Gerald Mast (May 13, 1940 – September 1, 1988) was an author, film historian, and member of the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

faculty. He was a contributor to the modern discipline of

film studies Film studies is an academic discipline that deals with various theoretical, historical, and critical approaches to cinema as an art form and a medium. It is sometimes subsumed within media studies and is often compared to television studies. ...

and film history.

Life and career

Mast was born in Los Angeles in 1940; his family included his mother, Bessie, and Linda, his sister. He attended the

, where he received his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in English. He taught at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

, Oberlin College, and the City University of New York, before joining the faculty of his alma mater in 1978. He chaired the Department of English Language and Literature, and his donation of 300 film prints established the university's Film Study Center and Film Archive. The

university press A university press is an academic publishing house specializing in monographs and scholarly journals. Most are nonprofit organizations and an integral component of a large research university. They publish work that has been reviewed by schola ...

published several of his books on the history and critical analysis of film. His works were influential in the development of the academic study of film history, including the application of the Chicago School of literary criticism to film analysis, and several of his books, including ''A Short History of the Movies'' and ''Film Theory and Criticism'', have been widely incorporated into university

programs.

Death and legacy

On September 1, 1988, Mast, age 48, died at Bernard Mitchell Hospital from complications of AIDS. At a time when public figures in the arts often remained unwilling to be associated with the disease, Mast requested that his obituaries include his cause of death. In a retrospective in ''

Cinema Journal The ''Journal of Cinema and Media Studies'' (formerly ''Cinema Journal'' and ''The Journal of the Society of Cinematologists'') is the official academic journal of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (formerly the Society for Cinema Studies). ...

'', Tag Gallagher compared him to French film critic

Jean Mitry Jean-René Pierre Goetgheluck Le Rouge Tillard des Acres de Presfontaines, whose pseudonym was Jean Mitry (; 7 November 1904 – 18 January 1988), was a French film theorist, critic and filmmaker, a co-founder of France's first film society, and, ...

, and described him as America's "film-scholar laureate".

Selected works

*''A Short History of the Movies'' (1971) *''The Comic Mind: Comedy and the Movies'' (1973) *''Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings'' (1974) *''Film/Cinema/Movie: A Theory of Experience'' (1977) *''The Movies in Our Midst: Documents in the Cultural History of Film in America'' (1982) *''Howard Hawks, Storyteller'' (1982) *''Can't Help Singin': The American Musical on Stage and Screen'' (1987) *''Bringing Up Baby: Howard Hawks Director" ed. (1989)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mast, Gerald American film historians American male non-fiction writers Film theorists University of Chicago alumni University of Chicago faculty 1940 births 1988 deaths AIDS-related deaths in Illinois New York University faculty Oberlin College faculty City University of New York faculty 20th-century American historians