Thursday, Aug. 3, 7 p.m.—RUTLAND— Jay Craven’s new seaside film drama, “Peter and John,” will play Rutland’s Paramount Theatre at 7 p.m.,Thursday, Aug. 3.
“Peter and John” marks Craven’s eighth narrative film based in New England — and it was 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.
“Peter and John” is based on the 19th century novel “Pierre et Jean” by Guy de Maupassant and it’s 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 film tells the story of two brothers whose relationship strains 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.
Maupassant’s novel was widely credited for helping to change the course of narrative fiction through its detailed psychological characterizations. Tolstoy and Nabokov both cited the novel as an influence. In a letter to his brother Theo, Vincent Van Gogh cited Maupassant for the visual power of the novel’s detailed seaside setting. A film trailer can be seen at vimeo.com/116906319.
“Peter and John” stars 2014 Golden Globe winner Jacqueline Bisset (“Bullitt,” Truffaut’s “Day for Night”); Christian Coulson (“The Hours,” “Harry Potter: Chamber of Secrets,” “Nashville”); Shane Patrick Kearns (“Blue Collar Boys”); Diane Guerrero (“Orange is the New Black,” “Jane the Virgin”); and Gordon Clapp (“Matewan,” “Eight Men Out,” “Glengarry Glen Ross”). Craftsbury resident Abbey Volmer also plays a cameo role in the film.
“Peter and John” was shot on Nantucket and it was produced through the Movies From Marlboro (MfM) program, a biennial film intensive semester jointly produced by Marlboro College and Kingdom County Productions. For this ambitious production, 22 filmmaking professionals mentored and collaborated with 32 students from 12 colleges (Wellesley, Mount Holyoke, Boston College, University of Vermont, Lyndon State College, Dartmouth, Smith, Sarah Lawrence, Emerson, Antioch, London School of the Arts, and Marlboro).
Jay Craven’s seven feature films have played in 58 countries and 73 festivals, including Sundance — with special screenings at the Smithsonian, Lincoln Center, Le Cinémathèque Française, the Constitutional Court of Johannesburg, and others. Craven’s commitment to New England place-based filmmaking was recently profiled by Orion magazine that 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.”
Paramount Theatre is located at 30 Center St., Rutland. Tickets are available at the door. For more information, visit kingdomcounty.org or paramountvt.org.
Courtesy of kingdomcounty.org
Jay Craven
