65th Street Construction On Sale Now Jennifer Jones Program Overview Cluny Brown Beat the Devil Carrie Duel in the Sun Gone to Earth ...Miss Dove Love Is a... Madame Bovary Portrait of Jennie Ruby Gentry Since You Went Away The Song of Bernadette Tender Is the Night Charles Boyer Israel @ 60 YFF: Judy Berlin New Italian Cinema Gr. Scr.: Biùtiful... Human Rights Watch HRW Collection IN: Critical Condition Ongoing Programs Film Comment Selects Young Friends of Film Green Screens Browse Calendar Past Programs Furman Gallery Theater Rental Theater Information Press Office Sign up for FSLC ReelNews

Saint and Sinner: The Tempestuous Career of Jennifer Jones May 16 – 24, 2008 “Jennifer Jones occupies a celestial niche… Even as she crawled through the dirt, you still had a sense of her as the abstract embodiment of ideal femininity, 1940s style: a beautiful, empathetic trophy who was fundamentally untouchable.” - Stephen Holden, The New York Times “Ms. Jones was never less than enchanting… A bona fide movie star with the looks to prove it. But the lingering, haunting, ephemeral truth she brought to the movies came from deeper within.” - Bruce Bennett, The New York Sun “Imaginatively programmed!” – Andrew Sarris, The New York Observer The story of the beautiful and mysterious Jennifer Jones is, on some level, a familiar one: the ambitious but pliable girl who meets the perfectionist overachieving movie executive. But “The Girl,” as super-mogul David O. Selznick referred to Jones at the start of their long association, was no ordinary country girl. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as Phylis Isley, the daughter of a show business family, Jones always knew what she wanted—a career in the theater––but what she got was something else. Beneath the shy veneer and wholesome all-American image lurked a disturbing intensity and unexpected sensuality, as well as an enchanting charm. She ascended to overnight stardom in 1943 in The Song of Bernadette, receiving a dream onscreen billing: “Introducing Jennifer Jones, through the arrangement of David O. Selznick.” An Oscar later, Jones became Selznick’s Galatea. His obsession with her extended to every aspect of her performances: the hue of her makeup, the arrangement of her hair, the cut of her costumes, even suggestions of corsets that would accentuate her small waist. His memos on his film projects were legendary and most especially those devoted to his newest discovery and later his lover and wife. Meanwhile, Jones subjected her characters to Method-like scrutiny, bringing detailed, affecting performances to her unforgettable vixens in Duel in the Sun and Ruby Gentry and the doomed lost girls of Portrait of Jennie and Gone to Earth. Surprisingly, she also lit up the screen as a comedienne in Cluny Brown and Beat the Devil and showed a special affinity for Emma Bovary in Minnelli’s underrated screen version of Flaubert’s classic novel. With a comment seemingly from left field, the protean Henry Miller best tapped into her special allure, referring to the “other-worldly world” in which she seemed to reside onscreen––“a world not unknown to tigers, llamas, unicorns and the like. Thank God I have not yet seen all the films in which Jennifer Jones starred...To me she is like a coin fresh from the mint, whether playing the angel, the minx or just her thousand year old self.” For a listing of the films in the series go to Program Overview. Click on Calendar to view the schedule, film descriptions and to purchase tickets online. Read Miriam Bale's article Basic Instinct in the May/June08 issue of Film Comment. Back to Top