Wesleyan University looks like a film set. Nestled into the hills overlooking the Connecticut River, it sheds its brick and ivy smiles on the sylvan landscape. Students, looking more like throwbacks to the late1960’s, seem laconic, meandering from building to building, activity to activity. But, as we know so well from the movies, things are not always what they seem.
The soft sensibility of the campus belies the intensity of study here. Wesleyan is often harder to get into than Harvard, ranks in the top ten small liberal arts colleges year after year, and prides itself on being the home of the most eclectic liberal arts education in America.
Jeanine Basinger, Dean of the Film Studies Program, points out that students have had the option to major in film studies since the early 1970’s. As a consequence, she adds, the program is mature and predominates in New England. Though it is not a filmmaking school per se, students do make films and can do so on 16 mm, digital and virtual formats.
“Wesleyan offers professors with illustrious careers, an alumni base of well-placed professionals who provide an excellent network of connections and committed students who take their art and their liberal arts studies very seriously.”
According to Basinger, the typical Film Studies student, like the typical Wesleyan undergraduate in general, is atypical. “They most often will have double majors. And mind you, the film studies major is very rigorous, very rigorous. Still, most or our students will double major in things like physics, biology, anthropology, and chemistry. Some do double major in the more traditional English or drama, but the basic rule regarding Wesleyan film studies students is that there are no rules.”
Undergraduates at Wesleyan are required to study across the board in old-fashioned liberal arts. Their course of study is steeped in a strong tradition of respect for the importance of a broad background in history, language arts, drama, mathematics, sciences, government, and social sciences. Without this foundation, says Basinger, students would not know how to tell the stories their very creative minds are so capable of conjuring.
“Wesleyan students are not participants in their studies where the faculty lets them join in.” Adds Basinger. “They do it! Students are the creative force at Wesleyan. We prepare them for the business - you know, how to make your resume great, how to find jobs, how to make use of networking, etc. - but we have a commitment to the world of the museum and of academia.”
A new Center for Film Studies is under construction at Wesleyan. Phase I will be ready in May 2004 with the next phase opening the following year. The new Center will include a 429-seat, state-of-the-art theater with digital and film projectors, smaller theaters and screening rooms for the film and video projects, laboratories and editing suites with high end software and hardware, sound mixing facilities, etc. “This truly reflects thirty years of growth,” beams Basinger. “Students who choose Wesleyan will get the best facilities money can buy . . . and a thorough liberal arts education to boot.”
“We have a track record,” continues Basinger. “ Industry professionals hire our students because they know our grads bring with them a knowledge of the history of the motion picture industry, of film itself, of theater, music. Our graduates can handle the technology, and they have a context in which to place their knowledge.
Faculty members like American historian Richard Slotkin, author of GUNFIGHTER NATION: THE MYTH OF THE FRONTIER IN 20TH CENTURY AMERICA, provide depth to the curriculum.
Then, too, Wesleyan alums often return as faculty and bring their prestige back to the classroom. Jacob Brica, best known for having edited the current hit documentary LOST IN LA MANCHA, teaches production; Director Lisa D’Ambroski, teaches film aesthetics among other topics.
Several Wesleyan grads have become highly visible of late with current projects. Shari
Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini are currently on tour promoting AMERICAN SPLENDOR, produced by Ted Hope and funded by HBO Films, opening July 25, which got rave reviews at the Nantucket Film Festival in June.
Miguel Arteta, whose High Definition project CHUCK AND BUCK was a smash hit a few years ago, has just enjoyed renewed celebrity with his film THE GOOD GIRL, starring Jennifer Aniston, John C. Riley and Jake Guyllenhaal. Josh Wieden brought BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER to television, and Jem Cohen has produced and directed BENJAMIN SMOKE, which is making considerable waves.
“Wesleyan is the place where we wed history, theory and aesthetics to hard-core practice,” Basinger points out. “It’s a system that works.”
www.wesleyan.edu/filmstudies/major.htm