MassMu Invites the Community to The Big Read Film Series

MassMu Invites the Community to The Big Read Film Series

The Massillon Museum, with the collaboration of the Massillon Public Library, will present a free three-part film series related to Edith Wharton’s novel, The Age of Innocence, as part of The Big Read. A film will be shown in the Massillon Public Library auditorium at 7:00 p.m. each evening. Guests are asked to use the Library’s canopied street-level entrance on Second Street Northeast.

On Friday, March 6, the movie, “The Age of Innocence,” based on The Big Read book selection for 2009, will kick off the series. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Winona Ryder, it is a tale of 19th-century New York high society.

Saturday’s film (March 7) will be “House of Mirth” starring Gillian Anderson and Dan Aykroyd, the film adaptation of another Wharton novel. One of the first novels of manners in American literature, it is about New York socialite Lily Bart’s attempt to secure a husband and a place in rich society.

The film on Sunday, March 8, will be the 1997 version of “In Love and War” starring Sandra Bullock and Chris O’Donnell, based on the semi-autobiographical Ernest Hemingway novel by the same name. The story is told from the point of view of an injured soldier who falls in love with his nurse during World War I, which marked the end of The Gilded Age, Wharton’s “age of innocence.” It was just after the war that she penned her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Age of Innocence.

The film series, part of “The Big Read: Western Stark County Reads The Age of Innocence,” is free and open to the public. The Big Read is a month-long celebration of leisure reading. The organizers selected the book because it depicts an era when Massillon’s industrialists and financiers reflected the social ways pictured in the novel. The Massillon Museum’s collections of furniture, clothing, art, china, and glassware represent their lifestyle.

The movie nights are among two dozen events scheduled to encourage the community to read The Age of Innocence. A complete schedule of events is available at the Massillon Public Library, the Massillon Museum, or online at www.massillonmuseum.org.

Copies of The Age of Innocence may be checked out at the Massillon Public Library or purchased at the Massillon Museum, the Massillon Public Library, and The Village Bookshelf (746 Amherst Road Northeast in Massillon).

The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents the Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment.

Local organizations and individuals collaborating with the Massillon Museum include: the Massillon Public Library; the Lions Lincoln Theatre; Mayor Francis H. Cicchinelli; Dr. Leslie Heaphy, Dr. Robert Sturr, Dr. Andrea Adolph, Dr. Ann Coen, and Kent State University Stark Campus; Jason Norris; John Kiste and the Canton/Stark County Convention and Visitors’ Bureau; Rotary Club of Massillon; the Massillon Area Chamber of Commerce; The Independent; the Fairless, Jackson, Tuslaw, and Massillon school systems; State Representative Scott Oelslager; Massillon Cable TV; the Chit Chat Coffee Shop; George Nicholis; Camille Leslie; Brian Centrone; Eric Myers; Gretchen Schrantz; Five Oaks and Massillon Woman’s Club; Richard Gercken; The Canton Symphony Orchestra; The Amherst Rose and Parlour Gift Shoppe; Kozmo’s Grille; St. Timothy’s Church; Massillon Family YMCA; Hampton Inn Massillon; and many community volunteers.

For more information about the book discussions or The Big Read, call 330-833-4061 or visit www.massillonmuseum.org or www.NEABigRead.org.

Media Contacts:

Christine Shearer - Massillon Museum Executive Director - 330-833-4061

Camille Leslie - Massillon Public Library Director - 330-832-9831

Margy Vogt - Massillon Museum PR Coordinator - 330-844-1525