liberty theatre foundation film series brochure
DESCRIPTION
Imagine your favorite movie classics back on a big screen! Join us this September as we embark on a ten month film series hosted in the historic Liberty Theatre.TRANSCRIPT
EliteCriterionFilmSeries
Presented by the Liberty Theatre Foundation
You are taking part in a historical event. For the firsttime since its closure in 1959, the Liberty Theatrehas an audience regularly watching movies on thebig screen.
The magic of cinema at the Liberty never died, itwas just dormant. We want to reawaken the senseof community and excitement that comes fromwatching a movie with others.
The rituals, the smells and the feeling of a movietheater is an experience that even the best hometheaters cannot replace. It has been part of ourculture for nearly 100 years.
Over the next ten months we will take a journeythough films and documentaries that have beenspecially selected as part of the Criterion Collection.
Some films might be your favorite classics, othersunfamiliar. I hope that your choice to experiencethem here, in the Liberty Theatre, will give you anew appreciation for these fantastic works of art.
Welcome,
Chantell CosnerExecutive DirectorLiberty Theatre Foundation
THE LIBERTY THEATRE
The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941)
Jabez Stone is a hard-workingfarmer trying to make an honestliving, but a streak of bad lucktempts him to do theunthinkable: bargain with theDevil himself. For seven years ofgood fortune, Stone promises
“Mr. Scratch” his soul when thecontract ends. When thetroubled farmer begins to realizethe error of his choice, he enliststhe aid of the one man who
might save him: the legendary orator and politician DanielWebster.
For All Mankind (1989)
Al Reinert’s documentary “For AllMankind” is the story of thetwenty-four men who traveled tothe moon, told in their words, intheir voices, using the images oftheir experiences. Forty yearsafter the first moon landing, itremains the most radical, visuallydazzling work of cinema yetmade about this earthshakingevent.
THE LIBERTY THEATRE
Elephant Boy (1936)
Robert Flaherty and ZoltánKorda shared best directorhonors at the Venice FilmFestival for this charmingtranslation of Rudyard Kipling’sJungle Book story “Toomai ofthe Elephants.” “Elephant Boy”also served as the breakthroughshowcase for the thirteen-year-old Sabu, whose beamingperformance as a young mahout leading the British on anexpedition made him a major international star.
The Gold Rush (1925)
Charlie Chaplin’s comedic master-work—which charts a prospector’ssearch for fortune in the Klondikeand his discovery of romance (withthe beautiful Georgia Hale)—forev-er cemented the iconic status ofChaplin and his Little Tramp char-acter. Shot partly on location in theSierra Nevadas and featuring suchtimeless gags as the dance of the
dinner rolls and the meal of boiled shoe leather, “The GoldRush” is an indelible work of heartwarming hilarity.
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In the hands of the renownedexperimental theater director PeterBrook, William Golding’slegendary novel about theprimitivism lurking beneathcivilization becomes a film as rawand ragged as the lost boys at itscenter. Taking an innovative
documentary-like approach, Brook shot “Lord of the Flies”with an off-the-cuff naturalism, seeming to record aspontaneous eruption of its characters’ ids. The result is arattling masterpiece, as provocative as its source material.
The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)
Harvey Milk was an outspokenhuman rights activist and one ofthe first openly gay U.S. politicianselected to public office; even afterhis assassination in 1978, hecontinues to inspiredisenfranchised people around theworld. The Oscar-winning “TheTimes of Harvey Milk”, directed byRobert Epstein and produced byRichard Schmiechen, was as groundbreaking as its subject.One of the first feature documentaries to address gay life inAmerica, it’s a work of advocacy itself, bringing Milk’smessage of hope and equality to a wider audience.
THE LIBERTY THEATRE
Lord of The Flies (1963)
Pygmalion (1938)
Cranky Professor HenryHiggins (Leslie Howard) takesa bet that he can turn Cockneyguttersnipe Eliza Doolittle(Wendy Hiller) into a “properlady” in a mere six months inthis delightful comedy of bad manners, based on the playby George Bernard Shaw. This Academy Award–winninginspiration for Lerner and Loewe’s “My Fair Lady” wasdirected by Anthony Asquith and star Howard, edited byDavid Lean, and scripted by Shaw himself.
God’s Country (1985)
In 1979, Louis Malletraveled into theheart of Minnesota tocapture the everydaylives of the men andwomen in aprosperous farmingcommunity. Six yearslater, during RonaldReagan’s secondterm, he returned to
find drastic economic decline. Free of stereotypes aboutAmerica’s heartland, “God’s Country”, commissioned forAmerican public television, is a stunning work of emotionaland political clarity.
THE LIBERTY THEATRE
My Man Godfrey (1936)
The definitive screwballcomedy, “My Man Godfrey”follows the madcap antics of awealthy and eccentric familywhen they hire a down-and-out “forgotten man” as theirbutler. “My Man Godfrey”features brilliant performancesby Carole Lombard andWilliam Powell, and was thefirst film to receive Academy Award nominations in all fouracting categories.
A special thank youto our grantors
Union County Cultural Coalition
Union Co. Tax Discretionary Fund&
The Wildhorse Foundation
THE LIBERTY THEATRE
