Film Department Dead at LACMA?

In what is being described as a “restructuring”, LACMA has canceled it’s weekend film series, reduced curator Ian Birnie to a “consulting curator” and will be having folks from other departments stepping in to program film at LACMA.  Tuesday Matinees for seniors are still in the budget, though.  All in the name of reduced budget. Ugh.

LACMA’s film series are the best curated film series in Los Angeles, hands down.  While other entities like the Cinefamily and American Cinematheque do amazing programming, it’s almost always LACMA that has come forward with extremely well curated film programming.  LACMA’s ability to time and time again produce a retrospective series on a genre, director or actor is has been unparalleled.

Read the press release for yourself here.

Cari Beauchamp over at LA Observed has an excellent, must read piece on the importance of film at LACMA, the importance in LA for LACMA to have a relationship to our city’s greatest art form, the role that Ian Birnie has played in making amazing things happen at LACMA and some insight into what may actually be behind this decision.  Beauchamp points out that “the musuem has been treating the film department as a second class citizen for some time” and she’s right.  LACMA claims that audiences are dwindling, but I don’t see LACMA advertising their film programs anywhere, including at critical places like revival theaters and independent theaters where LA’s hardcore film audience is in attendance night after night.  Beauchamp also points out that Govan’s “$1 million in losses over 10 years” talking point is a bit of accounting trickery, intended to associate a pretty weak argument for the changes with a big, scary number, rather than the $50k in yearly losses that are actually occurring.

John Horn and Susan King of LA Times have a pretty soft, “quote-y” piece on the situation, echoing Govan’s “$1 million in losses over 10 years” figure.  In Govan’s statements to the paper he makes it sound like he has bigger ambitions for the program, but he doesn’t deliver any details.

Over at Culture Monster, Suzanne Muchnic chimes in on the changes. Note her description of the program as “chronically underfunded”. I think it’s clear that the museum has not done what it needed to do to promote and support the film department at LACMA, and this change is the result not of years of losses, but of years of not prioritizing the program, both before Govan’s tenure and during it.

One final, brief thought. It’s interesting that LACMA moved in this direction a month after film producer Brian Grazer joined the LACMA board. Or maybe not. But there’s certainly one board member to go to if the program needs shoring up.