{"id":12699,"date":"2025-02-17T12:11:21","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T18:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wcftr.commarts.wisc.edu\/?p=12699"},"modified":"2025-02-19T10:11:47","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T16:11:47","slug":"reconstructing-the-postwar-us-campus-film-society-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wcftr.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php\/2025\/02\/17\/reconstructing-the-postwar-us-campus-film-society-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"Reconstructing the Postwar U.S. Campus Film Society Movement with the Amos Vogel Papers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tanya Goldman<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) is one of many institutions that house materials related to the great cineaste Amos Vogel (1921-2012). A man of capacious tastes and eager to promote appreciation for \u201cartistically satisfying films,\u201d<\/a> Vogel brought an eclectic range of nonfiction, foreign, experimental, and independent films to audiences in New York through his fabled postwar film society Cinema 16 (1947-63). At its height, Cinema 16 boasted a membership of 7,000! Through Cinema 16, and his work with the New York Film Festival in the 1960s, Vogel is credited with building the reputations of many now- canonical filmmakers. In 1973, Vogel joined the University of Pennsylvania as professor of communication; the following year saw the release of his classic book Film as a Subversive Art<\/em> (1974)<\/a>. He would remain at UPenn until his retirement in 1991.<\/p>\n

\"Light<\/a>
Commemorative t-shirt from the 2021 commemoration of Amos Vogel’s centenary in New York City<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Vogel\u2019s contributions to film history are legion and his storied career has received a good deal of attention. I was lucky to attend several screenings in New York City in 2021 staged to commemorate the centennial of his birth (I even picked up a snazzy t-shirt [right]!) Exploring the Austrian Film Museum<\/a>\u2019s online materials about Vogel is a must and I particularly enjoy Richard Brody\u2019s 2015 piece in The New Yorker<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

We are lucky that Vogel leaves behind a considerable amount of paper materials and films<\/a> diligently cataloged by archivists at WCFTR, Austrian Film Museum<\/a>, Columbia University<\/a>, and the Harvard Film Archive<\/a>. I would also be remiss if I did not mention the availability of archival documents and writings lovingly curated by Paul Cronin<\/a> and Scott MacDonald<\/a>. In my own research on 16mm distribution and exhibition, I\u2019m nowhere<\/em> near this lucky! This has prompted creative problem solving: searching archival collections not explicitly about film, scouring Ebay for 16mm distribution catalogs and other ephemera, word-of-mouth, and the goodwill of folks willing to lend me personal materials (h\/t to the late Tom Luddy<\/a> and Dennis Doros and Amy Heller of Milestone Films<\/a>! Psst: Milestone also recently deposited their materials with WCFTR!) My point being: While Vogel\u2019s papers at WCFTR are of obvious interest to Vogelites far and wide, I\u2019d like to highlight how they might be used as points of departure for innumerable other research projects. In what follows I offer one such case in point: how materials in Vogel\u2019s papers can lend insights into postwar U.S. campus film societies, an area of film history \u2013 if you\u2019ll indulge me \u2013 that demands much further study! Who\u2019s ready to join me?<\/p>\n

First, let me set the stage. America\u2019s earliest film societies date to the early 1930s, taking inspiration from Parisian salons and London\u2019s Film Society founded in 1925 by future MoMA curator Iris Barry. Two short-lived societies in New York City in the first half of the 1930s \u2014\u00a0Film Forum and Film Society \u2013 are among the earliest documented iterations in the U.S<\/a>. In 1935, the Museum of Modern Art began distributing film prints which sprouted tentative growth. But it was not until after World War II \u2013 driven in large part by the growing adoption of 16mm projectors<\/a> \u2013 that film societies and film\u2019s use in educational contexts really took off. Cinema 16mm emerged in 1947 in parallel to broader efforts in the U.S. to build a nationwide network of local organizations to promote the use of film for adult education under the banner of the Film Council of America<\/a>. While this organization petered out by 1957, local film council movements lived on for decades. New York\u2019s Film Council lives on to this day<\/a>! In short, while the nature of postwar film clubs varied widely, they are an important antecedent to the academic study of film which would not cohere until the 1960s and \u201870s. (I highly recommend the book CinemaTexas Notes<\/em><\/a> about film studies and student-written program notes at the University of Texas-Austin!)<\/p>\n

Campus film societies also seem to have tentatively taken root by the 1950s; their popularity would explode in the 1960s and \u201870s supported by government investments in education that trinkled down to student programming budgets, as well as the ever-expanding availability of content \u2013 foreign art films and Hollywood feature films past and present \u2013 on 16mm made available by nontheatrical distributors such as Audio-Brandon, Films Incorporated, and Swank Motion Pictures, among others.<\/p>\n

That Dartmouth student film society materials made it to Vogel in New York and Philadelphia also suggest a broader network of exchange and sharing of ideas across an emerging generation of cinephiles.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dartmouth College is believed to have one of the oldest continually operating groups, dating back to 1949<\/a>. Incidentally, several booklets and flyers from Dartmouth are part of the Vogel papers at WCFTR. Examining these booklets offers a window into postwar film appreciation, the nature of what works were deemed \u2018significant\u2019 at various points in time, and the initiative students took to be their own programmers and showmen. That Dartmouth student film society materials \u2013 and others I will discuss below \u2013 made it to Vogel in New York and Philadelphia also suggest a broader network of exchange and sharing of ideas across an emerging generation of cinephiles. They are also simply pleasurable in their own right as vernacular objects. I personally adore this particular cover of a brochure from Winter 1978<\/a>, presumably drawn by a Dartmouth student:<\/p>\n