By Kate Rix
If the creation of a film studies department were chronicled in a movie script, it might not have all of the dramatic tension of The Wonder Boys or Good Will Hunting, but it would have all of the satisfying resolution — and then some.
This summer Berkeley’s highly regarded and popular Film Studies program will make the notable step of becoming a full-blown department — the first newly created department at Berkeley since 1996.
The program, housed within the Department of Rhetoric until now, has grown steadily since its founding as an undergraduate “group major” in the late 1970s. The Pacific Film Archive has been a major resource for students and faculty, and Berkeley has had close ties to other Bay Area organizations that present films.
For the 100 undergraduates majoring in Film Studies and the 30 graduate students working toward doctorates in the field, day-to-day life in the university may not change dramatically. But for those who have been part of Berkeley’s film studies community since the early days — when PFA director Tom Luddy attracted the likes of Akira Kurosawa and Roberto Rossellini to visit for screenings — the creation of the new department means much more than a simple shift in administrative status.
“From the inside this seems like a logical next step, but becoming a full department has great symbolic value outside the university,” says Mark Sandberg, director of the Film Studies Program, which makes its official debut as Department of Film and Media in July. “I ran into a woman who had taken courses here back in the late 1970s and when I told her about the change she was so excited. It meant something so deep and personal for her. It shows the world that Film has institutional backing here and commitment from the university.”
The study of film has support up to the highest level of the University.
“Clearly, film is a profoundly important component of our culture with all the richness and intellectual vitality of many other academic disciplines,” says Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. “It is important the Berkeley play a leading role in film and media. The establishment of the Department of Film and Media will both recognize and facilitate our leadership in this exciting and evolving field of study.”
Senior lecturer Marilyn Fabe is among those who are deeply inspired by the department’s formation. Fabe is undergraduate advisor for the program and teaches courses that include the history of silent and documentary film.
“This legitimizes an effort that started 35 years ago,” she says. “We are no longer under the radar. We want to train students to be both verbally adept and adept in the language of film. That will be our niche, and being a department means we can do even more to help students to fulfill themselves.”
The process required many hours of time and reams of paperwork. Faculty wrote a proposal outlining the benefits to Berkeley in the areas of teaching, research and scholarship, and proving the organizational viability of a new department.
“One of the advantages of going through this process is that we have really had to reflect on our history, who we are and where we are going,” Sandberg says. “It opens us out to a new kind of intellectual area, that we are not just a cinema department, but are also headed forward in the direction that the field is going, in some ways driven by technology.”
New media plays a larger and larger role in the study of film. Faculty in the new department envision close cooperation with the Berkeley Center for New Media on scholarly projects, including comparative models of spectatorship, theoretical differences between analogue and digital media, and the convergence of art practices, film form, and digital media-making.
UCLA, UC Santa Barbara and UC Santa Cruz have well-developed film studies programs, but Berkeley’s is unique in the number of disciplines that are represented. Like most of his colleagues, Sandberg is a member of both Film and another department. Sandberg’s second specialty is in Scandinavian, and other Film faculty work in German, Slavic, Italian, Rhetoric, and Comparative Literature. Film also has affiliated faculty in Art Practice and English.
Developed as an undergraduate group major in 1976, Film Studies was first nestled within the Comparative Literature Department, mostly due to the enthusiastic support of the late William Nestrick, an expert in Renaissance literature but also a devoted lover of film. Nestrick helped develop the program and was known for his elaborate spreads of gourmet food at film screenings. Today, an 80-seat digital screening classroom on the first floor of Dwinelle Hall is named in Nestrick’s honor.
In addition, the department is proud of its new teaching lab in Dwinelle, with 15 digital workstations and a small studio for film production. This resource joins a newly created consortium of digital media labs serving needs in Film and Media, Art Practice, and Theater, Dance and Performance Studies, as well as the Berkeley Center for New Media.
“We feel strongly that students learn analysis by doing production and production by doing analysis,” says Sandberg. “Even though production is not our primary emphasis, production can be taught with an integrated approach that trains a different kind of student. When we teach production courses, a good portion of the syllabus is devoted to narrative theory rather than nuts and bolts, and it is well recognized by people in the film world that Berkeley students come out more informed and reflective.”
The department is especially excited to come into existence now, despite all of the budget pressures within the University. Anne Nesbet, professor of Slavic and Film Studies, will start work this summer as the first chair of the new department.
“Even in challenging times, Berkeley is one of the liveliest and most interesting places in the country,” she says. “The birth of the Department of Film and Media reminds us how important it is, no matter what the current circumstances, to keep at least one eye firmly on the future.”
