Reel Spirituality: A Film Series

The films in this series explore questions of morality, culture, the search for meaning and other themes arising from the human journey.

About Schmidt 
(Alexander Payne, USA, 2002, 125 min.) Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) has worked for an insurance company in Omaha, Nebraska, for his whole career. At a party celebrating his retirement, his best friend Ray characterizes him as a very rich man who has reaped the internal rewards of a meaningful life and a job well done. The sixty-six year old doesn't see it that way and sneaks out of his party for a drink at the bar alone. Writer and director Alexander Payne (Citizen Ruth, Election) has created an American masterpiece with this bittersweet portrait of a Midwesterner whose disappointments in life have made him into an angry man. This character's negative feelings about himself and the ways he has failed to live up to his youthful dreams are something many people will identify with. In dealing with his feelings towards his wife and family Warren comes to the honest realizations about the direction of his own life and what is of ultimate importance.

Screenings will be followed by a brief moderated discussion with CSRS Associate Fellow and Friends’ Chair Terence Marner.




 

Free and Open to the Public.
Sponsored by the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society.