Film Conversations

media release: Much like friends in a book club, students in this free meeting of Film Conversations will watch the recent feature film Wildcat (Dir: Ethan Hawke, 2023) on their own time. The class will then meet via Zoom on Tuesday, November 19, 6:00pm to 8:00pm to share their responses while learning about writer Flannery O'Connor, conventions of biographical films ("biopics"), literary adaptations, and screenplay structure.

Instructors James Kreul and Rita Mae Reese will provide contextual material about the film and about the life and career of Flannery O'Connor. Students will participate in a discussion that will go beyond “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to an understanding of how films convey story information, themes, and mood through form and style.

Both Kreul and Reese admire the work of Flannery O'Connor, and they followed the critical discussion of Wildcat with great interest. Kreul started collecting O'Connor's writing after he read the short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find" in a freshman year literature course. He believes that John Huston's 1979 film of O'Connor's Wise Blood is one of the best film adaptations of a major novel.

Reese is the author of The Book of Hulga (University of Wisconsin Press), a book of poetry centered around Flannery O’Connor’s life and work. She was a participant in the National Endowment for the Humanties “Reconsidering Flannery O’Connor” Institute in Milledgeville, Georgia. She has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, a Stegner fellowship, and a “Discovery”/The Nation award. Find out more at ritamaereese.com.

Wildcat can be viewed using the free Kanopy streaming service (Madison Public Library card or UW-Madison access required). Students should watch the film before the Tuesday, November 19 meeting. Those unfamiliar with Flannery O'Connor might be interested in viewing the PBS American Masters documentary, Flannery (2021), also available on Kanopy.

This Film Conversations session will serve as a free preview of the 8-week course, Film Conversations: Four Contemporary Directors, which begins Tuesday, November 26, with instructor James Kreul.