Diversions at UMFK: DVDs: Language and Literature (PQ-PZ)

Antoine has been cuckolding Lucie for years. A violent argument results in Antoine's death. After lying about his whereabouts, Lucie discovers that he had a secret life involving gangsters, money laundering and violence. Followed, threatened and badgered by the gangsters, Lucie becomes trapped by her deceit. The body of Antoine disappears, other corpses appear, and, very quickly, the money becomes only the pretext of an alarming turn of events, in which Lucie learns how to lie, to live, and perhaps also to like. Wolves in the Snow is an intense drama set against the backdrop of Montreal.

Mathilde is waiting desperately for her fiance to return from the war. When bad news arrives she refuses to believe he is dead. Instead, she begins her own investigation into his death, hiring a private detective and piecing together his war story.

Raja is a nineteen year old orphan literally and figuratively scarred by life. Fred is an emotionally bankrupt westerner living amid his plush gardens and palm trees. Set against the backdrop of contemporary Marrakech, Raja is a cross-cultural drama about a wealthy middle-aged Frenchman's complex relationship with local youth. Fred's attempts to seduce Raja, and their mutual attempt at manipulation, are fractured by their gross disparity of income, age and cultural sophistication.

Emma Woodhouse is a young woman who, having engineered the marriage of her companion, turns her attention toward making a match for the local vicar and her new protegée, Harriet Smith. Her one voice of reason and restraint is Mr. Knightley, who has known her since she was a child and who watches her behaviour with wry amusement and sometimes with real anger. Emma presides over the small provincial world of Highbury with enthusiasm, but she will find it is all too easy to confuse good intentions with self-gratification.

The story of a rich, clever, and beautiful young woman who can't resist orchestrating other people's love lives.

Hamlet, a prince of medieval-era Denmark, senses treachery behind his royal father's death. His mother is all too dangerously entangled in that treachery. This film portrays Shakespeare's immortal tale of high adventure and evil deeds.

Set in the near future, the handmaids of the title are women who can still bear children after the ravages of war caused wide-spread sterility. One of the handmaids, Kate, is caught trying to escape the Republic of Gilead and sent to the prison-like training center. She is sent from there to the home of the commander to bear his child, but revolutionary forces have other plans for her!

Young King Henry of England asserts a hereditary claim to the throne of France, gathering an army and embarking on a course that will lead to one of England's greatest battlefield triumphs and forever change the face of Europe.

Adaptation of Shakespeare's patriotic historical drama that celebrates the English nation and the greatness of its King. Includes medieval battle sequences with a recreation of the Battle of Agincourt.

Charlotte Bronte's story of an orphan who grows up to become governess of a mansion, and who carries a tormented love for a man named Mr. Rochester.

The Thames Shakespeare Collection presents this compelling production of King Lear performed at the Stratford Festival of Canada.

An unauthorized tribute.

Fanny Price goes to live with prosperous relatives at Mansfield Park and must navigate a labyrinth of intrigues and affairs among the occupants of the house.

When Fanny Price is sent away to live with her rich cousins, she's meant to learn the ways of proper society but manages to enlighten them as well.

Who will inherit the riches of wealthy old Martin Chuzzlewit? The only person he trusts is his companion and nurse, the young orphan Mary Graham, but she is employed on the understanding that she will not inherit a penny. He has disinherited his grandson, Young Martin, suspicious of the motives of the young man's love for Mary. With such a fortune at stake, the rest of the family closes in like sharks. The obsequious Pecksniff, whit his daughters, Mercy and Charity, attempts to grovel into the old man's good graces, while the wicked Jonas will stop at nothing ... even murder.

Based on George Elliot's novel, Middlemarch is set in early nineteenth century England and charts the impact of the Industrial Revolution on the town as it divides its population into two opposing factions: the conservatives and the liberals.

