ONLINE PROGRAM

Summer Film Series: Poetry (Lee Chang-dong, 2010, 140 min.)

11:00 am film screening via Blue Jeans                                                 

1:30 pm film discussion via Blue Jeans

Presented by Linda DeLibero, senior lecturer and special advocate for alumni and outreach, and former director of the JHU film and media studies program

Celebrated novelist, political activist, Minister of Culture and Tourism for South Korea, and Knight of the French Legion of Honor—Lee Chang-dong has worn many hats during his 66 years, but his greatest fame comes from his small output as a filmmaker. Although he’s made only six movies, each one has been heralded as a masterpiece, and Poetry, his fifth, is considered by many to be his best. It’s the delicately told story of Mija, a woman in her 60s whose sudden desire to join a poetry writing class coincides with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. These increasingly intertwined events unexpectedly launch Mija into a quiet but profoundly moving journey into self-discovery: of her past, her moral grounding, and her capacity for freedom. Lee coaxed Yun Jung-hee—a beloved Korean film star of the 1960s and ’70s—out of a sixteen-year retirement to play Mija, and the results are miraculous. Yun’s portrait of a woman determined to transform the grim realities of her life into something meaningful is one of the greatest portrayals of aging ever to grace the screen.

 $15 fee for guests and subscribers