Met Gala Exhibit Examines American Fashion, Frame by Frame

Met Gala Exhibit Examines American Fashion, Frame by Frame
A dress worn by Mary Todd Lincoln is displayed as part of the Met Museum Costume Institute's exhibit "In America: A Lexicon of Fashion" in New York on April 30, 2022. Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
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NEW YORK—Even for a legendary film director like Martin Scorsese, the assignment was a daunting one.

Take one of the famous American period rooms at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and make essentially a one-frame movie with no camera: a tableau, not a film, but using your cinematic sensibility. Your actors are mannequins, and the costumes have been chosen for you.