In the village of Monte Athena in Italy at the turn of the 19th century, necklines are high, parents are rigid, and marriage is seldom a matter of love. Thus, Demetrius and Lysander both want Hermia but she only has eyes for Lysander, while her father wants only Demetrius for his son-in-law. Poor Helena burns hot for Demetrius, who avoids her like the plague. Meanwhile, fairy king Oberon is engaged in a battle of wits with his queen, Titania, and has commanded a trick of Puck, which naturally goes horribly wrong. They are all in the enchanted wood on a midsummer's eve, coming out in the end charged with a gift from the fairies--an enchanted eroticism--that sweeps them away to bed chambers and weddings. The film celebrates love's ability to alter reality while quietly acknowledging that any attempt to portray the feeling of love ultimately falls short.

In this dramatization of William Shakespeare's tragedy a great man's vanity is manipulated by a jealous aide to bring about his downfall. Betrayal, deception and murder end the friendship between Othello and Iago and culminate in the tragic death of Desdemona.

The story of the life of a Latino icon, the poet-playwright-actor Miguel Pinero, whose urban poetry is recognized as a precursor to rap and hip-hop. After doing time in hard-core Sing-Sing for petty thefts and drug dealing, Pinero's prison experiences developed into the 1974 Tony-nominated play Short Eyes

The story of lively and rebellious Elizabeth, one of five unmarried daughters living in the countryside of 19th century England, in a world where an advantageous marriage is a woman's sole occupation.

A quiet English shopkeeper, who's actually a spy for the Russian embassy, faces an unexpected test of allegiance when he's ordered to plant a bomb that will wreak havoc on the British public.

Tells of the Dashwood sisters, sensible Elinor and passionate Marianne, whose chances at marriage seem doomed by their family's sudden loss of fortune.

When Will Shakespeare needs passionate inspiration to break a bad case of writer's block, a secret romance with the beautiful Lady Viola starts the words flowing like never before!

Royal Shakespeare Company directors John Barton and Sir Peter Hall travel to America to conduct workshops with the all-star cast of the Broadway production of The merchant of Venice. Subjects covered include: creating a world with words, the clues are in the text, playing the story, Shakespeare's advice to the actor, changing gears from prose to verse, the questions reveal the character, handling emotion, setting the word against the word, and connecting with the audience. Also includes the actors' talking about their experiences working with John Barton.

Shipwrecked on an unfriendly Illyrian shore, Viola, believing her twin brother is dead, disguises herself in male attire and joins the retinue of the lovesick Duke Orsino.

A modern adaptation of the classic love story, moved to the futuristic urban backdrop of Verona Beach.

A chance encounter in a nursing home leads to an unexpected friendship between a dowdy housewife and a spry octagenarian who tells her the story of a fiercely independent woman half a century ago, inspiring the housewife to change her life, often with hilarious results.

In 1920s Long Island, a mysterious American millionaire's efforts to recapture the sweetheart of his youth result in tragedy.

The Great Gatsby follows viable writer Nick Carraway as he leaves the Midwest and comes to New York City in the spring of 1922. Chasing his own American dream, Nick lands next door to Jay Gatsby, and across the bay from his cousin, Daisy, and her husband, Tom Buchanan. Nick is drawn into the captivating world of the rich and their loves and deceits. As he bears witness, he pens a tale of impossible love, incorruptible dreams, and tragedy, and holds a mirror to our own modern times and struggles.

Historian Peter Carroll interviews Tillie Olsen about her well-known short story I stand here ironing, and about the catalyst that transformed her back into a professional writer after 20 years of motherhood. Tillie also reads from her work.

Janice and Abel live in their own world. A world of signs. Signs they are ashamed to show. They are quite young when they leave deaf school to marry, and they must fight for their lives in the hearing world. The depression is hard, but being unable to hear often means tragedy for their family. Their daughter Margaret can hear, and becomes the link for Janice and Abel to the world of hearers, a world they don't understand and don't trust. Margaret struggles with her own need for independence and the obligation she feels toward her parents. The treatment of deaf people in 1930's society, and the toll that the resultant misunderstandings take on a family, is well depicted in this film.

