Regular $15/ $11 Matinee
Member $11/ $6 Matinee
This illuminating essay uses film scenes to tell of the forced cultural appropriation of a world-famous landscape.
Monument Valley is one of the most recognizable landscapes in the world. Its iconographic use in American Westerns has had a lasting influence on stock photography, advertising, and tourism. The valley has been given mythical significance as an image of a “primitive West” firmly in the hands of white people and meant to be protected from intruders. The fact that Monument Valley is traditional Navajo territory has been obscured in the process.
A radical examination of Monument Valley’s representation in cinema and advertising since John Ford’s STAGECOACH (1939), THE TAKING scrutinizes how a site located on sovereign Navajo land came to embody the fantasy of the “Old West,” replete with self-perpetuating falsehoods, and why it continues to hold mythic significance in the global psyche.
Hoping to stay in the country, a gay man proposes a green card marriage to a female friend in exchange for paying for her IVF treatment. However, things soon get complicated when his grandmother surprises them with plans for an extravagant Korean wedding banquet.
Star of an elite tennis academy, Julie’s life revolves around the sport that she loves; when her coach is investigated and quickly suspended from his duties, Julie decides to keep quiet.
Henry Fonda’s life, roles, and last 1981 interview voice narrate a journey across America’s history from 1651 to the 1980s presidency era, personifying the nation’s complexities through a road trip from Fonda, NY to the Pacific.
Join over 1,500 happy members who get early access to events and screenings throughout the year.