What do Leonardo DiCaprio, F Scott Fitzgerald and a giant restored 1920’s pipe organ have in common?  The answer is, of course, Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art.  Or to be specific, GoMA’s current two-part film exhibition reflecting life on the American East Coast at the turn of the century. 

Assembled in conjunction with the Queensland Gallery of Art’s present exhibition ‘American Impressionism and Realism: A Landmark Exhibition from the Met’, the galleries latest film program is divided into a selection of contemporary period dramas recreating the lives of Americans on the East Coast during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (Titanic, Gangs of New York and The Godfather, to name a few) and classic black and white films from the 1920’s and 1930’s in a nod to the beginnings of the avant-garde New York film studios which challenged the notion of a homogenized Hollywood movie system. 

As if that doesn’t sound cool enough, the silent films of the ‘Hollywood on the Hudson’ program are accompanied by the live playing of a huge vintage pipe organ, built deep into the bowels of GoMA and piped into the cinema, an added touch which ‘The Met’ curator and resident GoMA cinephile Amanda Slack-Smith describes as “very Phantom of the Opera”.

“It’s such a beautiful experience to see these silent films as they were intended originally, with a live musical accompaniment,” she said.

Highlighting the growing contrasts between the traditions and values of the old century and the hedonistic excitement of the new world, films such as Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, the 1974 adaptation of Fitzgerald’s portrait of corrupted wealth and savage materialism The Great Gatsby (starring a doe eyed Mia Farrow) and ubiquitous classics Titanic and The Godfather paint a complex and lavish picture of the social confusion, rise of urban crime and influx of immigration during early twentieth century on the American East Coast.

At a time when both hem and hairlines were being raised (silent film star Louise Brooks singlehandedly pioneered the ‘bob’ in featured 1926 film Love ‘em and Leave ‘em), the dual program of ‘The Met’ dips into the gin and new-money fueled decadence of the Jazz Age, to great effect. 

Drawing attention to the classic black and white films of the ‘Hollywood on the Hudson’ program, Ms Slack-Smith stated that the selection of films chronicle a period of American film making which has been largely ignored.

“New York at the time these films were made really was a roaring place to live, and was rivaling Hollywood as a film Mecca,” she said.

“Unfortunately once the Depression hit, New York lost out to Hollywood and its white, middle class American market and couldn’t claw its way back”.

Past GoMA film programs have included those based around German Expressionism, French New Wave Cinema and cult horror films in the galleries most recent ‘Be Afraid’ exhibition.

“We want to show film as an art form rather than just mass entertainment”, Ms Slack-Smith enthused.

“Cinema is like any other art form – as with art, you have painters that are inspired by their predecessors and so too with film”.

For more information on session times and details, visit http://qag.qld.gov.au/

‘The Met’ screens until September 20th.

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