Programs & Projects
Film Series: "Representation"
All films will begin at 5:30 p.m. in Room 62, Krannert Art Museum.
The IPRH Film Series is free and open to the public.
Like the annual theme with which it is coordinated, the IPRH Film Series for 2009-10 takes up a broad range of interpretations. The fall semester lineup, below, considers representation as it relates to governments and institutions – from the creation of images and ideologies to the fine but critical distinction between the world and the ways of representing it. The spring schedule, to be announced later in the year, will consider the subject of representation from a social and cultural perspective.
All of these films confront the complex issue of representation through a wide variety of lenses. They bear watching (or re-watching) because of the theme, but also regardless of it. The series is free and open to the public; we hope to see you there.
September 17
The Truman Show (1998, dir. Peter Weir; 103 min.)
starring Jim Carrey, Ed Harris, Laura Linney
In the age of Twitter, webcams, and YouTube, people regularly broadcast the everyday details of their lives to a global audience. But, in the picturesque town of Seahaven in the not-so-distant past, Truman Burbank (Carrey) goes about his life, working as an insurance salesman by day and returning home each night to his loving wife, unaware that his friends and family have been carefully cast in their roles, his world is an elaborate set, and his life is a long-running television show. What might be a dream come true for a contemporary tabloid star becomes, for Truman, a series of questions, with one big question at its center: What is real?
October 15
A Face in the Crowd (1957, dir. Elia Kazan; 125 min.)
starring Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Walter Matthau, Lee Remick
Griffith plays a coarse backwoods folk singer and petty crook (a far departure from his amiable Mayberry persona) who is discovered by an Arkansas radio producer eager for new talent. His low-key charm as a radio personality soon leads to a wider national audience on the fresh new medium of television, where his manufactured brand of charismatic rebellion makes him a national folk hero. Kazan’s meditation on the seductive nature of fame and the gullibility of the audience now seems decades ahead of its time.
October 29
The Great Dictator (1940, dir. Charles Chaplin; 125 min.)
starring Charles Chaplin, Jack Oakie, Paulette Goddard
Chaplin’s first talkie, made during the early days of World War II, aims its bitter jokes at Hitler, fascism, and anti-Semitism. Chaplin plays dual roles: Adenoid Hynkel, the vicious dictator of the fictional Tomania, and his lookalike, a humble Jewish barber who lives in the ghetto. As Hynkel tangles with rival leader Benzino Napaloni (Oakie) of the neighboring country Bacteria, a case of mistaken identity propels the barber into the spotlight, and provides an unforgettable opportunity for Chaplin – so famous for being silent – to make his voice heard.
November 12
Brazil (1985, dir. Terry Gilliam; 132 min.)
starring Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Ian Holm, Michael Palin, Bob Hoskins
Gilliam’s cult-classic black comedy is set in a dystopian, Orwellian industrial world where the machines that control everything are prone to tragic mishaps – a world in which, but for a random clerical error, a Mr. Buttle can be punished for the crimes committed by a Mr. Tuttle. Sam Lowry (Pryce) is a menial office worker who gets tangled up in a messy bureaucratic nightmare, but whose daydreams transport him to an idyllic world where he can soar above the system and envision a happy ending.
Immediately following the film, there will be a gallery talk organized in conjunction with the Krannert Art Museum exhibition Under Control.