In the movie “Night at the Museum,” the producers of the movie did a very good job allowing the audience to not only enjoy the comedy, suspense, and concept of the movie but to also included important artwork throughout the movie as well. The movie is about a new security worker named Larry, who works at a historical museum and ends up getting way more than what he had signed up for. The museum completely comes to life due to an Egyptian curse during one of his first night shifts, which means that all the animals and historic characters began to awake and cause chaos throughout the museum. As entertaining as that sounds, there are also many educational scenes that show us what it really was like to live back in the times of the characters and gives the audience visuals of the art, culture, and architecture along the way.
During the movie, Larry is running around the museum trying to understand what is going on and ends up having a conversation with a living historical landmark. The landmark was a giant Easter Island head, also known as a Moai. The heads were built between the years 1250 and 1500 by the Rapa Nui people. These giant landmarks were a display of eastern Polynesia art in the form of sculpture work and gave us an idea of their culture and how they pay respect to their dead ones. The stone blocks are carved into head-and-torso figures, and they average 13 feet tall and 14 tons, which goes to show us how much time and patience it took to complete one. The short and funny conversation which involved the Moai asking Larry for gum, left a memorable impression on the audience (since it’s an iconic scene) and it raised attention to curious viewers who may not have known what the sculpture was.
Larry began to find his ways around the new life of the museum and more artwork began to come visible to the audience, with or without them knowing. The movie gives us many different cultural references with different forms of characters. For instance, some of the characters they introduced throughout the movie were; Indians, cowboys, and Romans. The Roman character was named Octavius and was a general in the Roman military during his time. The movie displayed the general in military uniform and his high ranking was shown throughout his well-polished and flashy armor. The headwear, “cape”, and gold-plated armor made it clear to us that he was someone of importance. The form of art to show rankings and importance in the military was exactly spot on as to how it was during the ancient Roman times. The movie was accurate to display Octavius in the uniform they had put him in and allowed the audience to get an understanding as to how military armor varied throughout the soldier’s rankings. The producer also relied on well-known stereotypes to display the personalities of each character, such as the Indianan being very respectful, the cowboy being wild and hostile, and the Roman soldier as humble yet cocky & arrogant due to his military ranking.
The movie continues to be very entertaining and appealing all the way until the end. The audience got a good laugh and interesting story to go along with the many references to art, historical artifacts and architecture. The producers also incorporated many important characters from some of the most influential and memorable times in history. They included Sacagawea, cavemen, civil war mannequins, and even paintings such as “the crying girl” by Roy Lichtenstein. These characters weren’t only a huge part of the movie but also took part in discreetly adding in educational scenes that relate to many of the things covered in this class. Even if you have absolutely no prior knowledge of historical artwork or sculptures, you can still easily enjoy the movie and understand what is going on throughout the whole thing. However, if you do have prior knowledge on these types of things, I feel as if it’s noticeable and clear to say that the movie did a very good job to include these concepts in the movie to make it more realistic. Without any of these forms of art, the movie wouldn’t have been as interesting and entertaining. The fact that it took place in a historic museum helps the producers be able to take many forms of art and cultural artifacts and turn them into something that everyone can find interest in. Historians would enjoy this movie very much due to the multiple displays of artwork that was shown throughout, and the accuracy of the artwork that the producers made sure to include.
