THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER ANNOUNCES ADDITIONAL PRINT SCREEN EVENTS CELEBRATING ACCLAIMED AUTHORS WITH SPECIAL SCREENINGS AND BOOK SIGNINGS
The Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle to discuss debut novel, Wolf in White Van, and present restored 35mm print of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Medea on August 31
Additional author spotlights to include James Hannaham (October), Susan Howe (November) & Garth Risk Hallberg (December)
New York, NY (August 7, 2015) – The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today additional Print Screen events, which are geared toward bridging the worlds of cinema and literature. Film Society’s newest recurring series invites notable authors to present films that complement and have inspired their work. On the occasion of the paperback release of his debut novel, Wolf in White Van (September 1from Picador), The Mountain Goats frontman and indie-rock icon John Darnielle joins us to introduce a screening of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Medea, followed by a discussion and book signing on August 31.
Upcoming Print Screen events include authors James Hannaham (October 29), Susan Howe (November 24), and Garth Risk Hallberg (December 10). Full details on these events and film pairings will be announced at a later date. The Print Screen series is organized by Rachael Rakes and Dennis Lim.
John Darnielle Print Screen tickets will go on sale Thursday, August 13 and are $18; $13 for members, students, and seniors (62+). Visitfilmlinc.org for more information.
“Wolf in White Van is a novel that unspools rather than reads. Told in a tricky, deftly structured reverse chronology, the narrator, Sean Phillips, backtracks to a traumatic teenaged event . . . Darnielle has a masterful way of putting the reader in the position of reverse engineer. . . [His] is an art that spins pain into gold.”—Emily M. Keeler, The Hairpin
“It’s a gripping and strange read that defies all genre expectations and captures a world that very few of us know about but that feels very real.”—John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars, in Rolling Stone
John Darnielle is a writer, composer, guitarist, and vocalist for the band The Mountain Goats and is widely considered one of the best lyricists of his generation, crafting “songs that read like stories” (NPR) about society’s marginalized and underdogs—undercard boxers, meth addicts, teens who form death-metal bands. He took the name The Mountain Goats from a line in “Yellow Coat,” a Screamin’ Jay Hawkins song. While working toward an English degree at Pitzer College in 1991, a local label released Taboo VI: The Homecoming—10 initial songs, sung by Darnielle including a cover of “This Magic Moment.” Eventually pairing with others to form the indie-rock band The Mountain Goats, their 2002 first studio concept album Tallahassee was released to critical acclaim by British label 4AD (Pixies, Throwing Muses, Modern English) and centers on an embittered husband and wife who move from Southern California to Florida. The band has released multiple albums and over 500 songs, many written by Darnielle. After writing for his own blog, Last Plane to Jakarta, and publishing a book on Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality as part of the 33 1/3 series about classic albums, he penned Wolf in White Van. The novel takes place in a “tortured-adolescent head-space” (Rolling Stone) and centers on a man who is disfigured during his days as a heavy-metal loving teen. The book was nominated for the 2014 National Book Award. Darnielle lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his family.
Medea
Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy/France/West Germany, 1969, 35mm, 110m
Italian with English subtitles
Starring the legendary Maria Callas, Pasolini’s interpretation of Euripides’s play shifts the tragedy away from Medea’s betrayal by Jason and her bloody revenge to the loss of her mystical homeland of Colchis. Through poetic, desirous explorations of landscape and ritual, traditional North African music, and sparse dialogue, Pasolini shapes a biting Marxist allegory for Western nations’ menacing influence on the Third World. Glorious to witness for Callas’s performance and the superb costuming, Medea deserves repeated viewings on the big screen.Restored 35mm print from Instituto Luce Cinecittà. Restoration by S.N.C. Presentation of the film in its original 35mm format made possible by Gucci.
Monday, August 31, 7:00pm (Q&A with John Darnielle) at Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (144 West 65th Street)
“The Greek and Roman tragedians had a profound and lasting effect on me when I immersed myself in them back in college—everything I write articulates at some point with strategies and visions found in those ancient poems. One interesting thing about ancient tragedy is that its threads lead in so many directions—from Renaissance reimaginings to crypto-tragic texts like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to the syncretic masterpiece The Gospel at Colonus. Pasolini tried his hand at Greek tragedy twice: first Sophocles (Oedipus Rex [1967]), then Euripides (Medea, [1969]). It’s not surprising that a lifelong maverick like Pasolini would be drawn to Euripides, whose plays speak so directly to the modern heart. Medea, which contains Maria Callas’s only dramatic role on film, hauls Euripides from the corridors of the academy into the stark, violent world of celluloid. There are few film treatments of ancient tragedy as hell-bent on getting the tone right as this one: the light, the scene, the horror. The film’s final frames, once viewed, linger in the mind for a long, long time. It’s my pleasure to host a screening of this sometimes-imperfect but genuinely remarkable film.”—John Darnielle
ABOUT FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
Founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, the Film Society of Lincoln Center works to recognize established and emerging filmmakers, support important new work, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility, and understanding of the moving image. The Film Society produces the renowned New York Film Festival, a curated selection of the year’s most significant new film work, and presents or collaborates on other annual New York City festivals including Dance on Camera, Film Comment Selects, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, New York African Film Festival, New York Asian Film Festival, New York Jewish Film Festival, Open Roads: New Italian Cinema and Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. In addition to publishing the award-winning Film Comment magazine, the Film Society recognizes an artist’s unique achievement in film with the prestigious Chaplin Award, whose 2015 recipient is Robert Redford. The Film Society’s state-of-the-art Walter Reade Theater and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, located at Lincoln Center, provide a home for year-round programs and the New York City film community.
The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from American Airlines, The New York Times, HBO, Stella Artois, The Kobal Collection, Variety, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts.
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For Media specific inquiries, please contact:
Film Society of Lincoln Center:
David Ninh, (212) 875-5423
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