Ackland Film Forum: “A Face in the Crowd” (Elia Kazan, 1957)
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About the Film:
The film debut of North Carolina’s own Andy Griffith, Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd tells the story of Arkansas drifter Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, who rises to national attention after radio journalist Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) gives him a stint on the air. A brutal critique of celebrity populism, Kazan’s film portrays how the shrewd Rhodes exploits a folksy persona to secure political influence and gain a foothold in presidential politics.
The film will be introduced by Michelle Robinson, associate professor of American Studies.
About the Series:
Join the Ackland Film Forum every Tuesday evening in October for Politics on Film, a timely series featuring five American films that explore the rise to political fame and power. The series will include A Face in the Crowd (Kazan, 1957), Medium Cool (Wexler, 1969), Being There (Ashby, 1979), Election (Payne, 1999), and Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed (Lynch, 2004).
All films will be screened at 7:30 p.m. at the Varsity Theatre (123 E. Franklin Street). Tickets are free, but must be reserved on the Ackland’s website. UNC-Chapel Hill students can receive CLE credit for attending by scanning the QR code at the event.
The Fall 2024 Ackland Film Forum series Politics on Film is co-organized by the Ackland Art Museum and UNC Film Studies, housed in the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of English and Comparative Literature.
