The Lincoln Library Film Society presents ” JaNOIRy: British Film Noir” starting with the Blue Lamp on Tuesday, Jan. 7 at 7 p.m. All screenings are in the Lincoln Public Library’s Tarbell Room (for more information, call 781-259-8465 or email Lincolnlibraryfilmsociety@gmail.com).
arts
January events sponsored by the COA
Here are the activities in January sponsored by the Lincoln Council on Aging. For more information, call the COA at 781-259-8811.
Park and Rec announces winter activities
(click on image to download brochure)
The Lincoln Parks and Recreation Department’s Winter 2014 brochure is now available online at www.lincolnrec.com. Classes beginning next week include:
- Ballroom Dance Drop-in for adults (Friday nights)
- Latin Dance for adults (Thursday nights)
- Open Studio for adults (Thursdays)
- Chess Wizards for school age children (Thursdays)
- Musical Theater for school age children (Tuesdays)
- Music Together for preschoolers on (Mondays and Fridays)
- Gymnastics for preschool and school age children (Wednesdays)
For more information, call the Parks and Recreation Office at 781-259-0784.
Memoir group open to new members in January
The memoir group is a good place to try out your writing on a supportive audience. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t written a word or if you’ve already written enough for two lifetimes—the group will welcome you and help you move along in the process. (They will also laugh and cry with you sometimes.) If you’re interested in joining the group or if you just want to know more before making a commitment, please get in touch with facilitator Connie Lewis at con.lewis@comcast.net or 781-259-9415.
The group meets on Wednesdays, usually twice a month from 10 a.m. to noon. The schedule for the winter/spring term isn’t set yet, but the first meeting will be on January 15. The cost is $50 if the group continues with the six-meeting schedule or $75 if they decide to meet eight times.
Morris Engel films at library this month
The Lincoln Library Film Society will be showcasing the work of acclaimed New York photographer and filmmaker Morris Engel in December. Along with photographer Ruth Orkin, Engel pioneered the use of hand-held cameras in cinematography, which, along with other techniques, helped them capture true slices of life and weave images of everyday reality into their fiction films.
A native of Brooklyn, Engel spent five years as a combat photographer during World War II. He was an active member of the Photo League, a left-wing photo cooperative based in New York, which produced and distributed socially-themed work. It was there that he met Ruth Orkin, a freelance photographer from Los Angeles, who would later become his filmmaking partner. Their 1953 film Little Fugitive, with its infusion of documentary photography with staged narrative, is considered an important forerunner to the films of John Cassavetes and the French New Wave films of Truffaut and Godard. The films that the pair made, along with Engel’s subsequent solo work as director and cinematographer, comprise an independent cinema before there was independent cinema, having proved highly influential over the many facets of postwar realism to follow.
Tuesday, December 10 at 7 p.m.
Lovers and Lollipops
USA / 1956 / in English / 82 minutes.
The follow-up to Little Fugitive is similarly made on a minuscule budget, with money raised by Engel and Orkin, and filmed using highly portable cameras. The film depicts the efforts of Peggy, a seven-year-old, to thwart the blossoming romance between her fashion model mother, Ann, and Larry, an engineer. The film brings to life the textures and nuances of city life with wit and charm, favoring authenticity over narrative efficiency, and once again shows how ordinary children can be more genuine and demonstrative than many adult actors.
Ruth Orkin: Frames of Life
USA / 1996 / in English / 18 minutes
This short documentary, directed by her daughter, Mary Engel, charts the chronology of Orkin’s career through photographs and film clips.
Tuesday, December 17 at 7 p.m.
Weddings and Babies
USA / 1958 / in English. 81 minutes
This more mature film by Engel, his first to use synchronous sound, won the Critic’s Award at the Venice Film Festival in 1958. It merges a ground-level naturalism, seen in his earlier films, with increased production values. Al, a photographer living in New York, feels pressure from his girlfriend, Bea, to marry and settle down. His elderly mother, whom he recently put in a nursing home, only complicates things as Al tries to get his life in order. The film uses improvisational performances and naturalistic settings, with cinematographer Engel picking up on the detailed emotional resonance of everyday life.
