1917
Director: Sam Mendes
2019, 110 minutes, R
CC, DVS
1/19/2020 2:30PM – OC
1/25/2020 2:00PM – OC
2/1/2020 2:00PM – OC
Cast: George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman
In the Pop-upDistributor: Universal Pictures
Discussion of 1917‘s unique cinematography with Dr. Oliver Gaycken and Dr. Caitlin McGrath follows 5:30 pm screening on Saturday, January 18.
Dr. Oliver Gaycken
Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Maryland
Oliver Gaycken received his BA in English from Princeton University and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He previously has taught at York University (Toronto) and Temple University. His teaching interests include silent-era cinema history, the history of popular science, and the links between scientific and experimental cinema. He has published on the discovery of the ophthalmoscope, the flourishing of the popular science film in France at the turn of the 1910s, the figure of the supercriminal in Louis Feuillade’s serial films, and the surrealist fascination with popular scientific images. His book Devices of Curiosity: Early Cinema and Popular Science, appeared with Oxford University Press in the spring of 2015.
Dr. Caitlin McGrath
Founder & Executive Director, Friends of Greenbelt Theatre
Dr. Caitlin McGrath holds a PhD in Cinema and Media Studies from the University of Chicago, and has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and the University of Maryland. As Executive Director of the Friends of Greenbelt Theatre, Dr. McGrath is responsible for setting the overall direction of the organization and managing most aspects of its day-to-day operations. Dr. McGrath sees OGT’s programming as both learning opportunity and as entertainment.
At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers, Schofield (Captain Fantastic‘s George MacKay) and Blake (Game of Thrones‘ Dean-Charles Chapman) are given a seemingly impossible mission. In a race against time, they must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers—Blake’s own brother among them.
“What might have been easily dismissed as little more than a simplistic stunt, instead becomes a potent and unforgettable piece of cinema.” – Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
“One needn’t be British to feel the epic loss and grief of 1917, thanks to some very committed performances, the intimacy achieved by the movie’s style and camera and Mr. Mendes’s obvious devotion to what he’s doing.” – John Anderson, Wall Street Journal