South Central Pennsylvania - Film

Film

Further information: Harrisburg in film and television

The most significant movie set in the region is the 1985 film Witness starring Harrison Ford, Danny Glover, Alexander Godunov, Kelly McGillis, and Viggo Mortensen. It was set in and filmed in the borough of Strasburg and the village of Intercourse, both in Lancaster County.

The film Lucky Numbers starring John Travolta and Lisa Kudrow was filmed throughout Harrisburg and Palmyra, and was based on the 1980 Pennsylvania Lottery scandal.

The movie Girl, Interrupted, starring Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder, was filmed in Mechanicsburg, as well as at the Harrisburg State Hospital in Harrisburg. Mechanicsburg was chosen for its old fashioned appearance and its old-fashioned drug store simply titled "Drugs," all of which gave the film its time-dated appearance.

The Strasburg Rail Road in Lancaster County simulated scenes of Springfield, Illinois for The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, by the Public Broadcasting Service, and for Stealing Lincoln's Body by The History Channel. The Woodward Hill Cemetery and the Landis Valley Museum were also used to simulate the Oak Ridge Cemetery and other scenes of 1870s Springfield.

Scotland, PA, a modern retelling of Shakespeare's Macbeth, is set in Scotland, a small town in Franklin County (though it was not filmed there). Historically, Scotland, Pennsylvania was originally settled by Scotch-Irish Americans, and there are still people named McBeth living in the area.

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Famous quotes containing the word film:

    “Film is more than the twentieth-century art. It’s another part of the twentieth-century mind. It’s the world seen from inside. We’ve come to a certain point in the history of film. If a thing can be filmed, the film is implied in the thing itself. This is where we are. The twentieth century is on film.... You have to ask yourself if there’s anything about us more important than the fact that we’re constantly on film, constantly watching ourselves.”
    —Don Delillo (b. 1926)

    “The obvious parallels between Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz have frequently been noted: in both there is the orphan hero who is raised on a farm by an aunt and uncle and yearns to escape to adventure. Obi-wan Kenobi resembles the Wizard; the loyal, plucky little robot R2D2 is Toto; C3PO is the Tin Man; and Chewbacca is the Cowardly Lion. Darth Vader replaces the Wicked Witch: this is a patriarchy rather than a matriarchy.”
    —Andrew Gordon, U.S. educator, critic. “The Inescapable Family in American Science Fiction and Fantasy Films,” Journal of Popular Film and Television (Summer 1992)

    “Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
    —David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)