by Rod Jones
The Oklahoma City University Film Institute’s series will continue its 34th year at 2 p.m. Jan. 24 with Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Blow-Up” in the Kerr McGee Auditorium of Meinders School of Business. The school is located at N.W. 27th Street and McKinley Avenue.
Admission to all films in the series is free. The series is supported in part by the Thatcher Hoffman Smith Endowment Fund and endowments through OCU and the Oklahoma City Community Foundation.
Italian director Antonioni’s first English-language production “Blow-Up” was his only box office hit, but widely considered one of the seminal films of the 1960s.
Leading character Thomas is a nihilistic, wealthy fashion photographer in mod "Swinging London." Filled with ennui, bored with his fab but oddly lifeless existence of casual sex and drug use, Thomas comes alive when he wanders through a park, stops to take pictures of a couple embracing and, upon developing the images, believes that he has photographed a murder. He is soon pursued by a woman who appears in the photos.
The theme of this year’s season is based on Viktor Frankl’s classic book “Man’s Search for Meaning.”Harbour Winn, director of the series, said the theme is intended to help participants come to understand the purpose of suffering.
“The films in this series stress the importance of an individual’s attitude to existence,” Winn said. “Even when life seems restricted by external forces, we can choose the attitude with which we live and make meaning, to find value.”
A discussion session follows each film screening for those who wish to participate. The remaining dates and films in the series are:
* Feb. 7, Ritesh Batra’s “The Lunchbox”
* Feb. 21, Asghar Farhadi’s “About Elly”
* March 6, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Leviathan”
For more information about the series, call 405-208-5472 or visit okcu.edu/film-lit.
