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| Gerald Mast | |
|---|---|
| Name | Gerald Mast |
| Birth date | 1940 |
| Death date | 1993 |
| Occupation | Film historian, critic, professor |
| Nationality | American |
Gerald Mast was an American film scholar, critic, and professor who helped establish film studies as a rigorous academic field in the United States. He wrote influential books and essays on film theory, auteur studies, and cinematic history, and taught at major universities where he mentored generations of scholars and filmmakers. Mast’s work connected analysis of individual films with broader artistic and cultural movements, often situating directors, actors, studios, and movements in historical and aesthetic contexts.
Mast was born in 1940 in the United States and pursued higher education that combined literature and cinema studies, attending institutions that included Dartmouth College, Yale University, and other universities known for humanities programs. He studied under scholars associated with New Criticism, Film Theory, and Comparative Literature, and engaged with archival collections like those at the Library of Congress and film repositories such as the Museum of Modern Art Film Study Center. His early training connected him to mentors and peers affiliated with institutions including Columbia University, Princeton University, and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Mast joined the faculty of prominent universities, teaching in departments that interacted with centers like the American Film Institute, the British Film Institute, and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. He held positions at institutions including Carleton College and later at the University of Chicago, where he worked alongside scholars from the Department of Cinema Studies, the Department of English, and allied programs in Art History and Comparative Literature. Mast participated in conferences organized by the Society for Cinema and Media Studies and contributed to journals such as Film Quarterly, Cinema Journal, Sight and Sound, and The New York Review of Books. He served on committees linked to grants from organizations like the National Endowment for the Humanities and collaborated with archival projects at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Mast authored books and essays that shaped discussions around directors, stars, genres, and cinematic form. His major publications include works on figures associated with studios such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, and independent movements tied to the French New Wave and Italian Neorealism. He wrote about directors and artists connected to Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Frank Capra, and he analyzed performances by stars like Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Marlon Brando, and Bette Davis. Mast’s scholarship engaged with methodologies promoted by theorists at Princeton University and University of California, Berkeley, drawing on ideas from figures linked to Auteur Theory, Formalism, and Psychoanalytic Criticism. His contributions extended to anthologies and edited volumes alongside editors from Harvard University Press, Oxford University Press, and Routledge.
As a teacher, Mast influenced students who went on to work at institutions such as New York University, University of Southern California, Columbia University, University of California, Los Angeles, and Goldsmiths, University of London. He supervised dissertations that later appeared in journals like Screen and The Journal of Film and Video, and his pedagogical approach connected film history with close readings of films screened at venues including the Telluride Film Festival, the Cannes Film Festival, and the Venice Film Festival. Mast lectured at museums and centers such as the Getty Research Institute, the Smithsonian Institution, and the British Film Institute, and he frequently collaborated with curators from the Museum of Modern Art for retrospective programs.
Mast received fellowships and honors from organizations including the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He was recognized at academic gatherings sponsored by the Modern Language Association and the American Comparative Literature Association and received citations from film societies such as the Film Society of Lincoln Center and trade organizations like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His books were adopted for course lists at universities including Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, and Stanford University.
Mast lived in academic communities in the Midwestern and Northeastern United States, engaging with local cultural institutions such as the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Chicago Film Archives. He died in 1993, and memorials and tributes were held at universities and cultural centers including the University of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art, attended by colleagues from institutions like Carleton College and New York University.
Category:American film historians Category:1940 births Category:1993 deaths