Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors

Joshua Phillip's at tonight's informance suggested that "Comedy of Errors" explores at least three themes: questions of truth and error, issues of identity, and the question of what brings communities together.

What do you think "Comedy of Errors" is about?

The Rest of the Films and Comedy of Errors

     Tonight's (November 9th) film is supposedly one of the best films of the Tournées Festival. The film portrays a narrative framed in the great metropolitan culture of Paris. Paris follows the lives of a number of Parisians as their lives intertwine into a great tower of French diversity.

    Also, please join us this Saturday (November 13th) for an Informance by Dr. Joshua Phillips on Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors. Dr. Phillips will preface the following performance of Shakespeare's play with a discussion on the plays major lasting elements. The Informance will take play in the University of Memphis campus theater building on Central Ave. at 6 Saturday evening.

The Film Festival and MOCH (Coco Avant Chanel)

     Coco Avant Chanel was a personal film and a vivid depiction of Chanel's individuality. Chanel said once, "There is only one Chanel." The triumph of this film was its expression of that fact. The audience was enamored with her staunch personhood, her extraordinary and unique womanhood. The most potent awareness of Chanel's individuality came in the final scene as her tragedy and success converged into her tacit epiphany, like a little black cat on a staircase. The film is beautiful, but what's woven by the cinematic expertise of actress, director, writer, and others is a deeper masterpiece: Chanel's perfect selfness.

     What does Chanel's struggle, as Gabrielle then Coco, tell us about the conflicts of social and economic classes.

French Film Series

     For the third year running, the Marcus W. Orr Center for the Humanities (MOCH) is partnering with the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Memphis to present the Tournées French Film Festival.
     Every year the Tournées Festival draws an audience of language students, professors, and film lovers from the broader community to the university with a series of award-winning French films. The festival selects new films that convey an authentic idea of life and culture in France.
     This year’s selections for the festival include five of the most acclaimed recent releases of the modern French cinema. The series will explore themes of minority hardship in France (C’est dur d’être aimé par des cons), Coco Chanel’s burgeoning success (Coco avant Chanel), painter Séraphine de Senlis’s collapse into madness (Séraphine), metropolitan Parisian life (Paris), and the strong camaraderie of French soldiers in the First World War (La France).
     In a time of great cultural transformation in France and globally, these films offer us a window into contemporary French life and challenge us to rethink the same issues from an American perspective.

How do these films and the rich French culture they depict inform our perspectives on the Mid-South?