"Lights! Camera! Arkansas!" Comes to Crystal Bridges Summer Film Series

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Summer Film Series, courtesy Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – University of Arkansas professors Robert Cochran and Suzanne McCray will present “Lights! Camera! Arkansas!” as part of the Crystal Bridges Summer Film Series, from 8:30-10:30 p.m. Wednesday nights, July 26, Aug. 2, and Aug. 9. The talks and outdoor screenings will be held at Walker Landing and are free, although online registration is suggested.

The series is based on their 2015 book, Lights! Camera! Arkansas!: From Broncho Billy to Billy Bob Thornton, and will focus on the little-known connections between Arkansas and Hollywood. There will be book signings by the authors during each event.

The July 26 presentation will focus on Arkansas ties to early Hollywood, from the silent era to the 1950s, and will be followed by a screening of one of the best films ever made in Arkansas: A Face in the Crowd, directed by Elia Kazan and starring a young Andy Griffith.

The Aug. 2 lecture and screening will demonstrate why the list of “best films made in Arkansas” is short: “B-Movies in Arkansas” will feature criminals, car chases, Roger Corman, gore and more, capped with a showing of The Legend of Boggy Creek, which is, in its way, legendary.

The series wraps Aug. 9 with a look at “Indie Arkansas, 1990s to Today,” discussing films such as Sling Blade and Winter’s Bone, followed by a screening of Jeff Nichols’s 2013 film Mud, starring Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, and Sam Shepard.

Cochran is a professor in the English department of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. McCray is vice provost for enrollment management and associate professor of higher education in the College of Education and Health Professions.

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among only 2 percent of universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.