Our Town (1940)
(Sam Wood, US 1940, 90 min., 35mm)
Reinventing Hollywood | Special Introduction. Thornton Wilder’s classic American play comes to the silver screen with a young William Holden as George Gibbs and Martha Scott in an Oscar-nominated performance as Emily Webb. The story takes place over four days in three different years as sweethearts George and Emily grow together, begin their relationship, and deal with all the hardships life has to offer. Already a progressive stage play, the film uses some of these newer stage techniques, adapts them to the big screen, and adds voice-over, flashback, hallucinatory imagery, and direct-address to help to tell the cinematic story.
Special introduction by David Bordwell, author of Reinventing Hollywood: How 1940s Filmmakers Changed Movie Storytelling.