University of Virginia Library

Washington And Lee
To Host Film Study

A two-part Symposium on the
Contemporary Motion Picture,
drawing critics and outstanding film
makers from the U.S. and abroad,
will be held at Washington and Lee
University during April.

The symposium will be the first
film study event of such a broad
scope ever held in this area,
according to O.W. Riegel, W&L
professor of journalism and communications
and symposium coordinator.
It will be held in two
segments April 13-14 and April
20-21.

Scheduled to participate in the
program are such persons as Melvin
Van Peebles, leading Negro film
director who recently completed
"Watermelon Man"; French filmmaker
Philippe Labro, a journalist
and former Washington and Lee
student; Frederick Wiseman, a foremost
American maker of documentaries;
Andrew Sarris, film critic of
the Village Voice; Bosley Crowther,
film critic for many years of The
New York Times and now consultant
to Columbia Pictures and
Gordon Hitchens, editor of Film
Comment magazine.

In addition, films and film
makers, including John Hancock,
from the short film program of the
American Film Institute; films and
film makers from the National Film
Board of Canada, and underground
films will be featured during the
wide-ranging program.

The symposium will be under
auspices of the Arthur and Margaret
Glasgow Foundation for the promotion
of the art of expression.
The Glasgow Endowment program,
which was inaugurated at Washington
and Lee in 1958-59, has
brought such distinguished literary
persons as Katherine Anne Porter,
Edward Albee and Robert Penn
Warren to the W&L campus. This
will mark the first time the program
has covered the film medium.

"The purposes of the symposium
are to explore the present state
and future prospects of the motion
picture as a creative medium, and
to provide knowledge of film and
film making through the viewing of
representative new films and dialogue
with film makers and critics,"
Professor Riegel said.

"Although the program is designed
primarily for Washington
and Lee students, we will be glad,
because of the unusual opportunity
provided by this event, to have
students from other colleges, young
film makers, or other persons
seriously interested in the film
medium attend the symposium,"
Riegel commented.

Part of the symposium will
consist of screening of films, with
comments by the films' makers.
Included will be two films which
haven't yet been released in this
country Labro's "Tout Peut
Arriver" ("Anything Can Happen"),
which included several
scenes shot in Rockbridge county
near W&L; and Van Peebles'
"Watermelon Man."

A meeting will also be scheduled
for teachers who are using films in
their instruction, Riegel noted.

The April 13-14 segment will
include an introduction to the film
art today, and looks at the foreign
theatrical film (using France as an
example), and at the independent
young American film maker. Topics
to be offered April 20 and 21 will
be the American theatrical film, the
experimental and underground
film, and the documentary.

Arrangements have been made
to use the State Theatre of
Lexington for some screenings.
Other sessions will be held on the
Washington and Lee campus.