Power of Pictures Thursday Evening Film Series

Grigory Kozintsev's The Overcoat

Film

Thursday, December 10, 2015
6 – 7:30 pm
Exhibition Galleries

The Overcoat Directed by Grigory Kozintsev 1926, USSR, 66 min.

The Overcoat is based on Nikolai Gogol’s tragicomic story of the same title. It was produced by the experimental collective FEKS (Factory of the Eccentric Actor), known for its stylized acting and expressionistic cinematography, which turns the overcoat itself into a main character. An impoverished clerk in the tsarist government, Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, embarrassed by the threadbare condition of his overcoat, saves his pennies to have a fine new one made. One evening a group of thugs attacks him and steals it, leaving him desolate. He seeks help from the bureaucracy, but is rejected. His world collapses and he begins to lose his grasp on reality. The film is distinctive for the use of enveloping shadows, strong contrasts, silhouettes, and radical camera angles.

Free with Pay-What-You-Wish admission.