The Museum of the Moving Image can be found on an unassuming street in Astoria, Queens, hedged in by the tremendous Kaufman Astoria Studios complex. According to its website, the museum's mission is to advance the "public understanding and appreciation of the art, history, technique, and technology of film, television, and digital media." I stopped by on a rainy Friday afternoon to have my understanding of these things advanced.
The two current exhibits that grabbed my attention the firmest were Surviving Life: Collages by Jan Svankmajer and Jim Henson's Fantastic World. Svankmajer is a surrealist Czech puppeteer who blends the grotesque and the innocent into indescribable stop-motion films like Alice and Faust. Jim Henson, as we all know, was a Muppet.
This giant slab of building houses the Museum of the Moving Image.
A scene from Day the Earth Stood Still?
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching.
The following are scenes from the joyfully demented mind of Jan Svankmajer...
And now on to Hollywood...
Standard issue movie makeup.
From The Elephant Man.
"Na-Nu Na-Nu."
Rather convincing scale model of a theater.
As a kid you are told not to waste your time and money on foolish things like arcade games. As an adult you pay admission to visit them in museums.
The motherlode of Star Wars action figures.
My kingdom for a Hogan's Heroes lunchbox.
Film-related sheet music.
King Goshposh and Featherstone from the Jim Henson exhibit, taken before I realized photographs were not permitted in the Muppet gallery. Unless you visit the museum yourself this is all you'll get.
An early Chaplin film viewed through a handcranked Mutoscope. You can't see it very well, but Chaplin is about to brain a mustachioed villain with a wooden mallet. Ha ha.
A Mutoscope of Melies' A Trip to the Moon, featuring the famous scene where the creampie moon gets a rocket lodged in its eye.
A Victorian-era zoetrope, an early device for producing the illusion of motion.
This Regan MacNeil mechanical puppet from The Exorcist is responsible for the revolving head effect.
Miniature of the Tyrell Skyscraper from Blade Runner.
An RCA television from 1939. World War II put a temporary halt on the development of television broadcasting, which didn't get kicking again until after the war ended.
A Sony Trinitron television with built-in Betamax video recorder from 1975.
1 comment:
Wow, this is awesome! Thanks for the tour. :)
---
Did you take pictures of your last trip to the Oak Room before it closed??
I always wanted to go there...
Post a Comment