Film

2 upcoming events

Next on Fri, Jul 3, 7:00 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T1, Theater 1

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1

Member tickets available Jun 19

Explore category and above

All tickets available Jun 26

Italianamerican. 1974. USA. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Courtesy Janus Films

Statue of Liberty. 1898. Directed by Thomas A. Edison, Inc. DCP courtesy Library of Congress. Silent. 1 min.

Emigrants [i.e. Immigrants] Landing at Ellis Island. 1903. USA. Directed by Thomas A. Edison, Inc. DCP courtesy Library of Congress. Silent, with music track. 3 min.

Arrival of Emigrants [i.e. Immigrants], Ellis Island. 1906. USA. Directed by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. DCP courtesy Library of Congress. Silent, with music track. 4 min.

Making an American Citizen. 1912. USA. Written and directed by Alice Guy-Blaché. With Blanche Cornwall, Lee Beggs. DCP courtesy Flicker Alley. Silent, with music track. 16 min.

The Immigrant. 1917. USA. Directed by Charlie Chaplin. Screenplay by Chaplin, Vincent Bryan, Maverick Terrell. With Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Eric Campbell. Silent, with music track. DCP courtesy Flicker Alley. Silent. 22 min.

Italianamerican. 1974. USA. Directed by Martin Scorsese. With Catherine Scorsese, Charles Scorsese. 35mm. 49 min.

When moving images were invented at the turn of the 20th century, films showing people in transit were suddenly available to audiences who only dreamed of traveling. If cinema materialized their imagination, it would also document historic moments. In Immigrant Nation’s opening program, immigrants arriving at Ellis Island are captured by camera operators of Thomas Edison and the Biograph Company after sailing by the Statue of Liberty, a magnanimous symbol of hope and prosperity in a new life. French film pioneer Alice Guy-Blaché, who’d moved to the US and found a film studio, would playfully comment on a new world with Making an American Citizen, while famous English immigrant Charlie Chaplin would depict a tumultuous cross-Atlantic voyage in The Immigrant. In Italianamerican, Martin Scorsese sat down with his parents, Catherine and Charles, in their Elizabeth Street apartment to discuss their ancestors’ lives as Sicilian immigrants, their upbringing amid different communities in the streets of New York, and a famous meatballs and gravy recipe.

Total running time: 95 min.

This film accompanies Immigrant Nation: People in Transit.

Events

Fri, Jul 3, 7:00 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T1, Theater 1

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1
Member tickets available Jun 19

Explore category and above

All tickets available Jun 26
Google

Apple/Outlook
Mon, Jul 6, 4:30 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T1, Theater 1

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1
Member tickets available Jun 22

Explore category and above

All tickets available Jun 29
Google

Apple/Outlook

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].