Sunday, September 1, 1:00 p.m. | David Bordwell’s Reinventing Hollywood, a brilliant study of movie narrative in the 1940s, pays charming tribute to the “bitter comedy” of Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s A LETTER TO THREE WIVES. A key example of what Bordwell calls “modular” plot construction and “polyphonic” narration, the film is derived from a novel about five rather catty wives. Mankiewicz, the most literate writer-director of the period, reduced it to three wives from different social backgrounds who are close friends. Which one is about to lose her husband? The dialogue is witty, the social insight acute, and the cast (which includes the incomparable Thelma Ritter) uniformly excellent. (James Naremore, Chancellors' Professor of The Media School, English, and Comparative Literature at Indiana University Bloomington)

Awards & Nominations

Winner - Best Director, Best Screenplay, Academy Awards 
Nominee - Best Picture, Academy Awards

Remembering David Bordwell: David Bordwell (1947–2024), a beloved film scholar, passed away earlier this year at the age of 76. Bordwell’s impact and legacy is widespread: film curators and critics, cinephiles and casual viewers have been shaped, educated, and invigorated by Bordwell’s perspectives. With this series, we invited friends and colleagues of Bordwell’s to select a film that was special to him, in the hopes that, through these titles, we can pay tribute to his enthusiasm for cinema through our own. Read more

The Film Center is ADA accessible. This presentation will be projected without open captions. The theater is hearing-loop equipped. For accessibility requests, please email filmcenter@saic.edu