Karen Allen—whose talents run the gamut from performing on Broadway to opening a fiber arts shop in downtown Great Barrington—ultimately evolved from starting in front of the camera to orchestrating from the wings, as evidenced by her directorial debut of “A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud.,” now available to stream on global digital HD internet and satellite platforms.
Pittsfield — In 1978, Karen Allen made her inaugural splash onto the big screen as Katy in “National Lampoon’s Animal House”; three years later, she starred opposite Harrison Ford in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (a role she reprised in 2008), all before turning 30. In the more than four decades since, Allen—whose talents run the gamut from performing on Broadway to opening a fiber arts shop in downtown Great Barrington—ultimately evolved from starting in front of the camera to orchestrating from the wings, as evidenced by her directorial debut of “A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud.,” now available to stream on global digital HD internet and satellite platforms. This short film is distributed in partnership with Turn Key Distribution for pay-per-view platforms and Kanopy Distribution for libraries, universities, and high school streaming platforms.
“This short story has been haunting me since I read it 50 years ago,” says Karen Allen of Carson McCullers’ “A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud.” (first published in 1942) upon which the Berkshire resident’s award-winning film is based. The film—set at a roadside café on an early spring morning in 1947—portrays a young boy’s encounter with an older man who relates a luminous tale of heartbreak, loss, and a hard-won understanding of the nature of love. For Allen, this story loomed large among McCullers’ many offerings, notably as “it sneaks up on you and has stayed indelibly etched in [her] imagination all these years … flooded with the raw, tangible beauty of the natural world, set in contrast to the complex, intangible yearning for love in their interior worlds.” Allen chose the former Silverbrook Cafe on Route 57 in Sandisfield—“Best Little Honky Tonk West of the Clam River” complete with vinyl booths and chalkboard specials—as the primary backdrop for her 2017 film, pointing to the juxtaposition of a large-scale collaboration in an off-the-beaten-path, small-town locale.