Films related to Heart is a Lonely Hunter

[balmakboor]

Someone sent me this email today. I already sent her a few obvious suggestions, but thought I'd see what everyone here came up with. I'll share thoughts with her or maybe even link her to this thread if enough happens...

Hi, Todd,

I met you briefly at a recent Cinema 100 film meeting at BSC. Since you are the local film guru, I was wondering if you had any film suggestions for a program we are doing. We are hosting a film festival related to the themes in the book The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. There is a film version of this book and we will use this film. However, we are looking for films of any genre that address the themes of

Depression Era
Racism
Depression
Loneliness
Suicide

If you are familiar with the film and feel that there is a theme we are missing, please let me know!

Best,
Brenna

[balmakboor]

Btw, this is what I already sent to her:

Depression Era - Bound for Glory, The Grapes of Wrath
Racism - Do the Right Thing, To Kill a Mockingbird
Depression/Loneliness - Crazy Love (the one based on Bukowski's works, fantastic movie)
Loneliness - Taxi Driver, Silent Running
Suicide - many of Fassbinder's films end in suicide, Fox and His Friends is especially good
A number of these themes all tangled together - Heathers

[trotchky]

Depression, Loneliness, Suicide: Any film by Paul Thomas Anderson.

[balmakboor]

Depression, Loneliness, Suicide...

Sometimes I wonder just how many people she hopes to attract to this "film festival." I'll be there though.

[Qrazy]

Write her back and say jk don't watch Silent Running and Heathers. :P I kid... well I mean I don't like those films but I'm just joking around. The other selections are good (have not seen Crazy Love).

A Few More:

Depression Era - Bonnie and Clyde (Penn), Paper Moon (Bogdanovich), They Shoot Horses Don't They (Pollack), Hard Times (Hill), Pennies from Heaven (Ross), King of the Hill (Soderbergh)
Racism - The Young One (Bunuel), The Defiant Ones (Kramer), In the Heat of the Night (Jewison), Malcolm X (Lee)
Depression/Loneliness/Suicide - The Fire Within (Malle), Cantata (Jancso), Werckmeister Harmonies (Tarr), American Splendor (Pulcini), Royal Tenenbaums (Anderson), Nights of Cabiria (Fellini), Blue (Kieslowski), White (Kieslowski)

[balmakboor]

Write her back and say jk don't watch Silent Running and Heathers. :P I kid... well I mean I don't like those films but I'm just joking around.

Truthfully, I haven't seen either of those in many years. I remember loving Silent Running, as a kid. I liked Heathers a lot except for the ending.

[balmakboor]

Other suggestions?

I got a free copy of the book The Heart is a Lonely Hunter out of the deal. Pretty cool. I've never read it. Sometimes it pays to be the local movie guru.

[Raiders]

Funnily enough, I am currently reading this book. Fantastic so far.

[Pop Trash]

Depression, Loneliness, Suicide: Any film by Paul Thomas Anderson.

I know you are the biggest PTA fan in the world, but I was actually going to say Punch-Drunk Love is a pretty great movie about loneliness (that also happens to have a happy ending).

[Kurosawa Fan]

Funnily enough, I am currently reading this book. Fantastic so far.

It's fantastic the whole way through.