Chicago Center for Film Study

Abstract

CHICAGO CENTER FOR FILM STUDY: ORIGIN AND HISTORY One day in August, I was sitting in a restaurant during the Montreal World Film Festival when Jim Wall, the long-time editor, now retired, of the Christian Century, asked me about the origin and history of the Chicago Center for Film Study. And would I put down my recollections of how it all began. "Ask me an easier question" - was my immediate response. After all, the story of the Center for Film Study (CFS) goes back forty years or more. To unravel all the salient facts and many colourful details would require access to the archives of the Adult Education Centers (AEC) in Chicago, the Catholic umbrella organization that nourished the growth of the CFS. And I am not sure those archives even exist. Still, this is the place to start. Back in the August of 1962, three years after my...