The Academy Museum Finds Good Intentions in Messy Film History

While the cinematic objects on display fascinate, the much-delayed institution opens with an emphasis on diversity and pluralism, not past and present sins.

Tucked in the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which opened Thursday in Los Angeles, is a surprisingly modest exhibit of “significant Oscars.” The museum, after all, is the latest venture of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization that each year entertains, inflames and invariably stupefies movie lovers of every taste and critical persuasion with that gaudy bacchanalia of self-love known as the Oscars.

Given the academy’s focus on all things Oscar, its latest production could have played up the event even more than it does. Yet while the awards invariably loom large, as does Hollywood — this is very much an academy endeavor, as the many nods to Steven Spielberg underscore — the long-delayed museum has embraced a tricky, complicated brief to accentuate the positive, to borrow the title of an Oscar-nominated song. The industry’s ugliness, its racism and sexism, is directly addressed, but the emphasis is on diversity and pluralism, not past and present sins. Call it a museum of good intentions.

The 20 statuettes in the significant Oscars gallery underscores this idea. The oldest is the best cinematography award given to “Sunrise” in 1929, the first year of the ceremony and the only year the academy divided its top honors between “unique and artistic picture” and “outstanding” film; the latter was given to “Wings” and isn’t on display. The most recent is the 2017 best adapted screenplay award for “Moonlight,” which is part of an inclusive lineup that includes best actor (Sidney Poitier), costume design (Eiko Ishioka), documentary (“The Times of Harvey Milk”) and song (“Up Where We Belong”).