The Norman Transcript

March 18, 2010

Film scholar to look at decade's work

pop staff
The Norman Transcript

Norman — Film scholar Dr. Elaine Bapis will speak noon April 1 in room 324 of Wallace Old Science Hall on the University of Oklahoma campus. Her topic will be “American Cinema As a Force of Social Change, 1965-75.” 

Dr. Bapis is the guest of the OU Film & Video Studies Program and the OU College of Continuing Education. An adjunct professor of film and literature at the University of Utah, she will conclude her presentation with a book signing for her recently published study, "Camera and Action: American Cinema as a Force of Social Change 1965-1975.”

“Dr. Bapis has that ability to write intelligently and perceptively about film for both film students but also for a general audience interested in the role of film in American culture,” said Dr. Andrew Horton, Jeanne H. Smith Professor of Film & Video Studies.

Bapis’ talk, like her book, will cover a variety of perspectives in discussing films like "The Graduate,” “Alice’s Restaurant,” “Little Big Man,” “The Godfather,” “M*A*S*H,” “Midnight Cowboy” and “Easy Rider," including generation, gender and ethnicity.

“These pictures memorialized a period when adversarial and unsettling narratives were a popular form of advocacy,” she said.

The event is free and open to the public, and pizza and soft drinks will be served for those attending.   

For more information, call the OU FVS office at 324-3020 or e-mail fvs@ou.edu.