film directors such as Orson Welles and John Ford
Leger Grindon is the author of Shadows on the Past, [1994, Temple University Press] which addresses the representation of history in fiction film focusing particularly on Hollywood and Western European filmmaking.
His essays and reviews have appeared in journals such as Film Quarterly, Cinema Journal, Film History, and The Velvet Light Trap. He served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the Society of Cinema Studies from 1990-92. Currently he is working on a project about the boxer and boxing in Hollywood cinema.
Recent scholarship includes:
Book review of Rites of Realism: Essays on Corporeal Cinema edited by Ivone Margulies for Cineaste, 30:1, Winter 2004.
“1986: Movies Chart the Fissures in Reagan’s America,” an essay in American Cinema of the 1980s: Themes and Variations edited by Stephen Prince forthcoming from Rutgers University Press
"Art and Genre in Raging Bull" essay for critical anthology on Raging Bull edited by Kevin Hayes for Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Film review of “Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson.” for Cineaste, 30:2, Spring 2005
“New Perspectives on Film Genre History,” a paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Society of Cinema and Media Studies, London, April 2005.
“Analyzing the History of Film Genres,” an essay for the Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 24:5, (forthcoming, 2007)
Film review essay on “Million Dollar Baby,” under consideration at Film Quarterly.
"Tracing an Influence: From Rocco and His Brothers to Raging Bull," an essay under review at the Journal of Film and Video.
Professor Grindon has essays on The Iron Man [1931] in preparation for a critical anthology on Tod Browning, and an essay on Every Which Way But Loose [1978] in preparation for a critical anthology on Clint Eastwood. He will be delivering a paper entitled, “Q & A: Style and Meaning in the Documentary Interview,” at the 12th Visible Evidence conference on documentary film in Montreal in August 2005.
In addition, during the past year he has served as a faculty associate with Men's Tennis team. Leger is an avid tennis player, enjoys cycling, and still loves going to the movies. He is a husband and a father of a teenage daughter who has enjoyed seeing Singin’ in the Rain too many times to count. Professor Grindon earned his Ph.D. at New York University [1986] and has been on the faculty at Middlebury College since 1987.
Interested in exploring film studies? Two books I would recommend are
Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies by Robert Sklar
Making Movies by Sidney Lumet
FAVORITE FILMS
(In order of release date)
M [1931, Germany, directed by Fritz Lang, starring Peter Lorre]
The Rules of the Game [1939, France, directed by Jean Renoir, starring Renoir and Marcel Dalio]
Citizen Kane [1941, US, directed by Orson Welles, starring Welles and Joseph Cotton]
Three Hollywood Westerns directed by John Ford: Stagecoach [1939, starring John Wayne], My Darling Clementine [1946, starring Henry Fonda], The Searchers [1956, starring John Wayne]
Late Spring [1949, Japan, directed by Yasujiro Ozu starring Setsuko Hara and Chisu Ryu]
Vertigo [1958, US, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak]
My Life to Live, aka Vivre Sa Vie [1962, France, directed by Jean Luc Godard starring Ana Karina]
8 1/2 [1963, Italy directed by Federico Fellini starring Marcello Mastroianni]
2001: A Space Odyssey [1968, US/UK, directed by Stanley Kubrick]
I always have trouble picking a final title to make a list of 10 - candidates for the last spot include Charlie Chaplin's 12 Mutual short films made between 1916-17, October [1927, USSR, directed by Sergei Eisenstein], The Man With a Movie Camera [1929, USSR, directed by Dziga Vertov], Sunset Blvd. [1950, US, directed by Billy Wilder starring William Holden], 3 Italian films directed by Roberto Rossellini: Paisan [1946], Voyage to Italy [1953], The Rise to Power of Louis XIV [1966], The Seven Samurai [1954, Japan, directed by Akira Kurosawa], L'Avventura [1960, Italy directed by Michelangelo Antonioni starring Monica Vitti.
MORE RECENT FAVORITES [from the last decade or so]
The Piano [1993, New Zealand, directed by Jane Campion starring Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel]
Groundhog Day [1993, US, directed by Harold Ramis starring Bill Murray]
Pulp Fiction [1994, US, directed by Quentin Tarantino starring John Travolta]
Fallen Angels [1995, Hong Kong, directed by Wong Kar-wai]
Sense and Sensibility [1995, UK, directed by Ang Lee starring Emma Thompson]
LA Confidential [1997, US, directed by directed by Curtis Hanson starring Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey]
The Thin Red Line [1998, US, directed by Terrence Malick]
Topsy-Turvy [1999, UK, directed by Mike Leigh]
High Fidelity [2000, US, directed by Stephen Frears starring John Cusack]
Yi-Yi [2000, Taiwan, directed by Edward Yang]
Flowers of Shanghai [1998, Taiwan, directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien]
Far From Heaven [2002, US, directed by Todd Haynes starring Julianne Moore]
Mystic River [2003, US, directed by Clint Eastwood starring Sean Penn]