Museum Movies : The Museum of Modern Art and the Birth of Art Cinema

Haidee Wasson provides a rich cultural history of cinema's transformation from a passing amusement to an enduring art form by mapping the creation of the Film Library of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, established in 1935. The first North American film archive and museum, the film library pioneered an expansive moving image network, comprising popular, abstract, animated, American, Canadian, and European films. More than a repository, MoMA circulated these films nationally and internationally, connecting the modern art museum to universities, libraries, women's clubs, unions, archives, and department stores. Under the aegis of the museum, cinema also changed. Like books, paintings, and photographs, films became discrete objects, integral to thinking about art, history, and the politics of modern life. Frontmatter List of Illustrations (page ix) Acknowledgments (page xi) 1. MAKING CINEMA A MODERN ART (page 1) 2. MANNERED CINEMA/MOBILE THEATERS: FILM EXHIBITION, 16MM, AND THE NEW AUDIENCE IDEAL (page 32) 3. THE MASS MUSEOLOGY OF THE MODERN (page 68) 4. AN AWKWARD AND DANGEROUS TASK: THE FILM LIBRARY TAKES SHAPE (page 110) 5. REARGUARD EXHIBITION: THE FILM LIBRARY'S CIRCULATING PROGRAMS (page 149) 6. ENDURING LEGACIES (page 185) Appendix: Film Programs of the Museum of Modern Art, 1934-1949 (page 195) Notes (page 209) Bibliography (page 275) Index (page 299)