"Without places like LACMA and other museums, archives, and festivals where people can still see a wide variety of films projected on screen with an audience, what do we lose? We lose what makes the movies so powerful and such a pervasive cultural influence. If this is not valued in Hollywood, what does that say about the future of the art form? Aren't museums serving a cultural purpose beyond appealing to the largest possible audience?"
That's Martin Scorsese, who, in an open letter to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and its director, Michael Govan, published yesterday at the newly redesigned site for the Los Angeles Times, urges a reversal of LACMA's decision to suspend its weekend film program after its final series, The Classic Films of Alain Resnais, plays out on October 17. Will the campaign to save the program succeed? Follow developments at Save Film @ LACMA; you might even be moved to sign the petition.
Today marks Alfred Hitchcock's 110th birthday and what better way to celebrate that to revisit a tribute from, yes, Martin Scorsese, in which he "restores" a film that was never made: The Key to Reserva.
Meantime, just a taste of what gets tweeted via @theauteursdaily: ""How Would America's Auteurs Tackle the Lego Movie?" asks Vanity Fair; Ron Rosenbaum in Slate on the "New Nuke Porn" in books and movies; viewing: Jefferson Robbins at Film Freak Central on the camerawork of Mad Men; and via @mattsinger, a Dirty Dozen promo ("This is Lee Marvin...")