Anyone on a spiritual path knows that teachers can be found anywhere—but it took meditation instructor and film critic Dean Sluyter to point us to the wisdom of the Marx Brothers and this beloved, ridiculous comedy. In his book Cinema Nirvana, Sluyter reveals the hidden enlightenment in very surprising cinematic places (including, in this case, a famously overcrowded stateroom).
About A Night at the Opera, Sluyter writes: “Essays on the nature of comedy are notorious for their overserious theories of what’s funny, the throat-clearing professor at his lectern just begging for a pie in the face. So here’s my serious dharma-inflected theory: Funny is anything that unexpectedly reveals the emptiness of the forms we took to be life-and-death real.”
Grab your popcorn, sit back, and get ready for an illuminating evening of film and discussion.
Presented in 35mm
