmaker to edit Martin Scorsese films.

And there are a lot of videos from almost every movie shown.

Hanks watched all the clips, looked at all the dresses, and measured how long it took to read each word very concretely. “It will take three and a half days.

Spread the blow

Academy executives have been addressing the issue of diversity at Oscar in recent years. The museum allows them to pursue it from the beginning.

There are costumes for “With” as well as “Wizard of Oz”.

The first exhibition presented celebrates the work of legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki.

The Director’s Inspiration Gallery features an exhibition of Spike Lee, including the costumes worn in the movie and the purple costume worn to the Oscar in 2019. He won Best Screenplay for “BlacKkKlansman,” but was furious when he took it. the best photos. I went to “Green Book”.

Two women and soap bubbles

Designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, the museum consists of two buildings located on Wilshere Boulevard, next to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. One is the old department store from 1939 and the other is newly built.

Piano told AP the film influenced his design early on, from the use of light and shadows to seeing the building as the archetype of two classic Hollywood characters.

“Grandmother and beautiful lady,” said Piano, “they are connected by a bridge and speak.”

Above the new building is a concrete and glass terrace and dome, a visual element of the museum. Piano thinks this could lead to a nickname like “The Shard” on the London skyscraper he designed. He said he really wanted it to be called a “soap bubble” rather than a “death star”.

But he stresses that his building is not fragile. “The best thing about soap bubbles is that they swell,” he said. “But it’s never, never, never. Very well done.”

Favorite things

Academy CEOs Dawn Hudson, Rubin, and Hanks shared which parts to recommend as the best parts of the museum.

Hudson: “The picture Wes Anderson drew for ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ and the doll he made. It’s one of my son’s favorite movies. This is the emotion I had. It is an attachment. “

Rubin: “I think Cinephilia is thrilled to see Rosebud in ‘Citizen Kane’. It was my favorite. But I went to the costume show and I went to see the costume from “With” and Ari Aster’s movie “Mid”. If you watch Ari Aster’s incredible floral masterpieces, you are sure to do so, even if you’ve never seen a movie. It is dazzling. “

Hanks: “It’s a room full of old magic lanterns. Hundreds of years ago, with the power of the candle focused before the lights came on, the whites of tigers and lions of volcanoes that exploded as well as past volcanoes. A small slide projector that projects a realistic image onto a wall in front of you. “

Hanks added that the whole museum is for him “the biggest magic lantern in the world”.

The Academy museum will be running