You are here
Film Club Viewing and Discussion: Mildred Pierce (1945)
Online
Use the Twitter hashtag #SPSWatchParty to watch and tweet along with SPS students, alums, faculty, & staff.
Open to all in the SPS community and beyond!
Questions? See FAQs below or contact
SPS WATCH PARTY: FAQs
Q: How can I watch the film?
A: Mildred Pierce is available to stream for free through The Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/mildred-pierce-1945_202102). You can also rent it for $3.99 on platforms including Amazon or YouTube.
Q: I’m not on Twitter. Can I still take part in the watch party?
A: Yes! You don’t need a Twitter account to follow along; just go to Twitter.com and type the hashtag #SPSWatchParty into the search bar. You can use the hashtag to follow and read others’ tweets. However, if you’d like to add your own tweet—or to retweet or “like” someone else’s—you’ll need to create an account. (And there are good reasons to do so: Twitter is a valuable professional tool for those in academia!)
Q: How will this work—do I just push “play” at 8:00pm?
A: Pretty much! We know platforms like Netflix have added special tools for enabling synchronized viewing, but we’re taking a low-tech approach. So, press start at 8:00pm EST, and you’ll be good to go!
Q: Why Mildred Pierce?
A: Michael Curtiz’s 1945 film Mildred Pierce is a touchstone of American cinema—a canonical example of film noir, and a showcase for a bravura, Oscar-winning performance by the peerless Joan Crawford. It also offers one of the most indelible—and haunting—meditations on motherhood in the history of movies…just in time for Mother’s Day! Based on a novel by hard-boiled fiction writer James M. Cain, it’s also one of cinema’s great adaptations. Please join us for a discussion of this classic maternal melodrama, which Criterion calls a “bitter cocktail of blind parental love and all-American ambition.”