Cinematheque: Preston Sturges

A successful comedy director (auteur of such mindless entertainments as Ants in Your Pants of 1940) sets out to make his Big Artistic Statement (entitled O Brother, Where Art Thou), and tours the country to connect with the downtrodden. Sturges’s signature film fearlessly mocks the very idea of heavy-handed artistic ambition, while serving as its own example for the social value of comedy.