Join us as we embark on the first in our international journey of movie destinations.
Opening on the former East Coast corner of Paramount
Pictures in 1988 after years of foundation and connection to the world famous
Astoria Studios where the Marx Brothers, Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino
made their movies, the Museum of the Moving Image is regarded as the first and
most comprehensive American museum devoted entirely to film, television and the
visual arts in general. When I first
heard about the New York based Museum of the Moving Image’s See It Big! 70mm film festival with both
2001: A Space Odyssey and Brainstorm on the schedule, a trip to
what is arguably America’s greatest cornucopia of cinema history was born. Little did I know what I was getting myself
into when I set foot inside the theater’s lobby designed by architect Thomas Leeser. Clearly, I was stepping inside one of our
nation’s most elite film venues and it didn’t stop there. Adorned with countless exhibits with many
real film props including but not limited to the actual Yoda puppet used in The Empire Strikes Back, a majority of
the Jim Henson collection, tons of artifacts encompassing an entire history of
cinema and even a comprehensive video game retrospective, Martin Scorsese is
said to have called Moving Image the “ultimate American museum”.
From the onset, the futuristic look of the sleek and
sterile white lobby couldn’t help but remind me of the space station in 2001: A Space Odyssey and the writer’s
home in A Clockwork Orange. Projected on the wall in front of the service
desk was an ongoing panoramic three-dimensional painting which seemed to be
both constantly moving and always visually stunning to behold. After grabbing my tickets, my travel
companion and I ascended a neon blue lit ramp leading up to the theater. The theater itself, called the Summer M. Redstone
Theater, looked and felt like something out of a science fiction film as
envisioned by James Cameron. Covered in
blue felt-paneled walls and ceiling and stadium seating accommodating 267 seats
with speakers placed at almost every angle, the acoustics of this venue are
truly unlike anything this Movie Sleuth writer has ever heard before. Equipped with projectors ranging from 16mm to
70mm, the ultramodern and futuristic design of the theater leaves one with
the impression they’re not seeing a film at a standard theater but the studio
equivalent of a screener room for Hollywood executives. Covering the theater screen is a kaleidoscopic
curtain resembling the Stargate sequence concluding 2001 along with a podium with the museum logo imprinted on the
front. Then the lights went down and the
films began.
I have seen 2001:
A Space Odyssey numerous times in the theater over the years, the first
time on a 70mm print, then on 35mm and eventually a Blu-Ray projection at the
Main Art Theater. For as many times as
I’ve seen this film, nothing comes close to the presentation I saw at the
Moving Image film theater. Detail was
impeccable with bright light and every nuance of sound often buried in the
soundtrack due to weaker presentation was now audible. Up to this point the best sounding theater I
had heard was Michigan’s very own Henry Ford IMAX with Interstellar being one of its top highlights. To say the Moving Image’s presentation of 2001 blew it away is both a testament to
the power of the theater’s acoustics as well as affirming the belief that films
of the past still have the ability to outdo modern film experiences. For all of the technical innovation of DTS
and Dolby Atmos audio in modern theaters, 6-track analog sound on 70mm still
sounds better with greater warmth, clarity and density. Bass levels here were deafening and I managed
to hear things I hadn’t heard before. At
times it was so loud I feared for my hearing and the crystal clarity of the
soundtrack was like hearing glass shatter.
Equally strong, if not stronger, was the first presentation of Brainstorm in 70mm in over 30
years. Reportedly the Museum tried to
play the film the year prior and ran into problems trying to project the
ultra-rare print, a snag that was thankfully remedied this time around. Seeing the screen image shifting from 1.66:1
35mm footage to 2.20:1 70mm footage undoubtedly paved the way for the norm of
IMAX shifting from 2.35:1 35mm to 1.44:1 70mm commonly seen in Christopher
Nolan films. All in all, it was truly an
out of body experience seeing Brainstorm in
this venue.
Something of a curse and a blessing for this
cinephile, it was as educational an experience as it was life changing. After you’ve seen the very best technical
quality a movie theater can possibly offer, while you can cherish that
experience forever it also colors nearly every cinema experience that
follows. Nothing can come close to it
other than one day going back and for every die-hard moviegoer out there, the
Museum of the Moving Image is essential to one’s theatergoing vocabulary. To say it opened my eyes to the endless
possibilities of film exhibition, theater design and the austere environment in
general is an understatement. One of the
greatest, if not the greatest, film viewing experience of my life and the one
time I can honestly say I saw two of my favorite films of all time properly and
as intended by their makers.
-Andrew Kotwicki