I work very close to the National Gallery of Art and have visited it and its satellite, the East Building, many times. Later this year, the East Building is going to close for three years for a multi-million dollar renovation. So, I've decided to explore it thoroughly over the next few months.
A couple of weeks ago I went over on my lunch break and found a room I hadn't seen before, the main auditorium, located below ground level. I went in and was surprised by the large, quiet, cool space. By lucky happenstance, I arrived just minutes before a showing of six short films of Georges Méliès, including Journey to the Moon, which I had never seen in its entirety. These films, shot from 1901 to 1903, were among the first to experiment with modern film techniques such as dissolves and double exposures. The forty minute presentation was fascinating.
Journey to the Moon is the longest of the six and some of its imagery among the most recognizable in film history. I especially enjoyed the colonial attitude of the French explorers who, upon arrival on a foreign world populated by strange natives, immediately start killing indiscriminately and kidnapping one of the natives to display back home. Ah, 19th century values. The crew also leave the moon by pushing their bullet-shaped spacecraft off a lunar cliff, an approach I don't think would work in real life.
Below are some pictures I took of the auditorium. (Click to embiggen).
No comments:
Post a Comment