THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF SCREEN ARTS & CULTURES FALL 2008 Viewing Screen Arts & Cultures Past, Present, and Future, a world-class education for screen scholars, screenwriters, and screen production in the mid-west. • SAC Honors projects (page 1) • New Doctoral Director (page 2) • Faculty Updates (page 10) • Future Challenges (inside back cover) Letter FROM THE CHAIR mentoring Sultan Shariff ’s EFEX project and Finally, an essay written by an English doctoral develop new diversity initiatives for the depart- student, Josh Lambert (for a SAC graduate ment. Chris McNamara and Terri Sarris won course on the emergence of mass culture and awards for their video productions, respec- early cinema), won second place in the 2007 tively, at the Ann Arbor Film Festival and the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Student Detroit Film Festival. Essay Award contest and then fi rst place in the Domitor Student Essay Award contest. Th e Department has welcomed Dan Herbert from the University of Southern Califor- Th e Department continues to initiate new nia as a new assistant professor specializing projects and augment others. Th e Hatcher Richard Abel in transnational fi lm adaptations and fi lm Library’s Special Collection acquired two industry practices. We also are in the midst of impressive collections: the Orson Welles My term as chair of Screen Arts & Cultures searches for four faculty positions, beginning Collection materials (photographs, fi lm will continue through June 2009. Challeng- in fall 2009: a senior position (open fi eld), scripts, play scripts, letters) and the Robert ing as the position has been since 2005, it an open rank position (with a preference for Altman Collection (fi lm scripts, correspon- also has been more enjoyable and fulfi lling televisions studies and new media), a Latina/o dence, photos), with the intent of building an than expected, largely because of the excel- Media Studies position (jointly with American archive of research resources especially perti- lent faculty, staff , and students who defi ne Culture), and a Lecturer III position in fi lm nent to Screen Arts & Cultures. Th e Universi- the department and its promising future. and video production. ty Museum of Art and Screen Arts & Cultures are establishing a partnership in which our Our faculty has been exceptionally produc- Th e third cohort of graduate students—Peter faculty and perhaps graduate students curate tive and honored since our last newsletter. Alilunas, Erin Hanna, Nancy McVittie, and Si- fi lm/video programs in the new auditorium Bambi Haggins was awarded tenure and monetta Menossi—have arrived in the Depart- opening in fall 2009. With the LS&A De- promotion to associate professor and her ment’s doctoral program. Th ey join Michael Ar- velopment Offi ce, we also are drafting several book, Laughing Mad: Th e Black Comic nold, John Laughlin, and Kristy Rawson. Four new fund-raising proposals. Persona in Post Soul America (Rutgers, UP Graduate Certifi cate students defended their 2007), won the 2008 Society of Cinema dissertations: Colin Roust (Musicology), Ilka In the near future we have much to look and Media Studies Kovacs Book Award; Rasch (German), Emily Chivers Yochim (Com- forward to. Construction of the North Quad Markus Nornes was promoted to professor munication Studies), and Ellen Scott (American Building (on the site of the demolished Frieze in Screen Arts & Cultures and Asian Lan- Culture). At least ten more continue their stud- Building) is proceeding earnestly, and the guages and Cultures and currently is a vis- ies in the Graduate Certifi cate program: Anne Department is slated to move all of its iting professor at Harvard for the ’08–’09 Berg (History), Ken Garner (History), Charles offi ces, studio facilities, and the Donald Hall academic year. Two professors completed Gentry (American Culture), Monica Lopéz Collection into that new building beginning fellowships in 2007, Johannes von Moltke (Romance Languages & Literatures), Nathan in 2010–2011. at the U-M Institute for the Humanities, Platte (Musicology), Amy Rodgers (English), and Giorgio Bertellini at Harvard Univer- Susanne Unger (Anthropology, Raquel Vega- Richard Abel sity’s Radcliff e Center. Terri Sarris won a Durán (Romance Languages & Literatures), Robert Altman Collegiate Professor university-wide NCID grant to continue and Aimee VonBokel (American Culture). of Cinema Studies IN MEMORIAM Professor Rudolf Arnheim Professor Rudolf Arnheim, a prolifi c and techniques and purposes of fi lm. In it, he argued that fi lm, like other art powerful theorist of art and visual perception, forms, needed to be shaped according to its unique properties to attain died at the age of 102 in June 2007. He was maximum expressivity, emphasizing its differences