Film Group March 31, 2021

Series Eleven – Filmed Intellectuals

The films can be screened via the Kanopy streaming site of the Vancouver Public Library

Zoom discussions of each film will take place on: Jan. 27, Feb. 24 and Mar. 31 at 4pm

Hosted by John LeBlanc

Series Eleven: Films featuring intellectuals face serious difficulties in presenting such complex and unique individuals in a medium that often relies on formulaic structures within its standard two hour limit.  Film director Margarethe von Trotta, has addressed this problem by attempting to engage intimately with her subjects, requiring that she identify to some degree with them (for example, as a woman railing against male oppression) as well as trying to discover the real person through their letters, close associates and places they inhabited.  The two hour time limit also requires identifying a representative moment in the individual’s life.  These three films, all by women directors, feature, in the first two films, internationally known intellectuals and, in the third film, a fictional thinker, offering an additional difficulty of creating what a contemporary intellectual might look like.  All three films share a focus on intellectuals as figures of exile, not only mental because of their advanced ideas but also physical, suffering displacement that shows they are not merely mind but also flesh and blood.