FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS! - A BETTE DAVIS FILM LECTURE SERIES

There was no one quite like her. Small in physical size but larger than life on the silver screen, Bette Davis was a movie star back in the days when that term--movie star--meant something. Not fitting into the roles normally available to actresses of her time--neither demure, girl-next-door ingenue, nor sex goddess--Davis found a niche for herself playing women who often resented (either outwardly or with simmering repression) the strictures that society placed upon them.

My early Spring 2015 film lecture series (yes, think spring!) will salute Davis with six movies that show the different ways that she expressed the battles that her characters fought.

In Jezebel, Davis is a willful Southern belle in antebellum New Orleans who refuses to follow the social mores of her day, and whose tempestuous ways bring about unhappiness for herself and others.

The Letter has Davis playing the wife of a man who runs a rubber plantation in Singapore (they're both British colonialists). She shoots and kills a man, claiming that she was defending herself from his physical advances. But what of the existence of a letter that may present the facts of the case differently?

Now, Voyager shows the resilience of the human spirit, with Davis playing a repressed spinster who evolves into a confident woman, but who nevertheless does not adhere to the path in life expected of her.

All About Eve has Davis in fine form as an aging stage actress who is not willing to settle comfortably into the quiescence imposed by her youth-centered profession, even as a young admirer plots to steal her thunder.

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? proves that Davis herself was not ready for retirement, even as she passed the half-century mark, with a warts-and-all portrayal of a faded child star who plans a comeback, as she holds her crippled sister (Joan Crawford) captive in their home. What's so impressive is that, despite the gargoyle-like outward appearance of the over-the-hill star, Davis mines the pathos at the core of the character.

Dead Ringer concludes the series, and this post-Baby Jane entry has Davis playing twins, one of whom has spent the majority of her life in the lap of luxury, while the other has eked out a hardscrabble life. Just how does the poor twin deal with her resentment of her more fortunate sister? By killing her and assuming her identity, of course.

Davis certainly led a tumultuous life, marked by the separation of her parents when she was a child (which left her without paternal love), four failed marriages, the discovery that one of her adopted children was mentally retarded, and the betrayal of her only natural-born daughter late in life. But Davis was in many ways a trailblazer. Dropped by her first movie studio because she wasn't considered sexy, she helped to recast the ways that we define beauty, paving the way for actresses like Streisand, Cher, Bette Midler, and Meryl Streep. At Warner Bros. studio, she battled fiercely for better scripts and directors, even walking out of her contract in defiance. But it was never about being a diva. If Bette was troublesome on some of her movie sets, it was always in service to the integrity of her character and the film. And, as headstrong and tenacious as she could be, Davis was insightful enough to know that she needed a strong director to temper her histrionic ways.

I look forward to you joining me, on six consecutive Wednesdays at 1:00 PM beginning March 4th, to contemplate and enjoy just a sampling of the work of this most iconic actress of the golden days of Hollywood cinema.

Doug Swiszcz
Librarian & Film Enthusiast

Here's the line-up:

March  4th - Jezebel (1938 - black &white - 104 minutes)

March 11th - The Letter (1940 - black & white - 95 minutes)

March 18th - Now, Voyager (1942 - black & white - 117 minutes)

March 25th - All About Eve (1950 - black & white - 138 minutes)

April    1st - Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962 - black & white - 134 minutes)

April    8th - Dead Ringer (1964 - black & white - 116 minutes)

JUST IN TIME FOR VALENTINE'S DAY....
MOONSTRUCK
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2015 AT 1:00 PM

It's always fascinating to consider the less than rational, circuitous route that Cupid's arrow can take on its way to the heart. In this delightful romantic comedy from 1987, Cher plays Loretta Castorini, a late thirties widow who hopes to reverse the streak of bad luck that began with her first, short-lived marriage. She accepts a marriage proposal from her safe, steady boyfriend, Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello). However, things get messy when Loretta meets Johnny's estranged brother Ronny (Nicolas Cage), a fiery, brooding man with a kind of raw sensuality. Ronny is as over-the-top as the grand operas that he loves, and Loretta feels an attraction to him that she doesn't feel with Johnny. A full moon casts a spell of enchantment over all of New York in a wise, funny film about taking chances, not settling, and following your heart, even when your sane, reasoned side tells you otherwise. Cher won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance, and Olympia Dukakis won for Best Supporting Actress for her world-weary but wise portrayal of Cher's mother. Also in the cast are John Mahoney and Vincent Gardenia. (Color - 102 minutes - Rated PG for sensuality and language)

I look forward to enjoying this film with you on the Wednesday before Valentine's Day.

