Artists Space

Due to concerns about the spread of COVID-19, Artists Space and Light Industry will be rescheduling all programs related to A Film Club for Adrienne Kennedy.

Trailer for Robert Stevenson's Jane Eyre (1944, 3 mins)
Gaslight (George Cukor, 1944, 114 mins)

"I kept stacks of Modern Screen in the vanity table drawer," Kennedy writes of her junior high years, "and made a scrapbook from my favorite pictures." Party scenes, in particular, were a subject of fascination. "They wore evening dress and jewels and sat at small round tables in places called Ciro's, the Coconut Grove, the Brown Derby, while photographers photographed their magical lives. I yearned to be like that. And I went upstairs and tried to comb my hair like Kathryn Grayson's in a pompadour and for at least a day tried to perfect a Swedish Ingrid Bergman accent like the one she had in Gaslight. I ordered photos every week from the movie studios which I carefully put in scrapbooks, meticulously gluing every corner. One scrapbook had black paper and every star's name was written under the photograph in white ink. No one was allowed to touch it."

Cukor's tale of psychological manipulation is preceded by an original trailer for the 1944 adaptation of Jane Eyre featuring Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles. Kennedy admired Welles so much in the film that she wrote him a "penny postcard," asking for an autographed photo. "It arrived one lovely June day in a white envelope, a large 5 x 7 picture (not the usual 2 x 3 size of the other photos, especially those from MGM). It was signed, in remarkably authentic-looking ink, 'Orson Welles.' I convinced myself it was original. Before I could mount the photo in my scrapbook, my brother got peanut butter on it. I screamed at him and started to cry. He looked amazed and walked away."

Gaslight is screened at Artists Space as part of A Film Club for Adrienne Kennedy, presented in partnership with Light Industry.