SHIRLEY: The Lewis Center for the Arts and Princeton Garden Theatre present a special screening of Gustav Deutsch’s “Shirley: Visions of Reality,” based on painter Edward Hopper’s work. The event will take place at Princeton Garden Theatre on Thursday, October 27 at 7:30 p.m.

The Program in Visual Arts in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University and the Princeton Garden Theatre will present a special screening of Gustav Deutsch’s Shirley: Visions of Reality, based on painter Edward Hopper’s work, as a part of the new collaborative film series Cinema Today. Followed by an in-person discussion with director Deutsch and the film’s scenic artist Hanna Schimek, the screening will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 27 at the Garden Theatre. Tickets are available to the public at princetongardentheatre.org. Princeton students, faculty and staff may reserve a free ticket at http://arts.princeton.edu/cinematoday.

Shirley: Visions of Reality, released by Deutsch and Schimek in 2013, explores the life of a single woman through three eras in American history. Taking 13 of Edward Hopper’s paintings as inspiration, the film follows Shirley from the 1930s to the 1960s, her experiences and beliefs bringing Hopper’s work to life.

Hopper is widely acknowledged as the most important realist painter of 20th-century America. But his vision of reality was a selective one, reflecting his own temperament in the empty cityscapes, landscapes, and isolated figures he chose to paint. His work demonstrates that realism is not merely a literal or photographic copying of what we see, but an interpretive rendering.

The Cinema Today series has been organized by Princeton Arts Fellow Pacho Velez and Director of the Program in Visual Arts Joe Scanlan in collaboration with the Garden Theatre. Deutsch is a multimedia filmmaker whose work has spanned photography, architecture, installations, and music production.

Schimek is a graphic artist, painter, and filmmaker with an interest in interdisciplinary art projects through exhibitions, installations, and photography. She has collaborated with Deutsch since 1985. Schimek co-founded the Aegina Academy alongside Deutsch, creating a cultural forum for the arts and sciences aimed at “democratizing” art.

Velez is a 2015-17 Princeton Arts Fellow and a filmmaker who works at the intersection of ethnography, contemporary art, and political documentary. His current project, The Reagan Years, explores a prolific actor’s defining role: Leader of the Free World.

The Cinema Today series is supported through the John Sacret Young ’69 Lecture Series fund. Sacret Young is a 1969 graduate of Princeton and an author, producer, director, and screenwriter. He is perhaps best known for co-creating, along with William F. Broyles Jr., China Beach, the critically acclaimed ABC-TV drama series about medics and nurses during the Vietnam War, and for his work on the television drama The West Wing.

To learn more about these screenings visit arts.princeton.edu.

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