Doug Swiszcz
Librarian & Film Enthusiast

COLLATERAL DAMAGE: WW II OFF THE FRONT LINE

WEDNESDAYS, OCTOBER 1-29, 2014 at 1:00 PM - Library Auditorium

In choosing a theme for my fall film series, my thoughts turned to movies about World War II—but not those set on the battlefields. We all recognize and honor those who fought on the front line during World War II, the sacrifices made, the lives given so that the world could be restored to peace and order.

But I thought that it might be interesting to look at other kinds of battles fought during the war. Collateral damage is a term used in the military to describe “unintentional or incidental damage to persons or objects that would not be lawful military targets in the circumstances ruling at the time” (Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, US Department of Defense, 2005). I think of the term in a broader sense, to include damage that is not necessarily suffered in combat, but which manifests itself as a result of war. No one who lived through the war remained untouched by it.

Think of the adjustments to civilian life that needed to be made on the home front during the war. Never was this more acutely felt than by the English during the time of the Blitz, the strategic bombing campaign conducted by the Germans against London and other cities of England from September 1940 through May 1941. Here were a people who steadfastly refused to “lie down and die.” The courage that it took for the British to endure these aerial raids is explored through the lives of one upper-middle class family in the first film in the series, Mrs. Miniver.

Consider as well the plight of Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl who, together with her family and some friends, hid in an Amsterdam attic for two years to escape Nazi persecution. Unlike Mrs. Miniver, Anne was a real-life individual—a girl on the verge of adolescence, whose resolute belief in the basic goodness of people, even as she hoped to escape the horrors of Hitler’s “final solution,” found its expression in the written word. Whether as a physical artifact, a play, or the film that’s part of my series, The Diary of Anne Frank lives on as a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit.

Battle did not necessarily end when surrender came. The aftermath of war lived on long afterward, as those who survived returned to a world that was not the same as the one that they had left behind.  And neither were they the same. How was that possible?  After all that they had experienced in combat, did the mundane trials back home even matter? Some came home with physical changes as well, whether it was a hearing impairment or the loss of an appendage.  Both kinds of adjustments, both psychological and corporal, are explored in The Best Years of Our Lives, the third movie in my series.

Children were also a part of the collateral damage of the war. Its horrors prematurely robbed them of their innocence. If they didn’t die, they were often separated from their families, displaced little beings who might then face a world alone once the war ended. In The Search, Montgomery Clift plays an American private who tries to help a young Czech boy find his mother. Complicating the search is the fact that the boy has suppressed many of his memories—including those of his parent.

My series concludes with a very recent film, The Railway Man, in which Colin Firth plays a veteran who was a prisoner in a Japanese labor camp during the war. When he learns, some 35 years later, that the Japanese military policeman who mistreated him at the camp is still alive, he vows to exact revenge.

Please join me, Wednesdays in October at 1:00 PM, as we look at collateral damage, the ways that the war spilled into so many lives in so many different ways, as depicted on film.

As always, I look forward to your taking this journey with me.

Doug Swiszcz
Librarian & Film Enthusiast

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Here's the series schedule:

Oct.  1st - Mrs. Miniver (1942 - black & white - 134 min. - not rated)

Oct.  8th - The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 - black & white - 180 min, - not rated)

Oct. 15th - The Best Years of Our Lives (1946 - black & white - 172 min. - not rated)

Oct. 22nd - The Search (1948 - black & white - 104 min. - not rated)

Oct. 29th - The Railway Man (2013 - color - 116 min. - rated R for prisoner of war scenes)

INSPIRATIONAL LIVES: BIOGRAPHICAL FILMS ABOUT EXTRAORDINARY INDIVIDUALS

Wednesdays, July 9-August 6, 2014 - 1:00 PM
Barrington Library Auditorium

The first day of summer has already come and gone, and as we put graduations and Father's Day celebrations behind us, and look forward to enjoying fresh strawberries during their all-too brief season as the Fourth of July fast approaches, it's a good time to start planning our recreational activities for the season. Picnics anyone? A swim in the ocean or a refreshing sailboat cruise? Attendance at a baseball game? There are so many possibilities for enjoyment during a time of year that can seem as fleeting as the "in season" for strawberries that I mentioned above.

