Wanda 1970 Film Showcase and Lecture by Elena Gorfinkel

This is the second film as part of the WANDA AND BEYOND weekend of film and lectures exploring the works of BARBARA LODEN and lectures by scholar Elena Gorfinke, presented in partnership with the BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE.

Join us for a screening of Wanda (1970), written, directed and starring Barbara Loden. The independent drama tells the tale of the titular character, a housewife from coal-country Pennsylvania who is drawn into an aimless, criminal existence. The film will be introduced by Elena Gorfinkel: scholar, critic, and Reader in Film Studies at Kings College London, with a Q&A to follow the screening.

Elena Gorfinkel is a film scholar and critic based in London. Her research concerns marginal and independent cinemas, including adult, experimental, & underground film, particularly from the 1960s to the present. She is Reader in Film Studies at King's College London. Prior to King's, she was Associate Professor of Art History & Film Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She earned a PhD in Cinema Studies from New York University. Born in Soviet Ukraine, she emigrated and grew up in New York City.

Film Notes

Barbara Loden’s tough, austere portrait of an alienated woman unmoored in Appalachia was a landmark work of American independent cinema. Loden based her film on a 1960 Sunday News story about a female accomplice to a bank robbery who expressed gratitude to her judge for her twenty-year J*il sentence. What kind of woman could be “that passive and numb,” Loden asked? Shot on location amid the ruins of Scranton’s anthracite mining and the rest stops, motels, pubs, and parking lots of Pennsylvania and Connecticut, WANDA tarries with the enigma of a woman “without any redeeming qualities at all” (Loden). A poetic, unsentimental film of unvarnished beauty, the film traces the itinerancy of its unforgettable anti-hero (played by Loden herself), who abandons her life as coalminer’s wife and mother to drift “in the sea of her own insignificance” (as per Berenice Reynaud), across deindustrialized landscapes of precarity.

As part of our immersive film series, this screening is designed to promote a deeper cultural reflection of cinema. We invite filmmakers to participate in our screenings, enabling the audience to better understand their creative perspective. By encouraging thoughtful, collaborative participation crossing both sides of the screen, this series is dedicated to studying and preserving the art of film.

ADVISORY DISCLAIMER

With some exception, The Joshua Tree Cultural Center's Film Institute does not typically provide advisory warnings about potentially upsetting content or subject matter, as sensitivities are particular to each viewer. Please be sure to read event listings, research on the web, or visit Common Sense Media, IMDb, and DoesTheDogDie.com for thorough info on content and age-appropriateness. If you have any specific content advisory questions, please email [email protected].

CONTENT DISCLAIMER

The views, opinions, and thoughts expressed within exhibited works are solely those of their creators and may not represent those of the Joshua Tree Cultural Center (JTCC), its affiliates, or any individuals associated with JTCC. Screenings are intended for educational and entertainment purposes.

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