The Clark presents a series of films celebrating the paradox of the idyllic, with films that inevitably introduce some kind of conflict into peaceful landscapes in the rural United States, France, and Ireland.

The series continues with The Quiet Man (1952). Both an exemplary and a unique example of director John Ford's use of landscape, The Quiet Man longs for an unregainable past, for tradition and ceremony, and for the peace and escape of an idyllic country. Set in the 1920s, the film stars Ford’s muse, John Wayne, as Sean Thornton, a recently retired boxer who has travelled from America to his birthplace of Innisfree to lay claim to his family farm. Winton Hoch's astonishing technicolor cinematography (for which he won an Academy Award) is epic, and yet intimate. (Run time: 2 hours, 9 minutes)

Free. Accessible seats available; for information, call 413 458 0524.



Image: The Quiet Man, John Ford, 1952