Arts & Entertainment
VIDEO: Chicago Meets 'Chicago Heights' At Recent Film Screening
Governors State University film instructor recently screened his heralded movie "Chicago Heights," an adaptation of the "Winesburg" stories, at the Gene Siskel Film Center.
Daniel Nearing had long wanted to bring a version of Winesburg, Ohio to the big screen. Not until the Canadian native came to Governors State University, however, did he find a way.
Inspired by the city of Chicago Heights, the GSU film instructor wrote a screenplay that adapted the classic 1919 Sherwood Anderson story cycle to a modern-day tale of African-Americans living in the Heights.
In a Chicago Reader piece written by South Side filmmaker Ed M. Koziarski, the 48-year-old Nearing explained his vision:
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"It's one of the most highly regarded books in the history of American literature, but no one has ever tried to tackle it as a mainstream feature. It's an unwieldy, anachronistic ensemble piece that is remarkably intimate with its characters yet somehow just this side of cold in its tone.
"Along a certain stretch of Lincoln Highway, Chicago Heights is a strikingly desolate place ... a place where it feels like it would be a struggle to grow up and to cultivate a sense of identity. It is, in that respect, a bit like Winesburg."
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The award-winning black-and-white film Chicago Heights, produced in 2008 for just $1,000, was screened this month at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago.
While the film has garnered accolades—Roger Ebert called it "brilliant"—one of Nearing's own students, a black man in his 60s, cast a critical eye on the project, Koziarski reports.
"He closed the door to my office, and questioned me with serious concern and at length. ... He said 'What's going on here? You may not know what you're taking on, trying to make a black film.' He meant 'You're naive. You don't understand the history of the culture.'"
The student, William Sage, actually took a part in the film after reading the script. Scenes were filmed at GSU, in Chicago Heights and elsewhere in the city and suburbs.
Patch videographer Mariana Mora attended the viewing at the Gene Siskel Film Center and interviewed moviegoers, Nearing and the film's director of photography, Sanghoon Lee. In the accompanying video, you'll hear what they had to say about the movie and how it was made.
