Razing While Raising

When you think of your hometown, what city do you see in your mind's eye? Is it the St. Louis of today? Or is it the St. Louis of some earlier era, like high school, or when you first struck out on your own, perhaps? British filmmaker Terence Davies has bound himself to his hometown of Liverpool through his autobiographical movies, using his and the city's shared past as both story and setting for his films Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes. But those were stories of Liverpool in the '50s, and thanks to redevelopment and new construction — and the inexorable passage of time — huge chunks of that city are gone. But still, the memory clings to that city — do young Liverpudlians and Davies' generation even live in the same Liverpool? Of Time and the City, Davies' new film, charts the loss of place in a personal, poetic fashion. Using documentary photographs and newsreels of "his" Liverpool, period music and footage of the city of today, Davies draws a loving, bittersweet portrait of his home as it was and as it is. The Webster Film Series presents Of Time and the City at 7 p.m. Friday through Sunday (March 13 through 15) at Webster University's Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood Avenue; 314-968-7487 or www.webster.edu/filmseries). Tickets are $5 to $6.
March 13-15, 2009