On Wednesday, April 2, at 6 p.m. in F1622, you are invited to attend the screening and discussion of “Away from Her,” a 2006 Canadian film which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival and also played in the Premier category at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. The film is based on Alice Munro's short story "The Bear Came over the Mountain", from the 2001 collection “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage,” GSU’s One Book, One University selection.
“Away from Her” stars Julie Christie, Olympia Dukakis, Michael Murphy and Wendy Crewson. The movie is about an elderly couple who are very much in love. As the wife begins to suffer memory loss, she makes a radical decision. The movie allows the viewer to experience the couple as they go through these difficult life experiences, and to learn how her husband supports her decision at all costs.
Roger Ebert stated, “Using sympathy and tenderness for its characters, ‘Away From Her’ tells the story of a marriage that drifts out of the memory of the wife, and of the husband’s efforts to deal with that fact.”
Immediately following the movie, Christopher White (Faculty, English) and Daniel Nearing (faculty, Independent Film and Digital Imaging) will speak to the relationship of the film to the short story and about Alice Munro and her Nobel Prize-winning body of work.
This event is sponsored by GSU’s Intellectual Life Committee.