Mississippi Matinee: an exhibition of the state and the silver screen

Images in this gallery accompany an online exhibit available here.

William Faulkner reportedly described Hollywood as a "place where a man can get stabbed in the back while climbing a ladder." Correspondingly Tennessee Williams described success as, "a kind of death [coming] to you in a storm of royalty checks beside a kidney-shaped pool in Beverly Hills." Although both of these well-known Mississippi authors showed antipathy towards the industry, they knew Hollywood well - both spent time writing screenplays for the big production companies and both saw their works transformed into celluloid. Their comments symbolize Mississippi’s unusual love-hate relationship with the film industry.

This exhibit displays items from our collections related to Mississippi and the screen -- from films shot in Mississippi, about Mississippi, based on a work by a Mississippian, or all of the above. The cinematic landscape of the state is presented under several themes: the well-known and important work of William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, lesser known and vintage Mississippi authors and films, foreign versions of Mississippi-related films, and civil rights films. Items include posters, pressbooks, daybills, scripts, movie treatments, soundtracks, and related ephemera.

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