(Nicholas Ray, US 1956, 95 min., 35mm)

In one of the best films of the 1950s, the subtle but powerful James Mason plays a middle-class schoolteacher who undergoes cortisone treatment after contracting a mysterious disease. The drug gives him a miraculous recovery, but also causes delusions of grandeur and eats away at his sanity, eventually threatening his family’s safety. Director Ray (Rebel Without a Cause) depicts the pressures of American suburban life with a vision unlike any other on film. Celebrated contemporary novelist and essayist Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude, will talk about Bigger Than Life and his cinephilia in a post-screening discussion.