Concrete Playground

‘You gave me my first glimpse of a real life and then you ask me to carry on with a false one. No-one can endure that.’ - Newland Archer, The Age of Innocence

As an accompaniment to its current exhibition Printmaking in the Age of Romanticism, the Art Gallery of New South Wales is serving up – slightly warm and blushing – a free cinema series set to thaw even the coldest of hearts.

Beginning with Luchino Visconti’s sumptuous 1963 film The Leopard (the full-length, Palme d’Or winning version), this cinema series boasts five romanticism-inspired period films: The Age of Innocence, Cyrano de Bergerac, Pride and Prejudice and Picnic at Hanging Rock. Together they possess a litany of cinematic accolades, so indulge guilt-free your pleasure for epic tales of romance, longing, honour and betrayal – this is serious cultural fare

Is it really necessary to resist the delicious, Scorcese-driven pairing of a young Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis? Ah, put away your Bukowski, it’s Keats’ time again. All breathy women and impeccably erect men - you shall endure it.


image: The Leopard