“Call Us Ishmael” Opens Mini Film Series At The Little Cinema
Berkshire County Historical Society and Berkshire Museum are presenting three films related to Melville and regional history.
I’ve already publicly shamed myself here by admitting that, despite being a fervent bookworm, I’ve never read Moby-Dick. That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t experience a little thrill each time I drive past Arrowhead, the old farmhouse in Pittsfield where Herman Melville lived with his family. And I know I’m not alone.
“There’s a wonderful ownership of Melville here,” says Lesley Herzberg, executive director of the Berkshire County Historical Society, which is housed at Arrowhead. The Society’s events regularly draw a crowd at its Moby-Dick read-a-thons, house tours, eclectic exhibits on Berkshire history, and a variety of other year-round programs.
There’s way more to Melville than Moby-Dick, and beginning Friday, Nov. 5, the Berkshire County Historical Society will collaborate with the Little Cinema at the Berkshire Museum to present a series of three films related to Herman Melville and regional history. You don’t have to have read Moby-Dick to appreciate two of the films, but from the sound of them, I’m thinking they might add a fire under me to finally commit myself to the white whale.
The mini film series begins with “Call Us Ishmael,” which follows filmmaker David Shaerf’s journey into the world of Melville’s Moby-Dick. In his encounters with artists, musicians, professors and performers — including Laurie Anderson and Frank Stella — Shaerf gives viewers an insight into a community devoted to Melville’s timeless text. Following the film, Michael Hoberman, an American literature professor at Fitchburg State University will explain why Melville is a writer for people who identify as “skeptical romantics.” He’ll also share his own path to Melville’s writing and a discussion of how he teaches two of Melville’s lesser-known texts.
On Saturday, Nov. 6, the mini series continues with “The Act of Reading,” directed by Mark Blumberg, who was motivated to tell his own story of reading (or not reading, actually) Moby-Dick as a teenager, and his reunion with the now-retired teacher whose class he failed. As he journeys into the world of Herman Melville, Arrowhead and the Berkshires become characters in the film.
“It’s really a long overdue book report,” says Herzberg. “He goes back to his English teacher and delves into what it means to read and process and be involved with a novel.”
What fascinates Herzberg most about this film is seeing how a really good teacher teaches the very long, very dense novel.
“If I had had a teacher like this, I feel like I could have understood Moby-Dick,” she says.
The series concludes on Saturday, Nov. 13 with “Borderland: The Life and Times of Blanche Ames Ames,” originally scheduled to run last year during celebrations for the centennial anniversary of the women’s vote. Although not directly related to Melville, “Borderland” is about the history of women in Massachusetts and focuses on a fascinating woman not enough people know about. Born in 1878 and alive through the 1960s, she was an artist, activist, builder, inventor, birth control maverick, and a leader in the women’s suffrage movement in Massachusetts. Kate Klise, the film’s writer and narrator will host a Q&A via Zoom.
All three films begin at 7 p.m. Tickets are $7 general admission, $5 for Berkshire County Historical Society members and Berkshire Museum members. Tickets are available at the Berkshire Museum’s website. The Berkshire Museum Little Cinema is hosting programming at a reduced capacity.