from rather than its born and educated in Germany, but because similarities to reality. He declared in it: “he who views with nature deserves of his Jewish heritage and left-leaning politics, to lose!” Asked in the 1990s at a book signing in Ann Arbor, whether he he was forced to fl ee in the wake of the Nazis’ still believed that fi lm had reached its height of expression during the silent rise to power. He came to the United States era, Professor Arnheim said that his negative view of the impact of talking in 1940. Professor Arnheim taught at Sarah pictures as a “hybrid medium” had not changed, the evidence of sixty more Lawrence for 26 years and then at Harvard. years of fi lmmaking, not withstanding. In retirement in Ann Arbor, he continued to be very active in writing and research and taught for the Department of the Although his views on art and perception were as controversial as they were History of Art at the University of Michigan starting in the 1970s. well known, Rudolf Arnheim took fi lm seriously when most academics did not. He left a lasting impact on fi lm theory and on theories of the perception Although Professor Arnheim wrote about sensory perception in relation to a of art. The College of LS&A of the University of Michigan honored Professor wide range of art forms, his theoretical views on fi lm were developed during Arnheim in 2001 by naming a Collegiate Professorship for him. the transition from “silent” fi lms to “talkies” in the late 1920s and early 1930s. His book, Film als Kunst, written in 1930, became the core of his 1957 book, By Gaylyn Studlar, Rudolf Arnheim Collegiate Professor of Film Studies Department Film as Art, which remains in print and is regarded as a classic primer on the of Screen Arts & Cultures. Screen Arts & Cultures IN THE BEGINNING Honors Film Project Captures When Things Started to Move A Great American City—Detroit There was a time—well, not too long ago—when people looked The cover photo is Screen Arts & Cultures’ at you incredulously if you said that you were teaching film. Geoffrey George on his SAC Honors Concen- tration fi lm shoot, a fi lm called It’s All in Place. by Ira Konigsberg At the University of Michigan, a few lofty souls like Marvin George’s fi lm merges two sides, life and death, Feldheim, from the English Department and American Culture, of a great American city—Detroit—through the Herb Eagle, from Slavic Languages and Literatures, Hugh Cohen, from the Residential story of two brothers who move back to the city College, Frank Beaver from Communications, and Diane Kirkpatrick from History of Art, from the suburbs after a family crisis. George’s put together a Film and Video Program—this was in the early 1970s. By the mid-1980s, fi lm shows the city in unfamiliar ways through the Program had a single, small offi ce in Lorch Hall, a half-time secretary who worked images most people do not know because either from her home, some 30-odd Super-8 cameras, 40 majors, and a $5,000 budget. they do not go into the city or because they have been away from the city for a long time. The fi lm does not hide Back in 1986, I don’t think that LS&A knew what to do with Film & Video. Regardless of or ignore the pitfalls of Detroit but it does evoke the feeling that the city its merits, the College was disinclined to put any signifi cant money into the Program and still possesses enlightened values today as it heads towards an even so, I was told, thought about shutting it down. Since the Program had never received an brighter future. This photo was shot on the roof of the Wilbur Wright High School. 1 internal nor an external evaluation—it was long overdue. Such evaluations could, hope- fully, decide the matter. Four Senior Screen Arts students were selected as Honors Concentrators ’07–’08; along with Geoffrey George, seniors Alex Ebel, Katie Barkel, Dean Peter Steiner put together the internal committee for the review and asked me to and Andy Windak. SAC Honors is highly competitive and admission is head it. We spent a summer and two semesters on the project, interviewing everyone based on a minimum GPA plus rigorous and competitive review process we could, gathering whatever material was relevant, and we produced a 160-page that takes into consideration the following: performance in past courses, report. We presented the report to the two external evaluators, David Bordwell and sample work from previous SAC courses, completion of specifi c course- Dudley Andrew who visited the campus for two days, making their own evaluation and work, an Honors proposal, and faculty recommendations. writing their own report. Alexandra Ebel’s Honors project is a linked study/production on au- The conclusions of both reports seemed inevitable. With the University’s fi lm societies, thorial vision in the contemporary sitcom.