Cinema Studies // New York University

Announced today:
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THAUMATROPE
A Concert to Benefit the Robert Sklar Memorial Scholarship Fund

Friday, March 2nd
Dominion Theater // 428 Lafayette Street, NYC
Doors at 7pm // Show begins at 7:30pm

The Department of Cinema Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, brings you THAUMATROPE: live and in concert. Thaumatrope features William Thaumatrope (a.k.a. Richard Allen) on guitar and vocals, Sidney Gottlieb on lead guitar and saxophone, and Tim O’Brien on drums. All proceeds from this concert will go towards the Robert Sklar Memorial Scholarship.

We are almost half way to reaching our $100,000.00 goal to establish a permanent endowment. To get there, we are hosting a musical tribute to the life and legacy of Robert Sklar.

Tickets are $25.00*. There will be a cash bar throughout the evening.

Donations of $250.00 or more will give you V.I.P. access to a private reception beforehand and preferred seating at the show, along with drink tickets during the performance.

Event Schedule
6pm-7pm: V.I.P. Reception with Beer & Wine Open Bar and light Hors D’oeuvres
7pm: Doors Open
7:30pm-10pm: Live Performances

ORDER TICKETS

Tickets are limited! To purchase your ticket, please complete the attached form and return it with your check, made payable to “NYU Tisch School of the Arts”, to Liza Greenfield, via email at liza.greenfield@nyu.edu, fax (212-995-4061), or mail (721 Broadway, 6th floor, NY, NY 10003).

There are instructions on the form for purchasing your ticket with a credit card. Please remember to also send your form to the Department so we can get you on the guest list!

*Please note: Anyone who purchases a ticket – even at the V.I.P. level – who is under 21 years of age will not be permitted to drink alcohol. Non-alcoholic beverages will be available. Please bring I.D.

NYU Tisch School of the Arts is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Your gift is tax-deductible to the full extent of the law.

http://www.williamthaumatrope.com/

by Jeffrey Chen

Accompanying a special screening of Hangover Square (John Brahm, 1945), film historian Gregory Mank delivered a presentation that revealed fascinating details about its creation and leading man, Laird Cregar. The film centers on George Harvey Bone, a tormented musician afflicted with a unique condition: he experiences mental blackouts in which he can remember nothing. Unbeknownst to him, he performs devious acts during these episodes --namely, murder.

Even more interesting than the movie's plot is the story behind its troubled production. The making of the picture was plagued with rewrites, internal conflicts, and financial setbacks. The screenplay was loosely adapted from a novel but was revised extensively to mimic elements of The Lodger (John Brahm, 1944), much to the disappointment of its star. George Sanders, who plays Bone's colleague Dr. Allan Middleton, was particularly difficult during shooting and refused to rehearse or say certain lines in the script; his insubordination reached its climax when he punched one of the producers in the face.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy, however, involves the personal struggles of its main actor, Laird Cregar. The thespian strove to distance himself from earlier roles but continually felt typecast as a villain in horror pictures. Subjecting himself to plastic surgery and questionable dieting, he suffered from a heart attack and later died on December 9, 1944, at the age of 31.

Learn more about the story of Laird Cregar in Mank's upcoming book, “Hollywood Ripper: The Rise and Fall of Laird Cregar.”

by Dan Streible

Nontheatrical film in general and educational films in particular represent a new area of inquiry in media studies. Dan Streible, associate professor in Cinema Studies, and co-editors Devin and Marsha Orgeron of North Carolina State University, have compiled a comprehensive collection of scholarly essays entitled Learning with the Lights Off: Educational Film in the United States (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Running 544 pages, the collection is the first to address the American history of the medium’s educational uses. Its 22 essays illuminate a vastly influential form of cinema, one seen by millions of Americans throughout the twentieth century. The 22 contributors reveal the powerful role that educational films played in instruction, training, and social guidance.

Learning with the Lights Off features the editors’ ambitious historical overview of educational film practices, assessing the role the genre played in the production of knowledge, both inside the classroom and out. Each essay examines in detail some crucial aspect of educational film history, ranging from analyses of categories (medicine, science, nature, art, race relations, et al.), to Streible’s case study of the NYU Educational Film Institute and Library (created in 1940), to Elena Rossi-Snook’s guide to educational film collections in archives and libraries. The book’s innovative companion website allows users to download and view nearly all of the movies discussed.

The majority of essays in Learning with the Lights Off stem from presentations at the 2006 Orphan Film Symposium on Science, Industry, and Education.

