By Chris Kriofske
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Jennifer Trainer
Country: united_states
Year: 2019
Running time: 75
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9617464/reference
Chris says: “North Adams, a depressed former mill town in far Northwestern Massachusetts is as unlikely a place for a contemporary art museum as one could imagine; MUSEUM TOWN is an in-depth study of how MassMOCA came to inhabit former factory space there. Remarkably, it’s not a puff piece despite being directed by its former PR Director, Jennifer Trainer. While she has no reason to downplay the organization’s real accomplishments and growth, she does dive right in to issues of gentrification and what socioeconomic impact this kind of endeavor has and, more importantly, occasionally struggles to meet. She dutifully follows the trajectory of a massive installation by artist Nick Cave (not the Australian musician), but her real find is Ruth, a ninety-year-old lifelong town resident, former factory worker and current museum volunteer whose healthy skepticism is vital to the film’s multifaceted assessment of the function, not to mention the l imits of art as both commerce and community.”