Morocco at 75
November 21, 2005

To commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the release of Josef von Sternberg’s Morocco, Charles Silver, Associate Curator in the Department of Film and Media, presents a twenty-minute lecture and a screening of the film, which he considers one of the most important in cinema history. Silver’s lecture, first delivered at a conference on colonial cinema in Rabat, Morocco, in 2001, addresses the uniquely Romantic and transcendent quality of Sternberg’s film, a quality that the curator believes does justice both to the country of Morocco and to the director’s vision. Indeed, Silver argues, Morocco is one of the few early sound films to restore the visual glories of silent cinema.

Morocco. 1930. USA. Directed by Josef von Sternberg. Screenplay by Jules Furthman. With Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Adolphe Menjou. A love triangle set in Mogador involving a foreign legionnaire, a cabaret singer, and a rich painter. Screening and lecture 110 min.
Monday, November 21, 8:30. T2

top