Hollywood during the Depression: Wild River
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
7:30pm $5 at the door
Wild River
Portage Theater
4050 N Milwaukee Ave,
chicago, IL 60600
Click here for location info
May 30 WILD RIVER
Directed by Elia Kazan • 1960
Montgomery Clift is an agent for the Tennessee Valley Authority (created by FDR’s New Deal to stop the flooding of the Tennessee River and bring electricity to impoverished areas in 1933) overseeing the construction of a dam on the Tennessee River. Faced with local opposition for, among other things, employing black workers, Clift’s biggest struggle is convincing Lee Remick’s grandmother (the great Jo Van Fleet) to move off of her island in the middle of the river. Clift falls for Lee Remick, who handles negotiations between Clift and Jo Van Fleet. Shot on Location in Charleston and Cleveland Tennessee, Wild River was for the last couple decades available only in faded, muddy prints. This recent restoration by Criterion Pictures restores Elia Kazan’s masterpiece to it’s full glory, and what surfaces is a picture that understands the great sadness that comes when even the most dysfunctional of cultures is washed away by the best intentioned progress. (JA)
For the sereis schedule http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/calendar/archives/classic/2012-april-august/
About the artists:
Wild River
May 30 WILD RIVER
Directed by Elia Kazan • 1960
Montgomery Clift is an agent for the Tennessee Valley Authority (created by FDR’s New Deal to stop the flooding of the Tennessee River and bring electricity to impoverished areas in 1933) overseeing the construction of a dam on the Tennessee River. Faced with local opposition for, among other things, employing black workers, Clift’s biggest struggle is convincing Lee Remick’s grandmother (the great Jo Van Fleet) to move off of her island in the middle of the river. Clift falls for Lee Remick, who handles negotiations between Clift and Jo Van Fleet. Shot on Location in Charleston and Cleveland Tennessee, Wild River was for the last couple decades available only in faded, muddy prints. This recent restoration by Criterion Pictures restores Elia Kazan’s masterpiece to it’s full glory, and what surfaces is a picture that understands the great sadness that comes when even the most dysfunctional of cultures is washed away by the best intentioned progress. (JA)
110 min • Twentieth Century Fox • 35mm from Criterion Pictures USA
