The Humanities Film Series presents
HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR
Friday, April 19 from 8:30 – 10 PM
ETC Lecture Hall
Hiroshima, Mon Amour is a 1959 French film directed by Alain Resnais and is considered one of the high water marks of French New Wave cinema. It follows the intense conversation of a Japanese-American couple, known only as “She” and “He,” as they remember and recount traumatic events of World War II. Using brief flashbacks, Resnais sets his audience off-balance, making them never sure if what they’re seeing occurred in 1945 or in 1959. In form and in content, this film challenges its viewers to explore the roles of memory and point-of-view in understanding tragedy.
View an excerpt from the film:
Of El Norte, a 1983 film directed by Gregory Nava, Roger Ebert said “From the very first moments…, we know that we are in the hands of a great movie. It tells a simple story in such a romantic and poetic way that we are touched, deeply and honestly, and we know we will remember the film for a long time. The movie tells the story of two young Guatemalans, a brother and sister named Rosa and Enrique, and of their long trek up through Mexico to el Norte — the United States. Their journey begins in a small village and ends in Los Angeles, and their dream is the American Dream. But El Norte takes place in the present, when we who are already Americans are not so eager for others to share our dream. Enrique and Rosa are not brave immigrants who could have been our forefathers, but two young people alive now, who look through the tattered pages of an old Good Housekeeping for their images of America.”
Salvador, Bahia – In Brazil, alive with the charm of the 1950s, a gang of street kids known as “Capitães da Areia” [Captains of the Sands] is committing petty thefts and sophisticated mansion robberies and as a result are hunted like common criminals. As we draw closer, we see that they are just children, almost a hundred of them, completely abandoned. But they won’t be children for long: by the end of this odyssey, many will have become men. This feature film, based on the novel by Jorge Amado, shows a year in the lives of these boys, their incredible adventures, their most wonderful dreams, their visits to hell, and their discoveries of both death and freedom.
Co-winner of the Grand Prix at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, The Kid With a Bike or Le Gamin au Velo features Cyril, almost 12, who has only one plan: to find the father who left him temporarily in a children’s home. By chance he meets Samanatha, who runs a hairdressing salon and agrees to let him stay with her on weekends. Samantha accompanies Cyril in his search for his bicycle, his father, and answers. Cyril doesn’t recognize the love Samantha feels for him, a love he desperately needs to calm his rage.
Glory stars Matthew Broderick as Colonel Robert Gould Shaw with Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington as two of the members of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, one of the first African American regiments in the Union Army. In his review of the film, Roger Ebert wrote, “These men are proud to be soldiers, proud to wear the uniform and also too proud to accept the racism they see all around them, as when a decision is made to pay black troops less than white. Blacks march as far, bleed as much and die as soon, they argue. Why should they be paid less for the same work? …[This question provokes a] turning point for the 54th, fusing the officers and men together into a unit with mutual trust.” But can they prove their worth to the Union army as a whole?
Little Women (1994), based on Louisa May Alcott’s novel of the same name, features Winona Ryder as Jo March with Trini Alvarado, Kirsten Dunst and Claire Danes as her three sisters. The film follows the coming of age of Alcott’s Little Women, four sisters growing up in a family of a Transcendentalist bent (like Alcott’s own) and living in the years during and immediately following the American Civil War. Jo’s and her sisters’ trials present Alcott’s views on the struggles for women in postbellum America and her beliefs about how American women should embrace aspects of the domestic sphere like marriage and motherhood while stepping into the world, in this case as writers (like Jo) and artists (like Amy).