You can learn even more at Learning with the Lights Off's very own Facebook page.

The Forgetting Game, a feature documentary produced by three recent MA alums - Russell Sheaffer (director), Pulkit Datta (producer), and Jim Bittl (producer) - will have its New York premiere this Wednesday, November 30th. The 6pm screening is part of the NewFilmmakers Series at Anthology Film Archives and follows its world premiere at Chagrin Documentary Film Festival (Ohio) where it was nominated for the Emerging Filmmaker award, and its international premiere at the Marbella International Film Festival (Spain).

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall, and this compelling new documentary tells the story of Beate Kernke, a 5-year-old East German girl who became the first person to be legally and peacefully transferred across the Wall in March 1963. By combining intimate interviews, historical news footage, and fascinating propaganda material, the film explores the momentous event of Beate’s transfer and traces her rollercoaster life since.

The Department congratulates our recent grads for this exciting achievement and looks forward to the film's great success.

About the director
Russell Sheaffer is an experimental film and documentary maker with a strong academic background. Most recently, a short film that he co-wrote and co-directed with James Franco, Masculinity & Me, was an official selection of the 2011 Torino LGBT Film Festival and was featured in Franco’s solo exhibition, “The Dangerous Book Four Boys” in New York and Berlin. He received his Masters in Cinema Studies from NYU and his experimental shorts have screened both nationally and internationally. The Forgetting Game is Russell’s first feature film.

Visit the film’s official website: www.theforgettinggame.com

by Jeffrey Chen

Marking the first time the documentary has been shown at NYU, Professor Juana Suarez introduced a screening of Señorita Extraviada (Lourdes Portillo, 2001) with filmmaker Lourdes Portillo. The movie chronicles the abductions of young, Mexican women that began around the mid-1990s.

The project started in 1999 shortly after the director read a news article about a number of unexplained disappearances in Mexico's northern state of Chihuahua. Compelled to learn more about the situation, she traveled to the border city of Juarez and talked with members of the community over a period of 18 months. In order to gain support for her cause, she approached several organizations, such as human rights groups, that were connected with friends and families of the victims. Although many declined her request for an interview due to safety concerns, she was able to convince several contacts to entrust their stories to her.

The film unfolds like a police procedural, as the filmmaker interviews subjects and dissects news coverage of the incidents, analyzing a list of possible suspects. Although there is no definitive conclusion to the cases, the evidence strongly suggests that the world of organized crime played a significant role in the mysterious kidnappings.

Despite being released over a decade ago, the problems described in Señorita Extraviada are still relevant. Mexico continues to struggle with corruption, drug trafficking, and other issues that adversely affect the lives of its citizens. Fortunately, filmmakers like Lourdes Portillo exist to allow their voices to be heard.

Professor Dana Polan will be the featured speaker at this month's Beard on Books series, an ongoing literary series at The James Beard Foundation. Professor Polan will be discussing his newest book, Julia Child's The French Chef, at an event that is free to students (suggested donation of $20 for nonstudents).

WHEN: Wednesday, November 16th, 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m. Book signing will follow reading and discussion

WHERE: The James Beard House, 167 West 12 Street (between Sixth and Seventh Avenues)

WHY: Dana Polan is passionate about how Julia Child’s television show transformed the cooking industry. Julia Child’s The French Chef explains how each episode was more about the discovery of a new culture and making cooking enjoyable, than just purely standard cooking instructions.

The James Beard Foundation is dedicated to celebrating, nurturing, and preserving America's diverse culinary heritage and future

by Jeffrey Chen

Motion pictures tend to vary in running time and content, from the full feature-length film to the animated short. A subsection of cinema that generally does not receive as much attention - the movie trailer - was the focus of UCLA Assistant Professor Frederick L. Greene's October 19th talk "100 Years of Coming Attractions".

It is an often overlooked fact that trailers did not immediately emerge alongside the creation of the movie camera in 1894. For the first 18 years, print advertisements were the common outlet for informing the public of future venues; in 1903, magic lantern slides took over that role. It was not until the advent of serials that a preliminary version of the trailer was introduced. Engendered by the recurring series known as What Happened to Mary (Charles Brabin, 1912), these prototypes encouraged spectators to revisit the theater to continue the storyline. Thus, a new form of promotional material was born.

The practical purpose of trailers is to convince potential customers of the value of an upcoming product; they act as samples of much larger projects, enticing viewers with a taste of what the film will be like. Greene refers to them as “synecdochal structures,” relaying significant amounts of information in a compressed form. Referencing examples ranging from the silent version of Phantom of the Opera (Rupert Julian, 1925) to more modern pieces like Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010), his presentation culminated with a detailed analysis of the humorous, meta trailer for The Pink Panther (Blake Edwards, 1963).

