SCREENING
The Underground Railroad: The Complete Series (Chapters 6–10)
Saturday, Jan 1, 2022 at 12:30 pm
Location: Redstone Theater
Part of Curators’ Choice 2021
Dir. Barry Jenkins. United States. 2021, 305 mins. DCP. With Thuso Mbedu, Chase W. Dillon, Joel Edgerton, Fred Hechinger, Peter Mullan, Mychal-Bella Bowman, Sheila Atim.
Academy Award–winning director Barry Jenkins’s mammoth adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel by Colson Whitehead is an extraordinary work of American visual art that demands to be seen in a theater. Chronicling Cora Randall’s desperate bid for freedom in the Antebellum South after she escapes a Georgia plantation for the rumored Underground Railroad, this ten-part saga all but reinvents the mini-series format, both expanding and compressing time in innovative fashion and employing expressionistic camera and editing that allows the viewer to experience the horrors of American history in frankly subjective ways. As in Whitehead’s book, Cora discovers the Railroad is no mere metaphor, but an actual network of trains hidden beneath the soil, a daring conceit that Jenkins uses to launch a magnum opus of magical realism.
Chapter 6: Tennessee – Proverbs. For Arnold Ridgeway, a journey home reveals that “the past is not past.” And a chance encounter with a freedman named Royal gives Cora new hope.
Chapter 7: Fanny Briggs. Let the fire burn.
Chapter 8: Indiana Autumn. Royal brings Cora to Valentine Farm, a thriving Black community and vineyard on the bountiful Indiana frontier. Carrying the scars of her journey, Cora struggles to find peace in this new home.
Chapter 9: Indiana Winter. Cora’s presence as a fugitive ignites tensions amongst the Valentine community. Just as she was beginning to make this her home, chaos reigns.
Chapter 10: Mabel. In this tale of motherhood, the beginning is the end is the beginning for both mother and daughter.
Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. Review safety protocols before your visit.