The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) will present The East Coast Premiere of Stanley Kramer's newly restored film, Death of a Salesman, based on Arthur Miller's Pulitzer Prize-winning play as part of To Save and Project: The 11th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation, tonight, October 23, 2013 at 7:00 p.m. in Theater 2 of The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters at The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues), New York, NY 10019. Tickets are $12 for Adults, $10 for Seniors and $8 for Students and may be purchased by online at www.moma.org or by calling 212-708-9400.
Producer Stanley Kramer's newly restored 151-minute film, Death of a Salesman, is directed by László Benedek, with a screenplay written by Stanley Roberts, based on the play by Arthur Miller. The film stars Frederic March,
Mildred Dunnock, Kevin McCarthy and Cameron Mitchell.
Transposing Miller's play from stage to screen might have been a literal-minded undertaking, but Stanley Kramer, the independent Hollywood producer-director known for his fierce dedication to social causes, gave Death of a Salesman its proper cinematic due by enlisting major talents both behind and in front of the camera.
With director Benedek, he cast several actors from the original Broadway and London productions, including Dunnock, Mitchell and McCarthy, and gave March the coveted role of Willy Loman. Cinematographer Franz Planer and production designer Rudolph Sternad used expressionist lighting and design to chart Loman's dark, anguished passage, and composer Alex North created the Oscar?-nominated plaintive score.
The film was nominated for five Academy Awards? and won four Golden Globe Awards?, among other accolades. A vivid record of 1950s filmmaking, acting, and politics, Death of a Salesman has been out of circulation for years, but returns in superlative form thanks to the restoration work of Grover Crisp, Executive Vice President of Asset Management, Film Restoration & Digital Mastering, Sony Pictures Entertainment, with funding provided by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and The Film Foundation.
The World Premiere screening of this newly restored film was presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive in the Billy Wilder Theater on August 9, 2013 as part of film series entitled, "Champion: The Stanley Kramer Centennial," honoring the late legendary filmmaker.
During his lifetime, producer-director, Stanley Kramer made socially relevant films from a very definite point of view. Kramer's 35 films won received 85 Oscar? nominations, which included nine nominations for Kramer himself, and 16 Academy Award? wins for Kramer's colleagues. In 1961 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences bestowed upon Stanley Kramer their highest honor, the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. To learn more about Stanley Kramer's Centennial Celebrations, please visit the website,
www.stanleykramer100.com.
Photo courtesy of The Kobal Collection and Stanley Kramer's Private Collection
