The Moving Image Source is up! Offering “articles by leading critics and scholars, an international Calendar, and a Research Guide to online resources,” the new website for the New York Museum of the Moving Image is far more than a “what’s on” guide. It’s an ever-expanding cultural database which will allow film-lovers to read up on films before and after seeing them, and will draw our attention to sites and events that may have escaped out notice.
Among the first articles are an affectionate and enlightening look at the late films of Howard Hawks, by regular Shadowplayer Dan Sallitt. It reminds me to view EL DORADO soon, and also offers a compelling and sympathetic theory of late filmmaking in general.
We also get a review of Richard Brody’s new Jean-Luc Godard biography by B. Kite, the shadow who lurks in the shadows of Shadowplay, the echo of a whistle trilled in a vanished vault, like the faded tattoo on the back of a ghost. Kite’s piece not only works as an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the new bio, but sets out in capsule form an alternative vision of J.L.G. which you can accept in place of the biographer’s portrait or superimpose on top of it as you like.
The site is a great place for specific research or just to start browsing. A couple of clicks got me the famous detonating child presidential campaign ad that basically screams “Vote Barry Goldwater and he will destroy the Earth!” and another got me to the always-stimulating Pinewood Dialogues, audio interviews and conversations with some top filmmakers and critics including Wong Kar-Wei, Terry Gilliam, David Cronenberg, Chuck Jones, Michael Powell, David Lynch…
It’s going to be a regular pleasure to drop in on Moving Image Source and watch it grow, like a small child, or a mushroom cloud, engulfing us all. Yes, a small child engulfing us all.
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