Martin Scorsese wants LACMA to reconsider its film plans
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Patrick Goldstein is on vacation, but there’s some big local film news to report. Martin Scorsese has sent The Times an open letter to the L.A. County Museum of Art and museum leader Michael Govan, asking that the institution
reconsider plans to scrap its 40-year-old weekend film program, a result of declining audiences and losses of about $1 million over the last decade. Our sister blog Culture Monster has the full letter, which reads in part:
Without places like LACMA and other museums, archives, and festivals where people can still see a wide variety of films projected on screen with an audience, what do we lose? We lose what makes the movies so powerful and such a pervasive cultural influence. If this is not valued in Hollywood, what does that say about the future of the art form? Aren’t museums serving a cultural purpose beyond appealing to the largest possible audience?