By Adelaide Richards

Italian film maker Luca Guadagnino’s works are the perfect antidote to the grey days of winter. They’re impeccably styled and shot in enviable locations like the sun-drenched island of Pantelleria in the Mediterranean Sea or an opulent Villa Necchi Campiglio in the heart of Milan.

His previous films include the acclaimed I Am Love (2009) and A Bigger Splash (2015). Guadagnino’s latest film, Call Me By Your Name, is an adaptation of Andre Aciman’s novel by James Ivory. Set during the summer of 1983, the film is a saga of first love and sexual awakening. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, won the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay.

Academy Award Winner Call Me By Your Name

The setting of Call Me By Your Name is an integral character: Northern Italy in the summer. It’s a kind of Eden, lush and blooming. The film was shot in Crema, Italy which happens to be Guadagnino hometown. One would be hard pressed to find a more idyllic location for a coming of age romance. (The villa where much of the film takes place was recently featured in Architectural Digest) Guadagnino has an impeccable eye for detail and extensive research was done; everything from the swimsuits to the radios perfectly fits the eighties time period.

Inspired by directors Maurice Pialat and Bernardo Bertolucci, masters of humanistic filmmaking, Call Me By Your Name has loftier ambitions than most Hollywood romances. “…he {Bertolucci} believes that the camera is a tool through which the director investigates the deepest and most hidden recesses of the actor’s identity”, Guadagnino said in an interview. Timothée Chalamet’s performance in the film garnered him an Academy Award nomination for best actor at 22-years-old, making him the youngest nominee in nearly eighty years. (Mickey Rooney was nominated in 1939 for Babes in Arms) Chalamet’s portrayal of Elio Perlman is radiant, raw and not to be missed.

 Call Me By Your Name is available on DVD and Blu-ray at the Atheneum.

By Elizabeth Kelly

In 2007, massive lots of photo negatives went up for auction as part of an abandoned storage locker sale in Chicago. Interested buyers bid on large bulk bins, sight-unseen, hoping to score a few treasures. Real estate agent John Maloof bought a box of negatives for about four-hundred dollars. Two years later he posted the photographs, many of them candid city shots and street portraits, on a popular image site. He was not the first to come across the pictures, nor to make them public, but his project would become the catalyst in a global obsession. Who was Vivian Maier?

Maloof chronicles his personal investigation in the documentary Finding Vivian Maier. The film is an intimate portrait of Vivian Dorothy Maier, an elusive French-American photographer whose remarkable work went undiscovered during her lifetime. Throughout her career, Maier avoided building close relationships, even with those she worked and lived with as a professional nanny. Her European ancestry is revealed but the clues end with her death in 2009, two years after Maloof purchased the negatives and only a few days before he first posted them online. She would never know that her work had been made public nor that it would become a critical artistic contribution to 20^th century portrait photography.

Northwestern professor and author Pamela Bannos’ picks up where the documentary left off in her new biography, Vivian Maier: A Photographer’s Life and Afterlife. Bannos chose to focus her book on the intricacies of Maier’s personal life and the complicated ethical legacy her photography left behind. When Maier’s photographs and ephemera went up for auction her personal archive was suddenly scattered in the wind. Bannos relies on extensive genealogical research and her efforts to locate the disseminated ephemera in order to piece together the Maier estate.

She also attempts to debunk the public assumption that Maier was a casual street photographer. Bannos suggests the consistency and purposeful styling of Maier’s photographs over the course of decades proves she had technical skill and a natural eye. Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows, a 2012 photography book by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams, describes Maier’s work as remarkable and spontaneous. “Maier had few friends and was known to be difficult and temperamental. Yet her photography shows an exceptional ability to relate to and connect with people.” The book describes how she took only one picture of most subjects in order to capture the most intimate of moments.

The Bannos biography raises some valid questions about the distribution of Maier’s photographs. The Maloof documentary grossed $3.5 million and subsequent books and galleries have featured her work. The Maier estate is caught in purgatory between distant relatives and the buyers who originally bid on the auction lots. Furthermore, it is unclear why Maier never shared her own images with anyone. Some argue that making her work public has spared her from artistic obscurity while others feel that elusive nature was the original intention. The ethical and legal implications of the Maier estate are far-reaching. In Bannos closing words, “Vivian Maier’s story continues on without her.”

Elizabeth Kelly is a reference librarian at the Nantucket Atheneum.

Now in its 12th year, the One Book One Island community reading project is distributing free copies of the book TransAtlantic, by Collum McCann, at island businesses. Beginning March 9 there will be nine days of free events related to the book’s themes and characters.

