445. GREAT CINEMA ADAPTATIONS: THE AGE OF INNOCENCE

Peter Josyph via Zoom

When Edith Wharton’s 1921 novel received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Wharton was the first

woman to win it. Set in the Guilded Age of Manhattan’s 1870s, it centers around lawyer

Newland Archer’s impending marriage to May Welland and the threat posed to it by May’s

unconventional cousin Ellen, a countess with several social scandals in her past. Before Martin

Scorsese’s sensitive 1993 adaptation starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Rider, Michelle

Pfeiffer, Geraldine Chaplin, Mary Beth Hurt, and Robert Sean Leonard—with Joanne Woodward

as the narrator—it had been adapted for film in 1924 and again in 1934, as well as for the stage

in 1928. Filmed mostly in Troy and in Philadelphia, it received rave reviews and won Rider a

Golden Globe. Our discussions will include how the film relates to Scorsese’s other New York

classics, and we will examine the issue of whether we owe more to the people we love than to

our own happiness.

1:00-2:00 p.m. / 1:00-2:30 p.m.                                                                                  2 Sessions Thursdays, Mar. 20 and Mar. 27                                                                           Fee:  $50

 [A Zoom link will be sent to you prior to each session, typically on the day before your class and the morning of your class.  If you have any questions or need help getting online, feel free to call us at 516-480-5733 and we’ll get right back to you with assistance.]

ABOUT THE LECTURER

Peter Josyph is an author, actor, director, and filmmaker whose films include: Liberty Street: Alive at Ground Zero; Acting Cormac McCarthy: The Making of Billy Bob Thorton’s All the Pretty Horses; Shakespeare In New York: The Sonnets; and A Few Things Basquiat Did in School. His books include: Adventures in Reading Cormac McCarthy; What One Man Said to Another, Talks with Richard Seltzer; and, The Wounded River, which was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book. He also excels in literary and film criticism.