This film documents the history, growth, and development of the Maine Women Writers Collection, a unique library special collection at the Portland, Maine campus of the University of New England. It also acknowledges the inspiration the Collection's founders and their work have provided to the scholars and students of the state of Maine and beyond... The film uses archival footage, audio recordings, and contemporary interviews with narration to tell the story of how a dream by two women educators in Portland, Maine, Grace Dow and Dorothy Healy, led to the well-known, vital, and active educational resource that supports the study of women's lives and work, and provides a model for other institutions to collect and record such documentary material.

A Korean war hero is brainwashed when captured and is used as a tool in a political assassination plot to be triggered by his domineering mother.

Recounts Mark Twain's life told primarily through his own words. Includes interviews with Hal Holbrook, Arthur Miller, William Styron and many others.

Documentary about the iconic writer, poet, performer and activist who overcame racism and devastating abuse to become one of our cultures greatest voices. Rare footage and photos unveil an intimate and often unknown view of her public and personal life with the power of her own words.

Stage production of Wilder's play; a study of life, love, and death in a New England town at the turn of the 20th century.

In section one, Elizabeth Farnsworth talks with nationally-ranked poetry slammers Ariana Waynes and Roger Bonair-Augard about the concept of slamming and their experiences with the genre. In section two, Spencer Michels investigates the positive impact that slamming is having on at-risk youth, as demonstrated by the Youth Poetry Slam League sponsored by WritersCorps, an organization that works with young writers in schools, detention centers, housing projects, and shelters

A kindly grandfather sits down with his grandson and reads him a bedtime story. As the grandfather reads the story, the action comes alive in a classic tale of love and adventure. The beautiful Buttercup is kidnapped and held against her will in order to marry the nasty Prince Humperdinck, while Westley (her childhood beau, now returned as the Dread Pirate Roberts) attempts to save her. Along the way he meets an accomplished swordsman and a giant, both of whom become his companions in his quest.

Filmed with the cooperation of Frost as part of the CBS News series Accent, this vintage television broadcast presents a portrait of the poet in his own words, along with remarks John F. Kennedy recorded for the program in early 1961.

After unwittingly becoming friendly with a coven of witches and warlocks, a young wife is impregnated by the Devil.

Lily Owens is a young girl who lives on the peach farm that her abusive father owns. Rosaleen is a black woman hired by Lily's father to be a stand in mother for Lilly. Rosaleen insults some of the biggest racists in their town. Lily and Rosaleen run away to a town Lily believes that her mother once lived in. They go to live with the three Boatwright sisters on their honey farm. She finds solace in their mesmerizing world of beekeeping.

Caroline just wants to settle down in one place, find a decent guy, and provide a better home for her handful of a son, Toby. When she moves to Seattle and meets Dwight, she thinks she's got it made. Toby, however, feels differently after spending time with Dwight while away from Caroline. Dwight seems to want to mold Toby into a better person, but to do so he emotionally, verbally, and physically abuses the kid. The marriage proceeds, and soon Caroline, too, recognizes Dwight's need to dominate everyone around him.

Presents a reading of Eliot's poem and examines its complex nature, analyzes its appeal and traces the reasons why it has become one of the best-known emblems of the twentieth century.

In this realistic depiction of the lives of ordinary German soldiers Paul Baumer and his school chums are encouraged to enlist by their bombastic, slogan-chanting teacher, but they quickly learn that actual war is more gore than glory, as they crawl through mud, huddle in trenches, suffer the ordeal of frenzied hand-to-hand combat and dodge screaming shells during World War I.

Sneetches -- Zax -- Green Eggs and Ham -- Grinch Night

Horton, a big-hearted elephant, tries to protect the tiny people of Whoville who live on a speck of dust and only he can hear.

"If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off watching some other movie," warns our narrator, Lemony Snicket. "In this movie," he continues gravely, "not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle." This is the story of the Baudelaire children -- three "clever and reasonably attractive orphans"--Who embark on a shaky adventure after their home burns down, killing their parents. Violet is the eldest, a serious-minded girl with a knack for inventing things. Klaus is a brainy book-lover who retains every word he's ever read. And Sunny, barely more than an infant, has the unique distinction of being very good at biting things -- sometimes right through things.

Max is sent to bed without any dinner. He sails off to a world inhabited by weird creatures.