Courtesy of Chandler Center for the Arts
“Peter and John” marks Jay Craven’s eighth narrative film based in New England. It was recently nominated for a 2016 New England Emmy. The film will be screened Sunday at Chandler Music Hall’s Upper Gallery.
Sunday, Aug. 7, at 7 p.m.—RANDOLPH—Join Vermont director Jay Craven for a pre-release screening of his new seaside film drama, “Peter and John,” at the Chandler Music Hall’s Upper Gallery at 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 7. As he typically does with his new films, Director Craven will introduce the film and lead a post-screening Q & A.
“Peter and John” is based on the 19th century novel, “Pierre et Jean,” by Guy de Maupassant and it is set in 1872 Nantucket, during the island’s “ghost period”—after the decline of whaling, before the rise of tourism, and in the New England shadow of the Civil War. The story tells of two brothers whose relationship becomes strained when the younger one receives news of an unexpected inheritance—and both brothers become attracted to the same young woman who arrives on their island.
“Peter and John” marks Craven’s eighth narrative film based in New England, and it was recently nominated for a 2016 New England Emmy. The director’s previous pictures include five collaborations with Vermont writer Howard Frank Mosher, among them “Northern Borders” with Bruce Dern and Genevieve Bujold, “Disappearances” with Kris Kristofferson, and “Where the Rivers Flow North” with Rip Torn, Tantoo Cardinal, and Michael J. Fox.
Maupassant’s novel greatly influenced European narrative fiction through its detailed psychological characterizations. The American novelist Henry James called “Pierre et Jean” a “masterly little novel” for its potent themes of family, status, self-discovery and the lengths to which someone will go to reveal or suppress the truth.
“Peter and John” stars 2014 Golden Globe winner Jacqueline Bisset (“Day for Night,” “Bullitt”); Christian Coulson (“Harry Potter: Chamber of Secrets”); Shane Patrick Kearns (“Blue Collar Boys”); Diane Guerrero (“Orange is the New Black,”); and Gordon Clapp (“Glengarry Glen Ross”).
“Peter and John” was filmed on Nantucket in the spring of 2014 and was produced through the Movies from Marlboro (MfM) program, a biennial film intensive semester jointly produced by Marlboro College and Cravens’ film company, Kingdom County Productions. (More information about this unusual program can be found at Movies.Marlboro.edu).
Craven’s commitment to New England place-based filmmaking was recently profiled by Orion Magazine, which wrote: “Jay Craven has come closer than any other filmmaker to realizing [American poet, essayist, and film theorist] Vachel Lindsay’s dream of a vital regional cinema that embodies the character and genius of a place in all its mystery, magnificence, and pain.”
Tickets will be available at the door. For more information, go to chandler-arts.org or contact Jay Craven, jcraven@marlboro.edu. A film trailer can be seen at https://vimeo.com/116906319.
Chandler Center for the Arts describes itself as a “a community based arts organization” that makes its home in the Chandler Music Hall, 71-73 N. Main Street, Randolph. The Music Hall is fully handicapped-accessible.
