academy museum of motion pictures phone number

ACADEMY MUSEUM OF MOTION PICTURES PHONE NUMBER MOVIE

Piano, known for designing Paris’s Pompidou Centre and London’s Shard, has said he would have been a film-maker if not an architect. The Academy promised an opening date in 2017 – and every year that followed, with Tom Hanks announcing during the February 2020 Oscars that it would finally open later that year. In the end, that wasn’t enough, and financial setbacks have plagued the project, which took on more than $300m in debt in 2015, when construction began. It was a gargantuan undertaking, involving a building with deteriorating features, and the Academy raised an initial $100m with Piano on board.

ACADEMY MUSEUM OF MOTION PICTURES PHONE NUMBER MOVIE

In 2012, the Academy announced plans for a film museum in the movie capital of the world at the landmark May Company building, which was built as a department store in 1939 (a notable year in film history with the release of The Wizard of Oz). Artefacts the group had acquired, including Fred Astaire’s tap shoes and Marlene Dietrich’s costumes, ended up in storage in a closed down jail.

But financial problems and infighting derailed the project, and the land was eventually turned into a car park. In the 1960s, a group of industry leaders tried to build one across from the Hollywood Bowl – with LA sheriffs forcibly removing a homeowner who stood in the way and refused to give up his property. But none of the past efforts have succeeded. Since the 1920s, when the Academy was founded, a film museum has been a dream of the industry, says Kramer. “We need to speak honestly about who we are as an industry.”ĭesigned by Renzo Piano in a restored 1930s streamline modern structure, the 28,000 sq metre museum is a high-stakes endeavour for the Academy and for Hollywood. “We’re celebrating moviemaking, but we’re also having hard conversations about components of our history that are less proud,” says Bill Kramer, the museum’s director. The result, after many delayed launches and leadership shakeups and much pandemic upheaval is a museum that is refreshingly critical of Hollywood’s failings – even if there are limits to the extent an institution affiliated with the Academy can address the reality of ongoing exclusion and the role the Oscars play in perpetuating problems. The messy and costly journey leading to the opening of the Academy Museum has run parallel to the rapid changes in Hollywood sparked by #OscarsSoWhite, #MeToo, Black Lives Matter and other movements pushing for inclusion in entertainment. Photograph: Joshua White/Academy Museum Foundation. El Duderino … the robe ensemble worn by Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski (1998).

Academy museum of motion pictures phone number