Robert Benchley
Tales from The New Yorker, a two-week series celebrating the iconic magazine’s first century, will run from Friday, February 21 to Thursday, March 6 at Film Forum, with a slate of over 30 films inspired by fiction and reporting from its pages, and by the legendary writers who helped define it.
The series opens on the 100th anniversary of the magazine’s very first issue (dated February 21, 1925, featuring the magazine’s top-hatted dandy, Eustace Tilley, on the cover), with Richard Brooks’ faithful adaptation of Truman Capote’s IN COLD BLOOD (1967), which first appeared in serial form in The New Yorker in 1965. The opening night screening will be introduced by New Yorker editor David Remnick.
Other films in the series adapted from New Yorker stories include Alexander Hall’s MY SISTER EILEEN (1942), based on stories by Ruth McKenney; Vincente Minnelli’s MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944), based on stories by Sally Benson, Norman Z. McLeod’s THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (1947), based on the story by James Thurber; Nicholas Ray’s BIGGER THAN LIFE (1956), based on the Annals of Medicine story “Ten Feet Tall” by Berton Roueché; Frank Perry’s THE SWIMMER (1968), based on the short story by John Cheever; Ang Lee’s BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2005), based on the short story by Annie Proulx; Lee Chang-dong’s BURNING (2018), based on the short story “Barn Burning,” by Haruki Murakami; and many more.
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