David Bordwell, a film scholar, dies at the age of 76
David Bordwell
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David Bordwell, the celebrated film scholar, educator, author and scholar known for sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm for cinema with cinephiles everywhere, has died. He was 76 years old.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison announced that Bordwell died Thursday after a long illness. He taught at the school from 1973 until his retirement in 2004 and was Jacques LeDoux Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the time of his death.
For more than two decades, Bordwell has provided commentary, visual and written essays, and interviews for films in the Criterion Collection, and has been seen and heard in 50 insightful episodes of the Criterion Collection series. Notes on the art of cinema On the standard channel.
In a statement, Criterion described him as “a great, long-time friend and tireless champion of cinema who has spent decades imparting his wisdom and passion to movie lovers around the world.”
Bordwell wrote his basic textbooks The Art of Cinema: An Introductionfirst published in 1979, and Film History: An Introductionfirst published in 1994. Both were co-authored with his wife, Christine Thompson, a fellow professor at the University of Wisconsin.
The pair also publish a reliable film blog at davidbordwell.net.
The University of Wisconsin said Bordwell authored, co-authored or edited about 22 books and monographs and more than 140 journal articles, book chapters, introductions to collections and review articles.
Bordwell was born on July 23, 1947 in Penn Yan, New York. “I grew up on a farm, so I didn’t have easy access to the movies that kids in cities could watch,” he said in 2006.
“I started watching classic movies on TV late at night while also reading books like Arthur Knight’s The most vibrant art And Paul Rotha The movie so far. …So in a weird way, I gained my awareness of the film more from reading than from watching.
He graduated from the State University of New York at Albany in 1969 after studying English literature and joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Communication Arts immediately after completing coursework for his doctoral degree. From the University of Iowa.
His writings spanned the 1980s Films of Carl Theodor Dreyer; 1985 Classic Hollywood Cinema: Film style and production method up to 1960; 1988 Ozu and the poetics of cinema; 2000 Planet Hong Kong; 2005 Tracking Numbers in the Light: On Cinematic Staging; And 2006 The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Films.
Among Bordwell’s favorite films, according to IndieWireHe was Passion passes (1933), How green my valley was (1941), Sanshiro Sugata (1943), Song of the South (1946), Providing advice and consent (1962), Zornz Lima (1970), choose me (1984), Back to the future (1985) and The Hunt for Red October (1990).
In addition to his wife, survivors include his sisters, Diane and Darlene; His nephew Sanjeev. and his niece Kamini.
Screenwriter, director and producer James Schamus, a three-time Academy Award nominee, praised Bordwell in a statement to the University of Wisconsin:
“As a director, I would describe David’s friendship as alarmingly generous. His astonishing critical intelligence never got in the way of his enthusiasm, and his enthusiasm never diminished his analytical eye; they were functions of each other.”
“This means that when it came to one’s work, the effect was like getting a loving bear hug from a nuclear-powered microscope. There will never be another like David again.”
