Friday Night Film Series

Open City

April 27, 2012

6:30 P.M.

Director Roberto Rossellini's unsettling drama portrays the harrowing struggle of everyday women and children as they try to shield resistance forces from the Nazis and to maintain compassion and self-respect despite Rome's de facto occupation during World War II's waning days. Rossellini's landmark film, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, brilliantly depicts the Italian people's weary despair and collective resolve.

Friday Night Film Series

The Bicycle Thief

April 20

6:30 P.M.

Poverty-stricken Antonio needs his bicycle to do his new job. But the same day he buys it back from a pawnshop, someone steals it, prompting him to search the city in vain with his young son.

Friday Night Film Series

Umberto D

April 13

6:30 P.M.

Bankrupt and lonely, an old man (Carlo Battisti) considers committing suicide. Since he has only a devoted dog and a maid (Lina Genneri) as his companions, things look bleak--until one day when the old man's luck changes, giving him new hope. Director Vittorio De Sica's touching portrait of one man's effort to retain his pride in the face of adversity is a treasure of Italian post-war cinema.

Book Club Announcement

Seventh Heaven

April 17

2:30 P.M.

Room 208

On April 17th the Thomaston Intergenerational Book Club will discuss Seventh Heaven by Alice Hoffman. Publishers Weekly said: "The setting is a Long Island, NY housing development from 1959 to 1960, a place of conforming, happy families where husbands mow the lawns of the tract houses and wives meet for coffee, where 'safety hung over the neighborhood like a net.' The arrival of Nora Silk, a brassy divorcee with two young children, is the catalyst for disturbing changes and events, some of them violent...". Hoffman has intuitive grasp of the thoughts and feelings that are masked by conventional behavior. Like some of her characters, she seems to have a spooky ability to read thoughts; how else to account for her unerring understanding of people of nearly every age and across a broad social spectrum? She has a gift for perceiving the cruelty of children and the wide gulf that yawns between the most loving, attentive parents and their offspring's unknown wishes and deeds. As usual, she tells more than a compulsively readable story. She does magic, she unsettles you and she leaves you feeling emotionally purged and satisfied.

On the third Tuesday of each month, this group of men and women of all ages come together to share their opinions and idesas. Extra copies of the books are purchased by the Friends of the Thomaston Public Library from the Annual Appeals fund.We thank you for all donations. Please come and join us at the Thomaston Library on April 17th at 2:30 P.M. in room 208.

Friday Night Film Series

Two Women

April 6, 2012

6:30 P.M.

Sophia Loren gives an Oscar-winning performance in director Vittorio De Sica's moving World War II classic. Loren plays widowed shopkeeper Cesira, who flees occupied Rome with her 13-year-old daughter as Allied bombs pound the city. When bombed-out tracks halt their train, they must make their way on foot amid numerous threats--from strafing Allied fighters to soldiers who paw at mother and daughter.