Film Studies: Hollywood Through the Looking Glass

Hollywood has always had an inherently self-absorbed quality that continues to fascinate us, so perhaps it comes as no surprise that many film directors choose to explore their own artistic obsessions via the vehicle of Hollywood mythology itself, past and present.

This series explores some of the movie industry’s own reflections on itself as a dream factory, from one of the earliest examples, George Cukor’s pre-code examination of the seductive pitfalls of an actress’s hungry aspirations, to one of the latest, Damien Chazelle’s mesmerizing trip through a director’s looking glass world. Along the way, our guided tour makes memorable stops that ask us all what makes our never ending appetite for screen dreams so tantalizing. Could it be that in the end it’s something as simple as the deft observation once made by songwriter Van Dyke Parks? “Movies are magic.” No matter how weird and challenging our daily lives might be, we’ll always have the welcome escape of a dark cinema, where we can sit with complete strangers and dream together with our eyes wide open.

Scheduled across five successive Monday mornings, our latest Film Studies adult education series will feature short, 25-minute introductions by film historian and curator Donald Brackett, followed by the screening and a brief audience talkback.

All films will screen again, without the talk.