Gene Palumbo would like to share this announcement. It seems the virtual screening is this evening. I believe Gene himself appears in the film - I fear I am embarrassing him even by mentioning it, but in my experience, it's worth attending to anything Gene says or writes.
The film, "JFK: The Last Speech," is about the relationship between Kennedy and Robert Frost, and about the talk Kennedy gave at Amherst, at the groundbreaking for the Frost Library, twenty-seven days before he was killed. But the filmmakers had the bright idea of including short profiles of four members of the Class of '64 (we were seniors when Kennedy gave the speech).
To find out more about the film and decide whether you'd want to see it, you can take a look at its website (https://www.jfkthelastspeech.
org) and at the following announcement (I confess that I'm not comfortable with some of the language on the website and in the announcement). Film Screening of JFK: The Last Speech from the Concord Museum
On January 19, 2021 7:00 PM — 8:30 PM (ET)
On the eve of the 2021 presidential inaugural, the Concord Museum is partnering with Mass Humanities on a virtual screening of a new film JFK: The Last Speech, which explores the dramatic relationship between two American icons—John F. Kennedy and Robert Frost. The documentary chronicles how JFK’s last speech in his home state of Massachusetts at the dedication of the Robert Frost Library at Amherst College on October 26, 1963 inspired a group of Amherst College classmates to lives of service. Immediately following the film, Concord Museum Director Tom Putnam will moderate a conversation with presidential historian Ellen Fitzpatrick, Amherst College professor Rhonda Cobham-Sander, filmmaker Bestor Cram, and Middlebury Professor and Frost biographer Jay Parini.
Register for the virtual event at: https://concordmuseum.org/
events/film-screening-of-jfk- the-last-speech/
I just registered. Looking forward to it!
ReplyDeleteNot a fan of either Frost or JFK, but this is probably worthwhile from a historical POV.
ReplyDeleteI think that the rhetoric that came out of the Kennedy administration did inspire a lot of people to think more globally and to be more tolerant.
I remember my mom telling me after Kennedy was shot that I should plan on joining the Peace Corps and would only give me permission to take Spanish as my foreign language option in school (you had to have parental consent to take a foreign language in those days, and while I am glad I took Spanish, my preference was for German and Latin). That I didn't join the Peace Corps was one of the greatest disappointments of her life.
I keep wondering whether we later Boomers might have turned out better had the Vietnam war not been such a disaster. I think the war encouraged young people after 1966 to become cynical about our governmental institutions and to become self- instead of community-centered.
Unfortunately the time isn't going to work out for me this evening. I wonder it it will be available online for viewing later?
ReplyDeleteJust curious, where was the language you weren't comfortable with? I probably missed it.
I remember that Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage" was one that we could always get points on for book reports in high school. I hadn't been aware of the friendship between Kennedy and Robert Frost.
I think Robert Frost might have read a poem at his inaugural?
DeleteIn case any of you wanted to see the film, but couldn't do so last night, they've left up these two links for it, so you can still see it for free.
ReplyDeletehttps://concordmuseum.org/events/film-screening-of-jfk-the-last-speech/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEnAtDT2-tI&feature=youtu.be
It's possible that these links will expire very soon. If they no longer work when you try to use them, you can also see the film by streaming it via amazon or itunes:
https://www.amazon.com/JFK-Speech-John-F-Kennedy/dp/B08M44HXZT/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/jfk-the-last-speech/id1534988903
Here are a few blurbs about the film and a companion book which bears the same name:
“JFK: The Last Speech is a project that could not have come to a boil at a more appropriate time in our nation’s history nor been presented in so compelling a way. At its heart it is a call to arms in the battle to preserve and enhance civic life, a challenge the project meets in film, on its website and—most ambitious—as a book. . .[Kennedy's] speech reminds us what an inspiration a president can be . . ." — DOUG CLIFTON, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, former Executive Editor of the Miami Herald, and Editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
“At a time when political morality, civility, and fidelity to a common destiny are brutally trampled, day by day, this volume on JFK’s call for the cultivation of civic virtue is welcome nourishment for our democracy. Kennedy’s final speech not only affirms the value of a liberal arts education as the seedbed for public service but serves as timely inspiration for Americans aching to restore and reclaim the American dream.” — HEDRICK SMITH, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner; reporter and editor, N.Y. Times; producer and correspondent, PBS.
“A heart-warming book that recreates for a new generation an optimistic young president honoring an aging poet’s art, and combines youthful reactions of students who were there with mature stories from the paths they followed in their own creative lives.” — ALICE M. RIVLIN, Senior fellow in Economic Studies and the Center for Health Policy at the Brookings Institute