Events Calendar

Dog Day Afternoon with Frank Pierson

Frank Pierson won the 1975 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Dog Day Afternoon, one of American cinema’s most riveting crime pictures. The film will be screened as part of a two-part series entitled "It’s All True?," which will explore how filmmakers have translated true stories into feature films and how those films have impacted our sense of history, events and politics. Following the screening, Pierson will join USC cinematic-arts professors Mark J. Harris and Ted Braun to discuss the challenges filmmakers face when turning a true story into a screenplay, including sorting through competing claims of veracity, the need to keep paying customers in their seats, legal requirements and the obligations screenwriters have to the subjects of a film.

Pierson also co-wrote the Academy Award–nominated screenplay Cool Hand Luke and directed and co-wrote A Star Is Born. He has directed several notable films for television, including Dirty Pictures, Citizen Cohn, Conspiracy and Somebody Has to Shoot the Picture. His direction on Truman and Soldier’s Girl both garnered Peabody Awards. Pierson joined the crew of the AMC drama Mad Men as a consulting producer for the series’ third season, for which he won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Drama.

Admission is free.

For further information on this event:
visionsandvoices@usc.edu

Location: The Ray Stark Family Theatre, School of Cinematic Arts 108

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Daria Yudacufski