Italy - Turin - The Cinema Museum
Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, Joan Crawford props on display
Exciting film exhibition showcases original scripts from Psycho and Empire Strikes Back as well as memorabilia, classic movie clips and lots of interactivity.
Italy - Turin - The Mole Antonelliana
Visitors are asked to open a door of an eight-foot high fridge, lined with giant cartons of milk and four-foot bunches of celery. You're expected to sit on a faux toilet to watch film clips by Woody Allen and Quentin Tarantino. In fact, the whole experience is like Alice going through the looking glass.
Absurd? Yes.
In fact, this was the "Room of the Absurd", just one of the National Museum of Cinema's exhibition rooms. Located in the northern Italian city of Turin - the heart of Italy's movie-making industry until the 1930's when the dictator Mussolini moved all film production to Rome - the museum is a must for film fans and an interesting stop on any Turin tour.
Italy - Turin - the Tallest Museum in the world
The museum is housed in a building called the Mole Antonelliana and, at 548 metres, is the tallest museum in the world. It looks a bit like a gilded rocket site although much more beautiful, with its huge square dome and soaring spire reaching into the stratosphere.
Building began in 1863 on what was intended to be a synagogue but the local Jewish communityran out of money and for decades it was little used. It came to life with the opening of the National Cinema Museum in July 2000 and it is a knockout! The collection charts the history of cinema from early magic lanterns to the sophisticated technology of today, all imaginatively displayed on five levels.
Italy - Turin - Archeology of Cinema
On the lower level, named The Archaeology of Cinema, red velvet curtains were parted to enter a world of oriental shadow shows, peep shows and optical boxes, as well as the most extensive collection in the world of early projectors and cameras - some of which are works of art in themselves. There's plenty of interactive stuff here: kids and big people alike can view the shadow boxes, pretend to use the projectors, and generally see how things worked in the early days when people were trying to create moving images.
On the next level, known as The Film Factory, there are alcoves along the walls displaying many of the things essential to the making of a movie. There are original scripts from films such as "Psycho", "The Empire Strikes Back" and early films like "The Son of the Sheik" with Rudolph Valentino; and "The Blue Angel" with Marlene Deitrich. Also on display are gems like a black lace bustier worn by Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin's bowler hat, Darth Vader's mask and a dress worn by Joan Crawford in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" plus many other famous props.
Italy - Turin - Love and Death at the Cinema Museum
Ten rooms, known as "chapels" are strung around the central floor, each dedicated to a different genre of film. As well as the "Absurd" fridge they include themes like "Surreal and Outrageous Cinema", "Horror", "Experimental Cinema" and so on. In the chapel dedicated to the theme of "Love and Death" one can lie on a red, heart-shaped bed while scenes of death and passion played on an overhead screen.
The hub of the museum is the huge Temple Hall where everything that goes on is watched over by a giant golden figure of Moloch, the demon of Italy's epic silent film of 1915 'Cabiria". Rows of bright red reclining chairs face two screens which show films chronicling the silent film era in Turin. During the intermissions the vast domed ceiling becomes the backdrop for projected images of starry skies and fluffy clouds. A spiral walkway around the walls of the Hall are decorated with posters from every period of film history, including original posters for classic silent films like "Birth of a Nation" and "Metropolis". A glass elevator whisks you up through the centre of this vast space to an observation deck and a great view of the city.
With this fantastic film museum and a world-renowned annual film festival, it's once more Lights! Camera! Action! in Turin.
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