Spring Jewish Film Series also helps close out the Cinema 320 season

By Charlene Arsenault

Largely composed of boomers, empty nesters and older adults, the Worcester Jewish Community Center looks for films that will resonate with this audience when choosing its lineup for the Spring Jewish Film Series. “The goal is to enrich the cultural life of our community by presenting films that have universal appeal,” says Nancy Greenburg, cultural arts director of the Worcester JCC.

This year, they are featuring Steal a Pencil for Me, Three Mothers, Beaufort and The First Basket.

Steal a Pencil for Me (7:30 p.m. May 6, 8, 10 and 1 and 2:50 p.m. May 11 at Cinema 320) is a documentary that shows how love and humankind can overcome unimaginable suffering. Set around Jack and Ina's love affair, which begins in pre-war Netherlands, it continues through two concentration camps and liberation. Three Mothers (7 p.m. May 12 at Assumption) focuses on the Hakim triplets, who were born into a wealthy Egyptian Jewish family in 1942. Sixty years pass (as do husbands, careers, children and more) and the sisters move in together in Israel.

Beaufort (7 p.m. May 14 at Assumption) was the Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film in 2007. It captures the dilemmas young commander Beaufort Castle faces in South Lebanon during the Israeli Army's 2000 withdrawal. And The First Basket (7 p.m. on May 18, as Assumption), explores the life of Ossie Schectman, a Jewish kid from Queens who scored the NBA's first basket.

“I evaluate films that have been audience favorites at other recent festivals,” says Greenburg, “with input from JCC's Cultural Arts Committee. We look for films that we think will resonate with our audience. The goal is to enrich the cultural life of our community by presenting films that have universal appeal. Because the films are among the best of their genre, they appeal to a broad range of audiences, consisting of both Jewish and non-Jewish filmgoers.” o

Local artist paints the universal truth in all its colors

By Chet Williamson

Inside the entrance to Smith Hall on the Holy Cross campus, local artist Terri Priest takes a seat to talk about her latest work. It's an hour before the unveiling of Paths to Divine Light Through Vermeer's Lens, a masterful assemblage of nine individual panels depicting the five major religions of the world.

At 80 years young, Priest can still light up a room with the flash of a smile. And on this day she is all smiles. "I'm very proud of this work," she admits. "I don't want to make a big deal out of it, but this is the culmination of my life."

The artwork is very much a "big deal." It is a permanent installation that was commissioned exclusively by the college and is prominently displayed in the campus building that houses the college's Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.

Priest, who is a former faculty member at the college, spent a year researching the subject before settling on depicting the five most prominent religions - Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism.

Walking toward the work that is perched above a stairwell in the dome-shaped cupola building, Priest says, "It is so exciting to see how similar all these religions are. What I've found is you can knock it down to three sayings for each of them: ‘Do no harm, help the poor and let it go.' Isn't that a great philosophy to live by?"

The work is essentially a circle within a square, with five panels of representative painting. The overall format has a particular symbolic meaning. In many cultures the square represents the earth, while the circle symbolizes the heavens. Additionally, Priest represented the aspect of "Vermeer's Lens," by setting within the circle blue skies, offset with a celestial deep-space look in the perimeter. The entire piece stands 9 feet 8 inches tall by 9 feet 8 inches wide.

The influence of Johannes Vermeer is obvious throughout the work. Priest says she has been inspired by the 16th Century Dutch master's work since she was a little girl. For the last 10 years, she has been consciously appropriating his style and content into her own work.

She tells a funny story about how that sometimes rubs people the wrong way. In 2005, Holy Cross presented a Priest retrospective. "I gave a talk and there was someone in the audience who was very confrontational. She said, ‘Why don't you just call it plagiarism? That's what it is.' I said, ‘Well you'd have to go back to Giotto in the 14th century. He was already appropriating from artists who had gone before him.'"

Terri Priest

Then again, check out many of Vermeer's most famous works — he himself depicted paintings within paintings. In the panels of "Paths to Divine Light Through Vermeer's Lens," Priest appropriates classic Vermeer imagery such as the "Milkmaid," juxtaposed with religious iconography to tell her story.

With the panel that suggests Islam, Priest sets the milkmaid in a home in the Middle East. Out the window you can see a mosque and minaret. Behind the woman on the wall, Priest has placed a mosaic panel with an Arabic phrase that, when translated, reads, "In the name of God, the Almighty, the Compassionate."

"That's a prayer that my mother would say, and I'm a Christian," Priest says. "She would make the sign of the cross over the bread before she would knead the bread."

Terri Priest’s newest installation, above the Smith Hall entrance staircase at Holy Cross.

