In celebration of Women’s History Month, the Screening Room in Amherst, NY will present, “ROAD MOVIES: a Feminist Film Series” with double feature evenings on back to back Thursdays; March 13th and March 20th. The films are programmed by and will be introduced by local filmmaker, Marty McGee.
March 13, 7 PM
THE RAIN PEOPLE (1969) directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Shirley Knight, James Caan and Robert Duval.
A young, newly pregnant woman (Shirley Knight) confused about her life, wakes up one morning and decides to hit the road in a station wagon without telling her husband except for a note left on the kitchen table. With no apparent plans she drives off alone until she picks up a young hitchhiker (James Caan) along the route. Together they embark on an erotic and eratic journey that leads to an encounter with a motorcycle cop (Robert Duvall) that turns tragic.
This low budget minor masterpiece was written by Coppola and made with a small crew traveling for 8 weeks as far as Nebraska. With fantastic casting, Caan is particularly outstanding in the role of a college football player set adrift by his school with a game-related brain injury and a wad of cash. THE RAIN PEOPLE was the last movie that Coppola directed before going on to co-write and direct one of the biggest hits of the 1970s, THE GODFATHER.
March 13 9 PM
THELMA and LOUISE (1991) directed by Ridley Scott and starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis with Brad Pitt in his feature debut.
An iconic piece of late 20th century cinema that involves a classic T Bird and two female friends who embark on a fateful road adventure. The climax has joined the pantheon of film history’s most memorable scenes.
March 20 7PM
A LIFE OF HER OWN (1950) directed by George Cukor and starring Lana Turner.
This classic Hollywood Mid Century melodrama opens with small town beauty, Lily Brannel James (Lana Turner) leaving Kansas, aspiring to become a model in fast paced New York City. She befriends a former model (Ann Dvorak) who becomes her mentor. After enduring the sexual advances of an Ad man (Barry Sullivan), Lily meets and falls in love with a charming and handsome but very married tycoon (Ray Milland) visiting the City on business from Texas with a disabled wife back home. Lily finds fame and success in the modeling world (watch for swanky nightclubs, packed apartment parties and stylish 1950 fashion scenes) but remains forlorn as she faces the hopeless reality of her doomed affair.
While A LIFE OF HER OWN is not a “road movie” in the classic sense, Lily’s story opens with a cab ride to the Kansas train station and the road of life. In a time when it was not common, Lana Turner plays a strong and independent female character who is not afraid to put a guy squarely in his place, especially when dealing with sleazy pick up artists who treat her merely as a “pretty, dumb blonde” from the Sticks.
March 20 9 PM
WANDA (1970) directed by Barbara Loden and starring Barbara Loden and Michael Higgins.
Notable as the first independent feature film to be written, produced and directed by a woman. Wanda Goronski (Barbara Loden) is a wanderer in a dreary rustbelt town, drifting from bars to hotels, hob to job and men to men. She’s directionless and futureless, an aging beauty seen by men as usable and disposable. She hands over custody of her children because she knows they’re better off with their father. She eventually tags along with Norman Dennis (Michael Higgins), a petty criminal on the run. WANDA won the International Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival.
