January at the Movies with OLLI at Pitt

January 17, 2020 - 1:00pm to 4:00pm

An American in Paris Viewing and Discussion led by Dana Och, PhD
Friday January 17th 1-4 p.m. on Campus


 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We invite you to shake off the doldrums of a Pittsburgh winter and escape to the optimism, wonder, and beauty of Vincent Minnelli’s 1951 award-winning musical, An American in Paris.  A mash-up of post-war trends come together into a touristic imagination of France (re-created on MGM’s California studio backlots) that features glimpses of changing gender roles, class issues, and the booming post-war economy while exhibiting a nostalgia for the values and elite culture of the traditional art world.  While this is only the third musical to win Best Picture (and the first since 1936), the Academy did not see fit to nominate a single actor from the film, not even Pittsburgh’s own Gene Kelly wearing his jaunty baseball cap and playing an idealistic everyman GI who stayed in France after the war to pursue being a painter but mostly just dances with children in the street and interacts romantically with women. After the film, stay for a post-film lecture and discussion with Pitt professor Dana Och.
 
Dana Och, PhD is Lecturer II in Film Studies and English at the University of Pittsburgh, where she teaches a variety of genre classes. She has published various articles on Irish cinema, horror, and television as well as edited a book on transnational horror films.

Must be a member. Please register by email to: osher@pitt.edu until registration reopens online or call 412-624-7308.(If you call, just leave a message saying that you want to register, we will register you and confirm in the next few days. It will help us cut down on call backs during this busy time.)