BRATTLEBORO — Jay Craven's newest film, Peter and John, will play four Vermont preview dates between April 29 and May 3 before its official premiere in late June.
The first showing will be at the Latchis Theatre in Brattleboro on Wednesday, April 29, at 7 p.m. A reception will precede the film at 5:30 p.m. with Craven and special guests from the film.
Peter and John is based on the 19th century novel Pierre et Jean by Guy de Maupassant, and it's set in 1872 Nantucket, during the island's “ghost period”- after the decline of whaling, before the rise of tourism, and in the New England shadow of the Civil War.
The film tells the story of two brothers whose relationship strains when the younger one receives news of an unexpected inheritance-and both brothers become attracted to the same young woman who arrives on their island.
Peter and John stars 2014 Golden Globe winner Jacqueline Bisset (Bullitt, Truffaut's Day for Night); Christian Coulson (The Hours, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets); Shane Patrick Kearns (Blue Collar Boys); Diane Guerrero (“Orange is the New Black,” “Jane the Virgin”); and Emmy-winner and Tony nominee Gordon Clapp (“NYPD Blue,” Flags of Our Fathers, Glengarry Glen Ross).
The supporting cast includes Vermont actresses Abbey Volmer and Tessa Klein (War Horse, Disappearances).
Peter and John was produced by Craven and Virginia Joffe through the Movies From Marlboro (MfM) program, a biennial film-intensive semester jointly produced by Marlboro College and Kingdom County Productions.
As with the MfM 2012 production of Northern Borders, 22 filmmaking professionals mentored and collaborated with 32 students from 12 colleges (Wellesley, Mount Holyoke, Boston College, University of Vermont, Lyndon State College, Dartmouth, Smith, Sarah Lawrence, Emerson, Antioch, London School of the Arts, and Marlboro). A 2016 Movies from Marlboro production is now in development (info at Movies.Marlboro.edu)
Maupassant's novel was widely credited for changing the course of narrative fiction through its detailed psychological characterizations. Tolstoy and Nabokov both cited the novel as an influence and even Vincent Van Gogh cited its evocation of visual power and beauty in a letter to his brother, Theo.
“Monsieur de Maupassant has never before been so clever,” wrote Henry James who called Pierre et Jean a “masterly little novel” for its potent themes of family, status, self-discovery and the lengths to which someone will go to reveal or suppress the truth.
Jay Craven's seven feature films include Disappearances (2007 with Kris Kristofferson) and Where the Rivers Flow North (1994 with Rip Torn and Tantoo Cardinal). His pictures have played 58 countries and 73 festivals, including Sundance - with special screenings at The Smithsonian, Lincoln Center, Le Cinémathèque Française, the Constitutional Court of Johannesburg, and others.
Craven's commitment to New England place-based filmmaking was recently profiled by Orion magazine, which wrote, “Jay Craven has come closer than any other filmmaker to realizing (American poet, essayist, and film theorist) Vachel Lindsay's dream of a vital regional cinema that embodies the character and genius of a place in all its mystery, magnificence, and pain.”