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Introduction: Film Museums

2006; Indiana University Press; Volume: 18; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/fih.2006.0026

1553-3905

Stephen Herbert,

Museums and Cultural Heritage

Introduction:Film Museums Stephen Herbert (bio) There are many excellent film museums, but there is no truly great film museum. The one that came closest was perhaps – and here I admit bias as an ex-employee – MOMI in London, long since lost. Some, such as New York's Museum of the Moving Image, seem to maintain their initial success and keep going, but too many struggle and eventually fail. So why should establishing and maintaining a film museum be especially difficult? The essays in this issue of Film History contain clues as to the many reasons. Such museums are frequently based on the enthusiasms of one person, or a small team. Failure to adequately prepare for the inevitable eventual loss of the founder/s leaves the museum vulnerable to many pressures. Film museums are frequently funded through a 'parent body', which also has a responsibility for other departments, and there may be inter-departmental scuffles for bigger slices of the funding cake. This problem can perhaps only be countered by the establishment of a separate body of trustees, whose responsibility is for the museum only. This is of course very easy to suggest, but very difficult to achieve, especially since film museums must maintain a close relationship with film archives, the main repositories of the heritage that the museums are promoting. Location for a national museum is of prime importance if it is to be accessible by a reasonable proportion of the population, but buildings in key locations are increasingly expensive to acquire and retain, and the older arts and sciences are better placed within the establishment to claim them. Film is a 'populist' subject that does not yet have the distinction of the older arts, and still suffers from snobbery. Our subject is increasingly difficult to define. It involves both art and technology, which traditionally have been separately funded. What are the boundaries of motion picture imaging that such a museum should embrace? Is television included? And the precursors of film, such as the magic lantern? The web? Mobile phone video communications? The medium is still developing and evolving, requiring frequent updates to the content of displays. In addition, the subject requires high-tech displays, which have been expensive to maintain in good order, and also to replace. Ironically, the medium on which the motion picture industry has been built, 'celluloid' film, is too difficult to manage in a museum environment. It is now virtually unknown for celluloid film to be used for real within the displays. Film is a time-based medium. Watching three or four minutes of a classic feature film as one passes a display could be compared with reading only one paragraph of a famous book, or viewing a tiny corner of a great painting. These are just a few of the problems. Perhaps it will never be possible to create a lasting moving image museum of major importance, on the level of the major arts museums of the world. I spent some 2000 days in MOMI, London. On one occasion I was adjusting some lighting in the Science Fiction area. The original Tik-Tok from Return to Oz (1985) had recently been donated to the museum, and sat on a plinth awaiting the arrival of its expensive display case. Two boys, aged around 10, were gazing at the metallic suit. 'It ain't real,' insisted one of the boys, authoritatively. 'If it was real it would be in one of those glass cabinets. You wouldn't be able to touch it. You could touch that – so it can't be real,' he sniffed. His friend nodded. I [End Page 235] couldn't resist interrupting their observations. 'Well actually, it is real,' I said. I showed them the workings inside the head. They looked a little sheepish for a moment, then the brash one asked, 'Can I touch it?' 'Sure',Isaid, 'just don't pullanything off.' He reached out a finger and reverently touched the badge on Tik-Tok's rotund body. He was in awe. Not to be outdone, his friend plucked up courage to ask: 'Can I touch it too?' I nodded and he did, gently. They stood in silence for a full...