What’s the Matter with Kansas?
World Premiere
Thursday, August 6, 2009 at 6:30pm
Based on Thomas Frank's bestseller, What’s the Matter with Kansas? shows how conservatives won the heart of America, using Kansas as a microcosm of the nation's rightward shift. A debate, “The Future of Conservatism”, will immediately follow the screening.
The New York Observer national correspondent Joe Conason and The New York Times editor Chris Suellentrop will square off in debate against National Review online editor Kathryn Jean Lopez and conservative author and editor Ryan Sager. Filmmakers Laura Cohen, producer, and Joe Winston, director, will also serve on the panel, which will be moderated by Frances Fox Piven, CUNY Graduate Center Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology.
Taking the audience into the heart of Middle America, What’s the Matter with Kansas? follows the lives of two conservative Kansas families. Their fortunes suddenly and precipitously decline; their candidates lose elections; their church splinters over its controversial pastor, moves to an amusement park, and when that fails, becomes a makeshift congregation at a Best Western Motel. Meanwhile, another Kansan, an idealistic farmer, revives the state’s erstwhile progressive tradition, and takes his message to Washington, D.C.
“What I really love about the film,” says author Thomas Frank, “is that it really gets inside the heads of its characters, so you’re deeply moved by them, whether you agree with their politics or not.”
Variety praised the movie for “its colorful cast of characters, and its complexity.” The LA Times and Salon.com noted its exclusive coverage of recently-slain Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller and his adversaries in the Pro-Life movement.
Director Joe Winston explains, “We didn’t do any ambush interviews or even use a narrator. Instead, the people in the movie speak for themselves. From John Brown’s anti-slavery raids to the modern conservative movement, Kansas radicals have shaped America. We think we know them – but we don’t.” Adds Producer Laura Cohen, “In preview screenings, we’ve seen audiences amazed by how the movie led them to sympathize with people they’d previously associated with shrill tirades. This movie gives us a chance to get beyond the shouting.”
What’s the Matter with Kansas?
Joe Winston, USA, 2008; 90m
Participating Panelists:
Moderator - Frances Fox Piven
Frances Fox Piven is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She is the author of “Regulating the Poor”, “Poor People's Movements”, “The New Class War”, and “The Breaking of the American Social Compact” and co-author, with Richard A. Cloward, of “Why Americans Don't Vote.” She is the recipient of the American Sociological Association Distinguished Career Award for the Practice of Sociology.
Joe Conason is national correspondent for The New York Observer and the Director of the Nation Institute Investigative Fund. His books “Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth,” and “The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton,” with Gene Lyons were both national bestsellers; his latest book, “It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush,” was released in February 2007. He is also a regular Friday guest on The Al Franken Show.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is the editor of the National Review Online and an associate editor at the National Review. Previously, she worked at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank on Capitol Hill. Her work has appeared in numerous publications and she has been a frequent guest on radio and TV, appearing on CNN, the Fox News Channel, and MSNBC.
Ryan Sager is a two-time winner of the Felix Morley Journalism award and the author of “The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party.” Sager has served on the editorial board of the New York Post and an editor for The New York Sun, where he was a member of the founding staff in 2002. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and The Atlantic Monthly.
Chris Suellentrop is an editor at The New York Times Magazine. Chris was born in Kansas, a stone’s throw away from Thomas Frank’s childhood home and went on to start The New York Times Opinionator blog. His writings have been published in The Washington Post, The New York Observer, and Slate Magazine, where he covered the 2004 election.
Independents Night showcases New York premieres of American documentaries every other month at the Walter Reade Theater, making it one of the city’s foremost venues for non-fiction work. With the filmmakers in attendance, this provocative evening of discovery and exploration includes a Q&A and reception following the film. Independents Night is programmed by Marian Masone.
Buy Tickets Thu Aug 6: 6:30* *screening followed by “The Future of Conservatism,” a panel discussion, and then a reception.
Single Screening Tickets: $7 members/students/child - $8 senior - $11 public
Online service charge: $1.25 per ticket ordered. Cash only at the box office.
