Screening and Discussion of Barry Levinson's "Diner"
Screening and Discussion of Barry Levinson's "Diner"
Please join us for a screening and discussion of the film, "Diners," directed by Barry Levinson and released in theaters in 1982. This showing is the first of the Miller Center's Fall 2016 Maryland Film Series.
Barry Levinson’s semi-autobiographical Diner was the first of his four-part “Baltimore series.” The audience listens in on the conversations of a group of young men, friends since childhood, as they struggle to come to terms with adulthood and their relationships with women on the eve of their friend’s wedding. A story built on characters and their dialogue rather than linear plot development, Levinson was encouraged to develop his Baltimore anecdotes into a film by early collaborator and mentor Mel Brooks, who said Levinson’s stories reminded him of Federico Fellini’s I Vitelloni. While the Fells Point and locations, the National Bohemian billboards, and centrality of Baltimore Colts’ statistics to Maryland manhood in the late 1950s place Diner squarely in Baltimore, the film’s sketches of aimless youths grappling with the weight of adulthood over coffee and burgers extend its scope to include young people from around the United States.
Pizza and soda will be served. In order to help us estimate attendance, RSVP at millercenter@umd.edu or call at 301-405-4299.