Carson McCullers on TCM
Posted: January 24th, 2011, 7:31 pm
Writer Carson McCullers is the focus of this evening's programming on TCM, which includes some of the rarely broadcast adaptations of her Southern stories, filled with loneliness and the pain of unrequited love, but also with sharply observed moments of humor. A storyteller whose own life would not be credible in any novel, she brought terrific empathy to her tales of misfits, children, men and women struggling to get through life without losing hope. When, after Reflections in a Golden Eye was published, she was asked how she could write about such troubled (and troubling) people so much, McCullers quietly explained, "I am so immersed in my characters that their motives are my own. When I write about a thief, I become one; when I write about Captain Penderton,[in Reflections of a Golden Eye] I become a homosexual man. I become the characters I write about and I bless the Latin poet Terence who said 'Nothing human is alien to me.'" The lineup of films listed below begin at 8pm ET on TCM. You can read more about this theme at TCM here.
I am fond of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Mostly because of Chuck McCann and Alan Arkin. And Reflections in a Golden Eye has one of Brando's better later career performances. Robert Forster is wonderful in that one too.
8:00 PM
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (1968)
A deaf mute changes the lives of all he meets. Cast: Alan Arkin, Sondra Locke, Stacy Keach. Dir: Robert Ellis Miller. C-124 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format
10:15 PM
The Member of the Wedding (1952)
When her brother marries, a 12-year-old girl faces the awkward pains of adolescence. Cast: Julie Harris, Ethel Waters, Brandon de Wilde. Dir: Fred Zinnemann. BW-89 mins, TV-G, CC
12:00 AM
The Ballad Of The Sad Cafe (1991)
A small-town eccentric opens a café in her decaying home. Cast: Vanessa Redgrave, Keith Carradine, Rod Steiger. Dir: Simon Callow. C-101 mins, TV-14
2:00 AM
Reflections In A Golden Eye (1967)
A military officer becomes obsessed with an enlisted man. Cast: Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Brian Keith. Dir: John Huston. C-109 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format
Psst, don't tell anybody, but Carson McC.'s fellow Southern writer Flannery O'Connor has a pretty decent movie that follows this block of programming at 4 am. One of John Huston's last and one of Harry Dean Stanton's better films, along with Paris, Texas.
4:00 AM
Wise Blood (1979)
An ambitious Southern boy tries to set himself up as a street preacher. Cast: Brad Dourif, Dan Shor, Harry Dean Stanton. Dir: John Huston. C-106 mins, TV-14
I am fond of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Mostly because of Chuck McCann and Alan Arkin. And Reflections in a Golden Eye has one of Brando's better later career performances. Robert Forster is wonderful in that one too.
8:00 PM
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (1968)
A deaf mute changes the lives of all he meets. Cast: Alan Arkin, Sondra Locke, Stacy Keach. Dir: Robert Ellis Miller. C-124 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format
10:15 PM
The Member of the Wedding (1952)
When her brother marries, a 12-year-old girl faces the awkward pains of adolescence. Cast: Julie Harris, Ethel Waters, Brandon de Wilde. Dir: Fred Zinnemann. BW-89 mins, TV-G, CC
12:00 AM
The Ballad Of The Sad Cafe (1991)
A small-town eccentric opens a café in her decaying home. Cast: Vanessa Redgrave, Keith Carradine, Rod Steiger. Dir: Simon Callow. C-101 mins, TV-14
2:00 AM
Reflections In A Golden Eye (1967)
A military officer becomes obsessed with an enlisted man. Cast: Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Brian Keith. Dir: John Huston. C-109 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format
Psst, don't tell anybody, but Carson McC.'s fellow Southern writer Flannery O'Connor has a pretty decent movie that follows this block of programming at 4 am. One of John Huston's last and one of Harry Dean Stanton's better films, along with Paris, Texas.
4:00 AM
Wise Blood (1979)
An ambitious Southern boy tries to set himself up as a street preacher. Cast: Brad Dourif, Dan Shor, Harry Dean Stanton. Dir: John Huston. C-106 mins, TV-14