I've got one more recommendation for you. Why not seek solace from the heat and humidity and join me on five consecutive Wednesday afternoons in the air-conditioned comfort of the Barrington Library auditorium, for a movie lecture series called Inspirational Lives: Biographical Films About Extraordinary Individuals?

I've gathered a handful of films that look at individuals who faced challenges and obstacles in their lives: the blind deaf-mute Helen Keller, who learned to thrive once her dedicated teacher, Annie Sullivan, broke through the barriers that isolated the girl (The Miracle Worker); Sir Thomas More, who followed his conscience by refusing to endorse King Henry VIII's plan to separate from the Roman Catholic Church--exemplifying the principle of "the courage of one's convictions" (A Man For All Seasons).

Karen Blixen, a Danish woman who wrote under the pseudonym Isak Dinesen, endured the infidelities of her husband, and years of hard work trying to run a successful coffee plantation in early 20th-century Kenya (Out of Africa); James Braddock was a Depression-era light heavyweight boxing contender whose career seemed to be derailed by an injury, until fate gave him a second chance (Cinderella Man).

And then there's Johnny Cash, who rose from humble beginnings in Arkansas to a career as arguably one of the greatest country music performers of our time, dealing with all of the temptations and pitfalls that can come with fame, including drug dependency and infidelity (Walk the Line).

Like all of us, these men and women had to find their own way, in a world that often dealt them cruel blows. That they were able to surmount these travails serves as a testament to the strength of the human spirit. Self-determination. Courage. When necessary, the willingness to let others help us.These are all traits that, hopefully, we can find within ourselves.

Let's make a date to meet in the library's auditorium. One o'clock. Wednesdays. Together, let's be inspired by the lives that we see depicted up on the screen.

Doug Swiszcz
Librarian & Film Enthusiast

Here's the rundown:

July  9 - The Miracle Worker - Patty Duke, Anne Bancroft. (1962 - Black & white - 106 min. - unrated)

July 16 - A Man For All Seasons - Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw, Wendy Hiller, Orson Welles. (1966 - Color - 120 min. - unrated)

July 23 - Out of Africa - Meryl Streep, Robert Redford. (1985 - Color - 161 min. - rated PG, for sexuality, profanity, violence involving animals, and smoking and drinking)

July 30 - Cinderella Man - Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger, Paul Giamatti. (2005 - Color - 144 min. - rated PG-13, for intense boxing violence and some language)

Aug.  6 - Walk the Line - Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon. (2005 - Color - 136 min. - rated PG-13, for language, thematic material, and depiction of drug dependency)

Ingrid Bergman: A Celebration

A Film Lecture Series - Wednesdays at 1 PM, March 5, 12, 19, 26 and April 2, 2014

Hello All,
What a winter it's been. Cold weather made more intolerable by a seemingly endless barrage of snow and ice. Those who ski must be quite happy. Those who lean more towards sitting in a window seat, sipping a cup of warm cocoa are content to remain indoors. Please include me in the latter group.

But spring is (hopefully) just around the corner. March will be here before you know it, and each day is getting a little longer. In the meantime, one way to beat the winter doldrums is to attend my latest film lecture series.

I'm saluting a female Swedish movie star of yesteryear. No, not Garbo. The other one:
Ingrid Bergman. Hollywood producer David O. Selznick saw her in a Swedish film and brought her over to America in the late thirties, where she was signed to a contract.

Her exquisite beauty and singular acting style made her the darling of both the critics and the public for a time. However, events in her private life--she left her first husband and their child for neo-realist Italian director Roberto Rossellini in the early 1950s--made the public turn on her. She was even denounced on the floor of Congress for her indiscretions.