Speaking further about why this piece is the culmination of her life's work, Priest says, "My message with this one is civil rights — stop complaining about the other guy. Sit down and talk to each other. See what you have in common.

"From my early childhood growing up on the Island, Millbury Street, right across from Crompton Park, I wasn't allowed in the park because my skin was dark. I'm talking about personal experiences and in doing this all those memories came rushing right back at me."

For more info. about Terri Priest and Paths to Divine Light Through Vermeer's Lens, call 508-793-2419 or visit: www.terripriest.com. o

Beginning the installation process.

Stanley Kunitz's Providence Street home is the subject of a new documentary

By Chet Williamson

In the fall of 2003, a friend sent filmmaker Tobe Carey an article from The New Yorker Magazine. It was about the New York City reservoir system, which had been the subject of one of Carey's previous documentaries. What caught his eye in the magazine, however, was something completely different.

After finishing the piece, Carey noticed another about Stanley Kunitz, who had just released The Wild Braid, a book of poems and photographs of his garden in Provincetown.

Carey says he knew nothing about Kunitz, but in scanning the article he noticed that the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet was born in Worcester. "I said, ‘Oh, that's interesting. I was born in Worcester.' I continued and it mentioned 4 Woodford St., which threw me on the floor. That was the house that I grew up in."

So began Stanley's House, a documentary by Carey that will be shown at several Worcester locations throughout April, National Poetry Month. Using audio and video interviews and readings along with narration, archival research, music and photography, the film traces the house's history from Kunitz's time there to the present.

Stanley's House includes rare recordings of the former U.S. Poet Laureate reading "The Portrait," "Three Floors," "My Mother's Pears," among other poems that describe his experiences in Worcester. It also features current owners, Greg and Carol Stockmal, who have restored the house with respect to Kunitz.

Tobe Carey sits with Stanley Kunitz in the poet’s New York City home, four days before Kunitz died.

Filmmaker Carey was born in Worcester in 1942. "We moved to that house in 1949," he says. "I lived there until 1960 when I went off to college. Stanley lived there about 30 years before I did. His family started building the house in 1914 and it was complete in 1918. He was there while he was a teenager. Then he went off to college."

In telling the story, although Carey was reluctant to put himself in a film that has to do with a Pulitzer Prize winner and Poet Laureate, there was something that kept drawing him in.

"I had little choice but to do it this way and to make it personal to me," he says. "I made it as personal as I could. His poems are very personal, especially about growing up in Worcester and looking for his father, who had committed suicide."

Kunitz was born in Worcester, the son of Solomon Kunitz and Yetta Jasspon Kunitz. Throughout his life he was haunted by the death of his father, who took his own life in Elm Park before Kunitz was born.

Stanley Kunitz at 4 Woodford St.

Carey says the idea of making the film "gnawed" at him for about a year. "My wife says you don't find a project like this. It finds you. I sent a letter to him telling him what I was interested in and whether he was interested in the project. I never heard from him."

Another six months went by before Carey finally called Kunitz. "He was quite frail at the time and very halting in his speech, but he remembered the letter, what I wanted to do and encouraged me to go ahead," the filmmaker says. "It took me about three years to do the project."

Carey got to meet Kunitz at his home in New York City, four days before the poet died. "He was pretty far along. I didn't know he was that ill at the time although he had a little cough while we were there. I guess that was a symptom of the pneumonia that finally took him," the filmmaker says.

Tobe Carey at the same location years later.

It wasn't in Carey's mind to videotape him at the time, but he brought along a camera just in case. "His literary assistant suggested that Stanley might want to read some poems that we could video tape. Of course, I was thrilled. She asked what I thought would be good for him to read and I suggested Worcester-related poems. He did."

Carey says although it was just the one afternoon spent together it was "just kind of a pleasant time to be together. I was able to share some photographs that I had taken of the house. He was very lucid. He said to me, ‘this house clearly has a hold on both of us still.'" o

The film

The Worcester County Poetry Association has coordinated the screenings of Stanley's House, which will be accompanied by presentations on Kunitz's poetry as follows:

Tuesday, April 8, 1-3 p.m. (includes discussion with filmmaker)

Worcester Senior Center, 128 Providence St.

Thursday, April 10, 4-5:30 p.m. (includes discussion with filmmaker) at Kinnicutt Hall, Salisbury Laboratories at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road

Wednesday, April 16, 7:30-9 p.m. (includes presentation on Kunitz)

Room 406, Hogan Campus Center at Holy Cross College, One College Street

Thursday, April 24, 2:30-4:30 p.m. (includes presentation and discussion with filmmaker) Room 121, Learning Resources Center at Worcester State College, 486 Chandler St.

To see an 8-minute trailer in advance of the local showings of the film, visit www.documentaryworld.com.