Morris Engel: The Independent
USA / 2008 / in English / 28 minutes
Mary’s portrait of her father assembles interviews and clips, bringing some of the original cast of Little Fugitive back to Coney Island.
L-S Civic Orchestra seeks musicians; concert on Jan. 12
Matt LaRocca rehearses with the LSCO (courtesy photo)
The Lincoln-Sudbury Civic Orchestra (LSCO), the resident community/student orchestra at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, has announced its winter concert—and also has openings for musicians.
[Read more…] about L-S Civic Orchestra seeks musicians; concert on Jan. 12
Holiday events include “Gift Local” this weekend
Get handmade items at “Gift Local”
Buy your holiday gifts from a local artisan, chocolatier, jeweler, painter, clothier, felter, glass artist, book artist, fabric artist, wood turner, hatter, neighbor, friend at Gift Local at Bemis Hall on . Sponsored by Old Town Hall Exchange.
“An English Christmas” choir concert
Live from Lincoln Center! Vox Lucens, a 13-member choir Renaissance choir, will present a full-length concert of English Renaissance polyphony on Sunday, December 15 at 3 p.m. as part of the new concert series at the First Parish in Lincoln. This concert will include works by Gibbons, Byrd, Parsons and other English masters, and the choir will collaborate with organist Ian Watson, music director at First Parish and principal keyboard player of the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra. Suggested donation: $20.
Lincoln resident Paik plays Rachmaninoff on Sunday
Wanda Paik
Lincoln resident Wanda Paik will perform Rachmaninoff’s great Piano Concerto No. 2 with Sounds of Stow Chorus and Orchestra on Sunday, Nov. 24 at 3 p.m. at the Hale Middle School in Stow. The concert will also feature Russian choral works, Gretchaninoff’s Hvalite Boga, and Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances, as well as a silent auction.
There will also be an open rehearsal (children welcome) on Saturday, Nov. 23 at 1:30 p.m. for the chorus and orchestra and 4 p.m. for the piano concerto. A donation of $5 is requested.
For more information, see the Sounds of Stow website or browse Paik’s CDs.
Tonight’s film theme: “Closely Watched Trains”
If you like trains, you’ll love tonight’s Lincoln Film Society presentation, which it’s calling “Closely Watched Trains: An Evening of Chuff-Chuff and Choo-Choo.” The medley of rail-themed short files begins at 7 p.m. in the Lincoln Public Library and will include:
Arrival of a Train
France / 1896 / silent / 1 min.
The Georgetown Loop
USA / 1996 / silent / 11 min.
Snow
UK / 1963 / silent / 7 min.
89mm from Europe
Poland / 1993 / in Polish with English subtitles/ 12 min.
Games on Reflection and Speed
France / 1925 / silent. 8 min.
The Station
Italy / 1953 / in Italian with English subtitles / 11 min.
Train Stop
Russia / 2000 / silent/ 24 min.
Mountain Vigil
Armenian SSR / 1964 / silent. 10 min.
Train of Thought
USA / 2008 / silent. 9 min.
Total program time: 93 minutes.
Tonight: films by László Moholy-Nagy
The Lincoln Library Film Society will screen several short films by László Moholy-Nagy tonight (Tuesday, Nov. 12) at 7 p.m.
While best-known for a career spanning sculpture, painting, and industrial design, the versatile Hungarian-born Moholy-Nagy also did pioneering work in the field of photography, producing short documentaries and abstract films that show the influence of constructivism on his vision. He was forced to leave Germany in 1933, moving to London, and later emigrating to the U.S. as the director of the New Bauhaus in Chicago, which only lasted for one year. He went on to found the Institute of Design, part of the Illinois Institute of Technology, which offered the first PhD in design.