Muse Flashes
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Troubled protagonist
"In a Lonely Place," Humphrey Bogart's classic film noir thriller, will be shown Aug. 21 at 2 p.m. and Aug. 24 at 7:30 p.m. at Amherst Cinema.
Bogart stars as Dixon Steele, a fading screenwriter suffering from creative burnout, hired to adapt a best-selling novel. Instead of reading the book, Steele asks a hat-check girl at his favorite nightclub to tell him the plot.
The next morning, the girl is found brutally murdered, and Steele is the police's prime suspect. However, a would-be starlet, Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame), agrees to provide Steele with an alibi and they soon begin a romance - in spite of Gray's lingering concerns that the troubled, violent Steele, might indeed be the killer.
Released in 1950, 2½ years after the House Un-American Activities Committee put Hollywood on the stand, "In a Lonely Place" similarly represents the movie industry as a crime scene with a troubled screenwriter as its conflicted protagonist. These undertones explain why Variety called the film "the grayest, most morally ambiguous of film noirs - and arguably the most self-reflexive."
Tickets are available at the Amherst Cinema box office or online at www.amherstcinema.org.
Veteran artists
The University of Massachusetts Fine Arts Center and the Springfield Vet Center, in collaboration with the UMass Veterans Services and the Veterans Education of Project of Amherst are extending an invitation to artists who are military veterans to submit works for a fall exhibit to be held at the Student Union Art Gallery at the UMass.
"Creative Expressions: An Art Exhibit by War Veterans will be presented from Oct. 31 through Nov. 19. The exhibit is open to works about any subject matter. The work must be created by a veteran of any combat area. Family members may enter works of a deceased veteran. Mediums accepted are 2D, 3D, video and written word.
For information and a registration form, visit www.fineartscenter.com, send an email to mfurtado@art.umass.edu or call Moema Furtado at 545-4164.
The UMass Student Union Art Gallery is located on the ground floor of the Student Union Building on the UMass Amherst campus.
