`Hollywoodland’ Exhibition Opens Sunday at Academy Museum of Motion Pictures – MyNewsLA.com

An exhibition detailing the origins of filmmaking in early 20th century Los Angeles and the predominately Jewish studio founders who made the city the epicenter of cinema will go on view Sunday at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

“This long-planned exhibition shines a light on the studio system’s evolution during the early 20th century, and as you’ll see, it details how the American movie industry, built predominantly by Jewish immigrants, transformed Los Angeles into the mythological concept of Hollywood,” said Jacqueline Stewart, the museum’s director and president.

Some observers criticized the museum when it opened in 2021 for failing to highlight the contributions Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe made to the development of the film industry and the greater Los Angeles region.

Associate curator Dara Jaffe, told the Los Angeles Times that although an exhibit such as “Hollywoodland” was always intended as a permanent fixture at the museum, the initial criticism was understandable.

“It’s important to us that every visitor who comes can get this story of the founding of Hollywood and the Jewish studio heads,” Jaffe told the Times. “We want people to come away with a richer understanding of how this city is so intertwined with this industry and also a deeper understanding of why this is specifically a Jewish immigrant story.”

Many industry observers said it is also fitting that the exhibit is opening in May, which is Jewish American Heritage Month.

Stewart said “Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital” also “addresses a complex legacy that the studio system leaves behind. And given the significance of this story to Los Angeles and to the film industry, we’re really proud that when this exhibition opens on Sunday in our LAIKA Gallery, `Hollywoodland’ will become the museum’s first permanent exhibition.”

Jaffe described the curation process as “a labor of love that we’ve been working on for several years.”

“The American film industry began developing amid an influx of immigration to the United States by Jewish emigres escaping European pogroms and poverty,” she said. “Most of Hollywood’s founders were among this wave of Jewish immigrants and recognized that the burgeoning movie business presented an opportunity to raise their marginalized status in an industry that didn’t enforce the same antisemitic barriers as many other professions. Hollywoodland also posits the question: how and why did Los Angeles bloom into a world-renowned cinema capital? The goal of our exhibition is to show the inextricable dovetailing of these histories.”

The exhibition’s Studio Origins section focuses on the founders and founding of the original eight major film studios: Universal, Fox — which later became 20th Century Fox — Paramount, United Artists, Warner Bros., Columbia, Metro Goldwyn Mayer and RKO.

“This section includes a focus on the distinct character of each studio, illustrating how these house styles were shaped by the priorities and personalities of the featured studio heads and, in most cases, their specific experience as Jewish immigrants,” Jaffe said.

A half-hour documentary was created in-house to be shown as part of the exhibit. “From the Shtetl to the Studio: The Jewish Story of Hollywood,” narrated by TCM’s Ben Mankiewicz, shows “how antisemitism shaped the founders’ trajectories throughout their careers and how their projected vision of an immigrant’s American Dream came to define America itself on movie screens around the world,” according to a museum statement.