Clark Art Screens Free Pastoral on Paper Film Series

04:00PM / Saturday, April 19, 2025Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — This April and May, the Clark Art Institute hosts a series of films celebrating the Pastoral on Paper exhibition, with films that introduce some kind of conflict into peaceful landscapes in the rural United States, France, and Ireland.

All films are free and screened in the Manton Research Center auditorium on select Thursdays at 6 pm.

April 24
Days of Heaven (1978)
After accidentally killing his foreman at a steelworks in Chicago, laborer Bill, (Richard Gere) goes westward to the Texas plains with his girlfriend, Abby (Brooke Adams), and younger sister (Linda Manz). Posing as siblings, the trio find work in the wheat fields. To escape their life of toil, Bill convinces Abby to marry a wealthy but dying farmer (Sam Shepard). The ensuing love triangle binds the three together as they circle around the idyllic landscape. The lonely beauty of Terrence Malick’s film pays homage to the paintings of Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth. (Run time: 1 hour, 34 minutes)

May 15
The Quiet Man (1952)
Both an exemplary and a unique example of director John Ford's use of landscape, The Quiet Man longs for an unregainable past, for tradition and ceremony, and for the peace and escape of an idyllic country. Set in the 1920s, the film stars Ford’s muse, John Wayne, as Sean Thornton, a recently retired boxer who has travelled from America to his birthplace of Innisfree to lay claim to his family farm. (Run time: 2 hours, 9 minutes)

May 22
Jean de Florette (1988)
This engrossing epic of greed and deception is set amid the bucolic splendor of the Provence countryside. Gérard Depardieu gives one of his great performances as the hunchbacked city slicker Jean, who is determined to make a success of the farm he has inherited—unaware that his new neighbor César (Yves Montand) and his nephew Ugolin (Daniel Auteuil) have launched a ruthless scheme to take control of the land for themselves. (Run time: 2 hours)

Free. Accessible seats available; for information, call 413 458 0524. For more information, visit clarkart.edu/events.

Tags: Clark Art,

iBerkshires.com Text Ads

rk MILES Blding Materials

Are You Ready to Update Your Home? Start With rk MILES. 4 Locations (800)670-7433

www.rkmiles.com

RIBCO Supply

Check out our great lineup of Boss Plows, and spreaders. 2 Locations Clarksburg & Pittsfield!

ribcosupply.com

If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Mount Greylock School Committee Hears Budget Requests, Pressures

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:32AM / Wednesday, February 18, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee Thursday heard the final rounds of fiscal year 2027 budget requests and heard why those — or any — discretionary increases in spending will be difficult in the year that begins July 1.

Williamstown Elementary Principal Benjamin Torres and middle-high school Principal Jake Schutz each presented the spending priorities formulated by their respective school councils. The requests followed a presentation by Lanesborough Elementary Principal Nolan Pratt at the January meeting.

Superintendent Joseph Bergeron then told the School Committee that state and federal aid to the district is going to be slightly lower than FY26 and reminded the panel that the district spent the last two years spending down its reserve accounts, as requested by the member towns, to the point where those reserves — School Choice, tuition and excess and deficiency — cannot be applied to the operating budget.

"Spending the exact same amount of money from this year to next year — that alone will mean a 4 percent increase [in appropriations] to each of our towns," Bergeron said. "That's the baseline on top of which everything else will happen.

"We know we're seeing an 8.75 percent increase in health insurance, but we also have an increasing number of employees who are taking our health insurance, so that health insurance line is increasing substantially. When it comes to out-of-district tuition as well as transportation, both of those are seeing marked increases as well."

District staff and the School Committee will further refine its FY27 budget over the next five weeks, with a budget workshop scheduled for Tuesday, March 3, and a public hearing and final budget vote on March 19.

The district's appropriations to Williamstown and Lanesborough, which each pay a proportional share of the prekindergarten-Grade 12 district's operating expenses, will face an up-or-down vote at each town's annual meeting, in May and June, respectively.

View Full Story