VOLUME 32, NUMBER 1 THURSDAY, August 24, 2000
ReporterTop_Stories

Buffalo Film Seminars set
Jean Renoir's classic film "The Grand Illusion" to open series

send this article to a friend By PATRICIA DONOVAN
News Services Editor



The restored version of Jean Renoir's 1937 classic film "The Grand Illusion," starring Jean Gabin and Eric von Stroheim, will open the Fall 2000 Buffalo Film Seminars, the popular 14-week series of screenings and discussions of great films sponsored by UB and the Market Arcade Film and Arts Centre.

The fall series includes outstanding films produced from 1937-98 in a broad range of genres. Screening time is 7 p.m. Wednesdays, beginning Aug. 30 and running through Dec. 6, in the Market Arcade Film and Arts Centre, 639 Main St., Buffalo. There will be no screening Nov. 22.

Films will be introduced by Bruce Jackson, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Samuel P. Capen Professor of American Culture in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Diane Christian, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor, also in the English department.

Following a short break at the end of each film, the two will lead discussions about the films with UB students and members of the public.

Admission to each film will be $6.50 (general public) and $4.50 (students and seniors 62 and older). Series tickets offering 14 screenings for the price of 12 may be purchased at all Dipson Theater box offices for $78 (general public) and $54 (students and seniors over 62).

Free parking for film patrons will be available in the lot directly opposite the Market Arcade's Washington Street entrance.

The seminars also have an academic component. The screenings are part of a graduate seminar, "Realities" (Eng 655), being taught by Jackson and "Contemporary Cinema" (Eng 442), an undergraduate course being taught by Christian.

Jackson says the seminars are based on three ideas about watching film.

"One," he says, "is that the best way to watch a good film is projected on a good screen in a darkened room in the presence of other people. Watching a good film on TV or videotape is like reading a good novel in "Cliff's Notes" or "Classic Comics": you get the contour, but you don't have the real experience of the thing.

"The second is that one of the best ways to understand your reaction to a film you've just seen is by talking about it with people who have also seen it and who are as interested in it as you are," Jackson says.

"Third, is that it is not only possible for such a discussion to involve students and non-students, younger people and older people, people who are passionate about film in general and people who happen to be interested in the specific movie under consideration, but that the discussion actually benefits from such a mixture of sensibilities."

Further information about the films and their contexts, the directors, actors and other crew, and notices of any last-minute changes in schedule are available on the seminar's Web sites: http://www.buffalofilmseminars.com or http://www.filmbuff.org. See the Fall 200 Screening Schedule.


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