Museum of the Moving Image Announces Summer SEE IT BIG Series

Francis Ford Coppola's One from the Heart (35mm, 108 mins.) followed by a press viewing of the exhibition PERSOL MAGNIFICENT OBSESSIONS

Museum of the Moving Image's popular series See It Big! presents classic and contemporary films the way they were meant to be seen: on the big screen. Despite the increasing portability and decreasing size of consumer media, the Museum remains committed to showing films in the best available versions, whether it is a pristine digital restoration of 2001: A Space Odyssey or a rare Technicolor 35mm print of Vertigo. In the Museum's state-of-the-art theater, audiences are treated to a visually and aurally immersive experience like no other.

Running from July 6 through September 28, 2012, the summer season of See It Big! opens with two films that are featured in the exhibition PERSOL MAGNIFICENT OBSESSIONS: 30 stories of craftsmanship in film. Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, screening in a pristine digital restoration from July 6 through 8, is highlighted in the exhibition for the work of special effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull who created the legendary "Stargate" sequence that ends the film. The other featured film, Francis Ford Coppola's wildly imaginative musical One from the Heart, will be screened on July 14 and 15, in a 35mm restoration supervised by Coppola himself. This tale of ruined lovers in a dream-like Las Vegas was almost completely shot on a Hollywood stage set designed by Dean Tavoularis. Drawings by Tavoularis and behind-the-scenes set photos from the film are on view in the exhibition.

Other titles in the See It Big! series include: Coppola's Apocalypse Now Redux, which screens on a double bill with One from the Heart (July 14 and 15); Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Red Shoes and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (July 21 and 22), with the July 21 screening of Colonel Blimp featuring a personal appearance by Thelma Schoonmaker, the acclaimed film editor who supervised the film's restoration with Martin Scorsese; Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, presented in a rare 35mm Technicolor print, and To Catch a Thief (July 28 and 29); a western double-feature of The Wild Bunch and Rio Bravo (August 4 and 5); David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai and Doctor Zhivago (August 31, September 1 and 2); and Taxi Driver (August 17, 18 and 19), Brazil (August 24, 25 and 26), Blue Velvet (August 25 and 26), and more. See below for full schedule.

See It Big! was organized by the Museum's Chief Curator, David Schwartz, and Assistant Film Curator, Rachael Rakes, in collaboration with Michael Koresky and Jeff Reichert, editors of Reverse Shot, a quarterly independent online film journal.

"See It Big! is a great series for the Museum, because it celebrates the theatrical experience and the proper presentation of film," said Schwartz. "It also celebrates the Museum's great theater, an architectural masterpiece and one of the finest film venues in the world."

Tickets for films are included with paid Museum admission ($12 adults / $9 senior citizens and college students / $6 children 3–17) and are free for Museum members.

The exhibition PERSOL MAGNIFICENT OBSESSIONS: 30 stories of craftsmanship in film celebrates stories of obsessive workmanship behind some of cinema's most iconic and compelling on-screen moments. It offers the opportunity to view rarely seen artifacts, as well as behind-the-scenes research notes, sketches, video interviews, and materials used in the pre-production process by ten of the world's greatest filmmakers. They include Ed Harris, Todd Haynes, Alfred Hitchcock, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Ennio Morricone, AriAnne Phillips, Vittorio Storaro, Hilary Swank, Dean Tavoularis, and Douglas Trumbull. Curated by Michael Connor, the exhibition is on view in the Museum's 4,000 sq. ft. gallery through August 19, 2012. Access is included with Museum admission.