On Film at SFMOMA: 75 Years in the Dark

In 1937, SFMOMA’s first director, Grace McCann Morley, set up a screen and some chairs in the rotunda of the War Memorial Veterans Building (the museum’s first home) and showed films: D.W. Griffith, Walt Disney, The Jazz Singer, All Quiet on the Western Front, and the first ever Movietone newsreel featuring George Bernard Shaw. She believed that film, the 20th century’s very own visual art form, should have a place in a museum of modern art. From the beginning, it’s been an eclectic and inclusive mix. Willsdon, who relaunched the film program in 2007, looks at this important piece of Bay Area film history. The examination continues in the 75 Years in the Dark film program.