"The Many Faces of Goya" film and lecture series at the Clark

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WILLIAMSTOWN - "The Many Faces of Goya" film and lecture series at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute begins with Goya's Ghosts on Thursday, October 23, at 7 pm. Each film in the series will be preceded by an introduction about the artist's life; following the screening is an opportunity to discuss the artist and the film. Admission to the series is free.

In Goya's Ghosts (2006, 114 min., rated R), director Milos Forman tries to recapture the Hapsburg magic of Amadeus, turning his attention to Spain in the same era, and portraying Goya as eyewitness to the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition and the Napoleonic occupation. Stellan Skarsgaard plays Goya, whose role as painter gives him an inside view of history in the making, with the changes embodied in characters played by Javier Bardem and Natalie Portman. Michael Cassin, director of the Center for Education in the Visual Arts at the Clark, will comment on the portrait of the artist.

The series continues with Goya (1971, 134 min., in German with English subtitles, not rated), presented in cooperation with the Center for Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Williams College, on November 6. The film will be introduced by Barton Byg, teacher of German and film at UMass Amherst and founding director of the DEFA Film Library. November 20 will conclude the series with Goya in Bordeaux (1999, 105 min., in Spanish with English subtitles, rated R) with Mark Ledbury, associate director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark leading the discussion.

The Clark is located at 225 South Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The galleries are open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 am to 5 pm (daily in July and August). Admission June 1 through October 31 is $12.50 for adults, free for children 18 and younger, members, and students with valid ID. Admission is free November through May. For more information, call 413-458-2303 or visit www.clarkart.edu.
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Theater Review: 'Driving Miss Daisy' Is a 'Wondrous' Production

By Alan PetrucelliSpecial to iBerkshires
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Alfred Uhry's "Driving Miss Daisy" rolled into the St. Germain Stage in late May, marking the opening of Barrington Stage Company's 2026 season.
 
And what a wondrous, welcoming production it is. Uhry won a Pulitzer Prize for his work; he won an Oscar for the 1989 film adaptation of the play, which also won the Best Picture Oscar. Yes, that's how good it is.
 
Daisy Werthan is a 72-year-old white Jewish widow in Atlanta whose car accident destroyed her Packard — and her chance to ever drive herself again.
 
"Mama, we are just going to have to hire someone to drive you," her adult son Boolie tells her. 
 
She is adamant: "What I do not want — and absolutely will not have — is some chauffeur sitting in my kitchen, gobbling my food and running up my phone bill."
 
Enter Hoke Colburn, an unemployed African-American illiterate who grew up in rural Georgia during the Jim Crow-era South. Boolie hires him at $20 a week, and in a span of 85 minutes and a decade or so, this odd couple develop a tight bond that overcomes their cultural, gender and class differences. 
 
Though she's living in a racially explosive time in the South, the irascible Miss Daisy doesn't consider herself racist, nor does she fully accept the realities of the racist culture that has even resulted in a bombing at her own synagogue (a true event in Atlanta, in 1958).
 
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