To learn more about Professor Greene's work, visit http://movietrailers101.wordpress.com.

A book co-edited by Professor Robert Sklar, who passed away in July, has been posthumously published by the University Press of Mississippi. Co-edited by Saverio Giovacchini of University of Maryland, the volume brings together distinguished film scholars and cultural historians to complicate the nation-based approach to the history of neorealism.

Global Neorealism: The Transnational History of a Film Style includes essays by the editors, as well as Neepa Majumdar, Masha Salazkina, Vito Zagarrio, and our own Nathaniel Brennan (ABD PHD), among others. The book has been praised by Cinema Studies alum Giorgio Bertellini (University of Michigan) and Richard Peña (Columbia University and director of the New York Film Festival).

The memorial service for Professor Sklar will be held this Sunday, November 6th, at 5:30pm in NYU's Kimmel Center.

Co-editor Saverio Giovacchini is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is currently the director of the Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies there. His first book, Hollywood Modernism (Philadelphia: Temple University, 2001) centered on the intellectual history of the Hollywood community in the Thirties and Forties.

by Ed Guerrero

right to left: NYU Professors Diawara, Guerrero, Amkpa, with Director NYU Ghana, addressing students

Accra, Ghana: October 1-4. Professors Manthia Diawara and Ed Guerrero did a stellar job of representing Cinema Studies at this year’s 6th annual “Real Life Pan African Film Festival,” by introducing this year’s top billed documentaries, organizing and participating in many of the seminars, workshops and panels. Of note were Manthia Diawara’s introduction and commentary on Chergui Kharroubi and Salem Brahimi’s Africa is Back (92 min.), documenting the 2nd Pan African Cultural Festival, held in ’09 in Algiers and attended by 8500 intellectuals and artists form “the heart of Africa” and its diaspora, including Danny Glover, Andre Brink, Jihane El Tahri. Equally of note was Ed Guerrero’s introduction and commentary on Stanley Nelson’s, Freedom Riders (113 min., PBS ‘American Experience’), documenting the bloody ‘freedom rides’ of the ‘60s Civil Right Movement, and recognized as a cinematic masterpiece by winning no less than 3 ‘Prime Time Emmys’ this year.

Overall this year’s festival was a great aesthetic, intellectual, and organizational success, screening a dozen new and remarkable films from the African diaspora, in a number of venues, including University of Ghana, Legon; La Maison Franciase; and the Goethe Institut. The festival drew popular crowds, aspiring student filmmakers, and our own ‘NYU in Ghana’ students. Cinema Studies and MIAP have participated in the production, workshop, restoration and festival process for several seasons now. Confidence is high and the cinematic future is bright.

by Jeffrey Chen

To aid those planning their academic futures, a panel of faculty members and students presented a comprehensive discussion about the admissions process for PhD programs.

As a first step, according to the panel that gathered for the "The Five Ws of the PhD: A Very Practical Introduction", students should determine if they truly want to further their education towards a professional degree. Asking past and current PhD candidates about their experiences can help one make that decision.

In terms of application materials, the consensus among the panelists was that the two most important documents are the personal statement and writing sample; these pieces should contain the best writing that a student is capable of. Making the case for approval also involves convincing the faculty that an academic relationship will benefit both parties; prospective schools are interested in what you have to offer them, and vice versa. Part of that task is achieved by outlining your “intellectual trajectory,” which includes declaring possible topics for a dissertation.

While the panel did their best to ready students, they made it clear that there are factors out of one's control. For example, institutions can only accept a limited number of candidates, and each will offer a different level of funding. To mitigate these potential problems, it was recommended that students apply to at least five or six schools to increase the selection pool.

Even after being accepted, it is advised that the months before enrollment be spent wisely, for instance by performing preliminary research for a chosen area of study.

Panelists for this Wednesday Night Series event included Richard Allen (Department Chair, NYU Cinema Studies), Jonathan Kahana (Director of Graduate Studies, NYU Cinema Studies), Rodney Benson (Director of Graduate Studies, NYU Media, Culture, and Communication), Adam Lowenstein (Faculty, University of Pittsburgh), and current Cinema Studies doctoral students Nate Brennan, Paul Fileri, and Priyanjali Sen. A full recording of the panel discussion is available at the event page on the Department's website.

Whether you're thinking about applying or are already in a doctoral program, good luck!