Since the late 1960s, Albert LaValley has been at the forefront of the academic field known as film studies.
LaValley's teaching career has brought him to a wide variety of universities, from Yale to the University of California at Berkeley to Dartmouth College, where he spent 12 years as chairman of film and television studies. Now, he is adding OU to the list.
"There seems to be a lot of excitement and interest in film here that I hadn't expected," LaValley said.
LaValley will be teaching two film courses this semester as a visiting professor: American Independent Cinema and Film History to 1945.
LaValley said he has noticed significant differences between the Ivy League atmosphere of Dartmouth and the more laid-back OU.
"There's an outgoing quality to the students," LaValley said. "It's a friendlier place. You can see that right away."
LaValley described Dartmouth as a more restrained environment.
"It's probably more competitive, but no one wants to admit it, so they don't talk about it," LaValley said.
LaValley said he also noted the array of industry connections in Santa Barbara and Dartmouth as opposed to OU. Bill Pence, director of film at the Hopkins Center in Dartmouth, also organizes the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado, ensuring a steady stream of actors, directors and new films make their way to the college, LaValley said.
LaValley isn't worried about the academic potential of OU students, however.
"There's always a group in every class that are knowledgeable and that write well," LaValley said.
LaValley's visit is part of the film and video studies department's ongoing project of bringing in guest professors to teach for one or two semesters, said Andrew Horton, head of the department.
"They bring in new blood, new ideas, so this is very exciting," Horton said.
LaValley's first film class was a general course taught at Rutgers in the early 1970s. Before that, he taught English at Yale. At that point, very few universities had film departments, but many English and philosophy professors, along with figures from the industry itself, were beginning to teach film-related courses, LaValley said.
"Critical studies were emerging slowly in the late '60s and '70s," LaValley said. "A lot of people who pioneered film teaching were film industry people who knew the history."
In the late 1980s, LaValley, together with fellow Dartmouth faculty member (and former blacklisted screenwriter) Maurice Rapf, helped raise $5 million for film production classes. Thanks in part to their efforts, film studies at Dartmouth went from a division of the drama department to an independent department by the early 1990s, LaValley said.
Horton said Rapf's daughter Joanna, who teaches film at OU, recommended LaValley.
Other visiting film studies professors within the last two years include Dan Georgakas, editor of Cineaste magazine, Horton said.
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