A Whole Lahti Love

This year’s Big Read was turned over by the city to Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Denver’s writing school and unofficial community center, and to the organization’s credit, they’re doing a bang-up job of sharing the book selection — Marilynne Robinson’s 1980 novel, Housekeeping — with the book-loving public. As part of the ongoing civic-book-club program, Lighthouse and the Denver Film Society will present a screening of the 1987 film adaptation of Housekeeping, a visual masterpiece directed by Scottish director Bill Forsyth. Afterward, Lighthouse screenplay instructor and local theater director Terry Dodd will lead a discussion of the film he says deserved more attention back in the day.

“Even though it got great reviews, it was even a little under the radar then,” Dodd notes. “It was not very well known; there were no Oscar nominations.” But the story of an eccentric woman sent to the remote town of Fingerbone, Idaho, to care for her nieces is buoyed by an outstanding performance by actress Christine Lahti and Forsyth’s subtle eye. “There’s a sort of a whimsy to his style. It’s a beautiful adaptation of the book in that there’s poetry in the film, with its stark images of a train accident or of nature, both when it’s kind and when it’s not.”

The screening starts tonight at 7 p.m. at the Sie FilmCenter, 2510 East Colfax Avenue. Admission is $5; for information or a schedule of other Big Read-related events, visit lighthousewriters.org.
Thu., March 20, 7 p.m., 2014