In conjunction with East of the Mississippi: Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Photography three films that highlight landscape will be screened on select Friday Nights at NOMA throughout the run of the exhibition. Admission is free to NOMA members; standard museum admission applies to non-members.
LANDSCAPE ON FILM SERIES
Friday, October 13, 7 pm: O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000 | Rated PG-13; 1 hour, 47 minutes)
Loosely based on Homer’s Odyssey, this musical saga deals with the picaresque adventures of Ulysses Everett McGill and his companions Delmar and Pete in Depression-era Mississippi. Sprung from a chain gang and trying to reach Everett’s home to recover the buried loot of a bank heist, the escaped convicts are confronted by a series of strange characters—among them sirens, a cyclops, bank robber George “Baby Face” Nelson (very annoyed by that nickname), a campaigning governor and his opponent, a KKK lynch mob, and a blind prophet who warns the trio that “the treasure you seek shall not be the treasure you find.” Co-director Joel Coen called the film the “Lawrence of Arabia of hayseed movies.” The film’s soundtrack became an unlikely blockbuster, even surpassing the success of the film. By early 2001, it had sold five million copies, spawned a documentary film, and three follow-up albums. O Brother, Where Art Thou? stars George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman, and Holly Hunter and features performances by Allison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, The Stanley Brothers, and the Cox Family of Cotton Valley, Louisiana.
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Friday, December 15, 7 pm: Days of Heaven (1977 | Rated PG | 1 hour, 34 minutes)
Days of Heaven is a 1978 romantic drama written and directed by Terrence Malick and starring Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard, and Linda Manz. Set in 1916, it tells the story of Bill, a murderer on the lam, and Abby, his girlfriend, and Linda, her younger sister, who travel to the Texas Panhandle to harvest crops for a wealthy farmer. Posing as siblings rather than lovers, Bill encourages Abby to claim the fortune of the dying farmer by tricking him into a false marriage. Artist Edward Hopper’s painting The House by the Railroad served as inspiration for the farmhouse set, built on the prairies of Alberta. Much of the film was also shot during what photographers often call “the magic hour,” the brief period before, during, and after sunset, which lends the film a painterly quality. The film won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. It is frequently cited by critics and scholars, including Roger Ebert, as one of the most visually arresting films ever made.
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Friday, December 29, 6 pm: There Will Be Blood (2008 | Rated R | 2 hours, 38 minutes)
There Will Be Blood was inspired by Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil!. It tells the story of Daniel Plainview, a silver miner-turned-oilman on a ruthless quest for wealth during Southern California’s oil boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Daniel Day-Lewis, Kevin J. O’Connor, Ciarán Hinds, Kevin J. O’Connor, and Dillon Freasier star in the film, much of which was shot in Marfa, Texas, and in the historic Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills, California. Many critics and film scholars view the film as a commentary on the nature of capitalism and greed, and its inherent national presence. The the jury for American Film Institute named the film among its top ten for 2007 and wrote: ” There Will Be Blood is bravura film-making by one of American film’s modern masters. Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic poem of savagery, optimism and obsession is a true meditation on America. The film drills down into the dark heart of capitalism, where domination, not gain, is the ultimate goal. In a career defined by transcendent performances, Daniel Day-Lewis creates a character so rich and so towering, that ‘Daniel Plainview’ will haunt the history of film for generations to come.”
Watch the trailer: