Shoes

press release:  USA | 1916 | DCP | 60 min.

Director: Lois Weber

Cast: Mary MacLaren, Harry Griffith, Mattie Witting

In director Weber’s hard-edged portrait of urban poverty, MacLaren plays Eva Meyer, a shop girl whose meager earnings support her family. Surrounded by merchandise in the store where she works, Eva longs for one potent symbol of escape – a new pair of shoes. Newly restored and featuring a new score by Donald Sosin and Mimi Rabson, Shoes will be introduced by New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis. Prior to the feature on this Dargis-curated program of pioneering women director’s from the silent era, Alice Guy Blache’s The Little Rangers (1912, 12 min.) Ida May Park’s Bread (1918, 16 min.), and selections from Zora Neale Hurston’s ethnographic footage (1929, 13 min.).

New Restorations: From the ridiculous (the Marx Bros.’ Horse Feathers) to the sublime (Claude Berri’s moving The Two of Us), our August-December calendar features more than a half dozen other programs of digital restorations not already included in one of our other series. A selection of features and documentaries from around the world and throughout cinema history, the highlight of this series will be an October 31 program of silent movies curated by The New York Times' film critic Mahohla Dargis.