Amherst is great. A couple of weeks ago Paul & I saw John Sayles introduce his film Amigo at Amherst Cinema and answer questions after viewing. It took him a long time to find the funding. He had to focus on a village to encapsulate a very large experience, which he wrote about in a sprawling 900-page novel A Moment in the Sun . He eventually found a portion that told a story he could fit into a space small and intimate enough to make a low budget film.
Here is Sayles on modern parallels with Amigo at Amherst Cinema.
And here is a link to his own blog post on the trip to Amherst.
Rumors of Delirium 