But time heals all wounds, and--after several years living with Rossellini and their children in Rome--Bergman returned from her exile to star in Anastasia on the American movie screen. Apparently all was forgiven, for she was awarded with the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in that film.

I've selected a handful of Ms. Bergman's movies that I hope will serve as a fitting celebration of her work, allowing us to appreciate her anew.

Even those who don't necessarily like old movies must nevertheless be familiar with Bergman's work in Casablanca. This World War II era romance film, in which Bergman and Humphrey Bogart agree that, in memory, they'll "always have Paris," is a Hollywood classic. And if you are a classic film fan, you'll swoon again to the strains of "As Time Goes By," the movie's theme song.

Bergman etched for us a portrait of a woman driven to the brink of insanity in Gaslight, in which she plays a new bride who starts to experience disconcerting things once she begins living with her new husband (Charles Boyer). What's behind these strange events--and can they be stopped before Bergman falls over the precipice into madness?

Spellbound is one of three films that Bergman made with director Alfred Hitchcock (who, as he did with so many of his leading ladies, felt unrequited love for her). This one casts the actress as a clinically cold psychoanalyst who tries to help an amnesiac accused of murder, and finds herself falling in love with him in the process. Gregory Peck is her co-star.

In Anastasia, the film with which she was welcomed back into the good graces of America, Bergman plays a woman who claims to be daughter of deposed Russian Emperor Nicholas II. Supposedly the entire royal family was killed by the Bolsheviks in 1917...but did she somehow escape the overthrow? Yul Brynner and Helen Hayes co-star.

Finally, we'll see Bergman in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, playing a missionary in charge of a roadside hostel in remote China, who must endure the invasion of the area by the Japanese. Based on true events, it's the story of a woman forced to summon her inner strength to face great external turmoil.

I am looking forward to getting this series underway--and to seeing all of you again.

The auditorium, second floor of the library. I'll be there.

Doug Swiszcz

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Here's the series at a quick glance:

March  5 - Casablanca 

March 12 - Gaslight

March 19 - Spellbound

March 26 - Anastasia

April  2 -    The Inn of the Sixth Happiness

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT: A SPINE-TINGLING FILM LECTURE SERIES

Wednesdays at 1:00 PM -- October 2, 9, 16, 23 and 30, 2013

Autumn is nearly upon us, a time when the air turns crisper, when one can smell burning leaves in the distance, and when the days grow shorter. Or perhaps I should say, when the nights grow longer.

October is, of course, the month of Halloween, an annual tradition that evokes memories of childhoods past, of ghosts and goblins and witches cackling in the moonlight. Our passage into adulthood may force us into wingtips and high heels, but do we ever truly leave behind the thrill that comes from being scared out of our wits? Perhaps there's some primal urge in us that makes us squeal with delight from being frightened. How else do we explain the fun of sitting around the campfire and telling chilling stories?

I thought that I would devote my Fall 2013 film lecture series, Things That Go Bump in the Night, to movies that tap into our primal urges, our primal fears.

Anyone who knows my love of film is aware that I gravitate toward older movies, or at least toward those that are similar in style to those made during what has been often called the golden age of cinema. You have to know that the last thing that I would do is to inundate you with gratuitous blood and gore. I prefer the tack of showing films that build suspense, that lay out before you an evolving story that will increase your sense of unease or, perhaps, of dread. It's often not what is shown, but rather what is implied, that scares the dickens out of us.

Although the movies that I am presenting this fall  will be screened in the early afternoon, once the lights are turned down and the films begin, we'll be alone in the dark--collectively, that is. So bring a friend or a significant other with you, someone whose arm you can grasp when something on the screen suddenly makes your heart race or sends chills down your spine.

I look forward to seeing you in October when, together, we can rekindle our childhood fascination with things that go bump in the night...