The acclaimed and award-winning novel spans continents, leaps across centuries, and weaves together real and fictional characters. McCann’s story follows Alcock and Brown setting a course for Ireland as they attempt the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1919. Frederick Douglass who finds the Irish people sympathetic to the abolitionist cause in 1845 as famine ravages the country. And, U.S. Senator George Mitchell who departs for Belfast in 1998 to shepherd Northern Ireland’s peace talks. These three crossings are connected by a series of remarkable women whose personal stories are caught up in the swells of history.

Pick up a free book at:

• Annye’s Whole Foods
• Nantucket Atheneum
• Nantucket Historical Association main office
• Nantucket Inquirer & Mirror
• Saltmarsh Senior Center

The book supply runs out quickly and readers are asked to please return their copy to the Atheneum or pass it on to a friend when they have finished.

Free One Book One Island Events

FRIDAY, MARCH 9        5 – 7 pm
Exhibit: “Shades of Emerald,”
Artists Association Johnson Gallery, 19 Washington St.
Ongoing until March 17 (closed Sunday)

SUNDAY, MARCH 11     3:30 to 7 pm
Ceili on! Family fun event – live Irish music, Irish dance instruction, and an Irish chocolate shop. Hosted by Irish Rambles
The Muse, 44 Surfside Rd.

MONDAY, MARCH 12   5:30 pm 
Skype™ interview: U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, Northern Ireland mediator Dreamland Theater, 17 South Water St.

TUESDAY, MARCH 13   10 am & 5:30 pm
Transatlantic Book Discussion
Morning session: led by Molly Anderson and Lisa Lazarus
Sherburne Commons, 40 Sherburne Commons Ln.
Evening Session: Led by Molly Anderson and Sheryll Reichwein
Community School Parlor, 56 Center St.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14     11:30 am
Afternoon Tea & Movie – “The Quiet Man”
Hosted by Irish Rambles for Elder Ramblers
The Nantucket Hotel, 77 Easton St.
Please register for this event by calling 508-901-0010

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14     5:30 pm
Skype™ interview with author Colum Mccann
Dreamland Theater, 17 South Water St.

THURSDAY, MARCH 15  12 pm
NHA “Food for Thought” Belfast: Peace, Now  What? – A Screening and Conversation Filmmaker John Stanton
Whaling Museum, 15 Broad St.

THURSDAY, MARCH 15  5:30  pm
INSIGHTS Presentations and Discussion:  Frederick Douglass in Ireland, Dr. Christine Kinealy.  The Irish Famine with Dr. Catherine Shannon
Whaling Museum, 15 Broad St.

FRIDAY, MARCH 16  5:30 pm
Concert: “From Newfoundland to New Found Freedom: An evening of Irish and African American Music”
African Meeting House, 29 York St.

SATURDAY, MARCH 17 FAMILY EVENT  10 am
Children’s Irish Story Time (ages 3 to 5)
Hosted by Irish Rambles
Bookworks, 25 Broad St.

SUNDAY, MARCH 18     3 to 5 pm
ONE BOOK ONE ISLAND FINALE
Join fellow readers for a celebration – refreshments, music, step/set dance with audience participation, Irish – American comedian Kevin Flynn, videos, and Irish craft station and displays of Irish art and objects.
The Nantucket Hotel, Ballroom, 77 Easton St.

ONGOING
Irish films at the Atheneum:  Fri. 1/26 at 7 pm “Waking Ned Devine;” Wed. 2/7/ at 7 pm “Ondine;” Sat. 2/17 at 3 pm “Into the West” (for families); Wed. 3/7 at 7 pm “The Wind That Shakes the Barley.”

Irish Craft Stations – Fri. 3/9 to Sun. 3/18 at the Artists Association (24 Amelia Dr.), Atheneum (1 India St.), Community School (56 Center St.), Saltmarsh Center (83 Washington St.). March 9 – 18, days and hours vary.

For more event information please visit nantucketatheneum.org.

A Special Thank You to our sponsors

ONE BOOK ONE ISLAND 2018 is made possible by grants from Nantucket Island Resorts, the Tupancy-Harris Foundation, The Nantucket Hotel, Hale Family Foundation together with the financial and staff support of Annye’s Whole Foods, Egan Maritime Institute*, Maria Mitchell Association*, Mitchell’s Book Corner, Museum of African American History, Nantucket Artists Association, Nantucket Arts Council, Nantucket Atheneum,* Nantucket Bookworks, Nantucket Chamber of Commerce, Nantucket Community Foundation, Nantucket Community School, Nantucket Conservation Foundation*, Nantucket Dept. of Culture & Tourism, Nantucket Dreamland Theater, Nantucket Historical Association,*  Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, Nantucket Lightship Basket Museum, and Nantucket Preservation Trust.*

*Founding Sponsor