Doug Swiszcz

Librarian & Film Enthusiast

The schedule:

Oct. 2nd: Psycho - Janet Leigh, who's absconded with some money from work, makes the mistake of checking into the Bates Motel in this Hitchcock classic. Co-starring Anthony Perkins. (1960 - B&W - 109 min. - Unrated)

Oct. 9th: The Innocents - Deborah Kerr is a governess who fears that her young charges are possessed by the spirits of a former governess and her sadistic lover. Based on Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. (1961 - B&W - 100 min. -- Unrated)

Oct. 16th: Rosemary's Baby - Mia Farrow is a young mother-to-be who comes to suspect that her husband and neighbors are involved in a nefarious plot concerning the baby. With John Cassavetes and Ruth Gordon. (1968 - Color - 136 min. - Rated R for profanity, a dream sequence involving sexuality, and frightening sequences)

Oct. 23rd: Dead Again - A Los Angeles cop (Kenneth Branagh) helps an amnesiac (EmmaThompson) to recover her memory with the aid of a hypnotherapist, but past life regressions reveal a disturbing link between the two of them. (1991 - Color - 107 min. - Rated R for language and violence)

Oct. 30th: The Others - A woman (Nicole Kidman) who lives with her two photosensitive children in a darkened old house fears that it may be haunted. (2001 - Color - 104 min. - Rated PG-13 for thematic elements and frightening sequences)

A Slice of Lemmon

A Jack Lemmon Summer Matinee Film Series

Wed., July 10-31, 2013 - 1:00
Library Auditorium

Hello Friends,

Summer has rolled around once again, and as I sit here composing this blog entry, the weather outside is hot and muggy. I know that the expression "dog days of summer" is normally used much later in the season, but I'm panting like a member of the canine family even now. I don't normally seek out the sun and heat during the summer. The hole in the ozone isn't getting any smaller, and I've always felt that it is not worth the effort to slather myself with sunscreen. For what? To then lie on a towel and sweat?

Why don't you join me in the cool comfort of the library's auditorium for my July film lecture series, saluting Jack Lemmon? I thought that I'd show a handful of Lemmon's comedic movies, even though we all know that he was a dramatic actor of distinction as well. But it's summer, after all. So I thought that I'd "serve up" something light and refreshing--namely, a slice of Lemmon.

We'll get to enjoy Jack's first feature film role, as a young filmmaker who takes a liking to dizzy blonde Judy Holliday, in It Should Happen to You. Directed by the esteemed George Cukor, the film looks at our culture's preoccupation with fame and celebrity. This movie opened in 1954--nearly a decade and a half before Andy Warhol spoke about everyone eventually getting their own fifteen minute of fame. Talk about being prescient!

Who doesn't love Some Like It Hot, the Billy Wilder-directed classic with Lemmon and Tony Curtis as two musicians in 1920's Chicago who disguise themselves as women to evade gangsters whose mob slaying they have witnessed. Here we have Lemmon the farceur on display, as his character gets caught up perhaps a bit too much in the pleasures of his masquerade. And the film has Marilyn Monroe at her breathless, jiggly best.

Wilder also directed The Apartment, with Lemmon playing the kind of role at which he would come to excel: the little man, lost in the sea of humanity, but trying desperately to carve out a niche for himself. Here, he's a small cog in the wheel at an insurance agency, who lends his apartment to his philandering bosses for their trysts. But is this the best way to climb the ladder to success, if it means compromising your self-respect? Shirley Maclaine co-stars.

We close the series with The Odd Couple, based on Neil Simon's successful Broadway play (and forerunner to the long-running Tony Randall-Jack Klugman TV series). One of several films that Lemmon made with Walter Matthau, it pairs the two as mismatched roommates, one a neurotic fussbudget, the other  a sloppy sportswriter. Lemmon's performance is filled with tics,wheezes, and just about anything else that could drive Matthau to distraction. And does. 

Come in from the stifling heat and join me for a good laugh this summer, watching an actor who stands as one of the exemplars of comedic acting. A chuckle, after all, is better than a sunburn.

Doug Swiszcz

Librarian and Film Enthusiast

Here's the schedule, at a glance:

July 10 - It Should Happen to You - 1954 - Black & white - 86 min. - not rated.

July 17 - Some Like It Hot - 1959 - Black & white - 120 min. - not rated.

July 24 - The Apartment - 1960 - Black & white - 125 min. - not rated.

July 31 - The Odd Couple - 1968 - Color - 105 min. - rated G.