Bill's classes were a pretty heady challenge from this kid from a Southern Oregon cow-town, and many was the time I bristled at his embracing of the auteur theory as he introduced me to his own brand of critical thinking, in an attempt to cultivate and encourage our own, as it applied to filmmakers as diverse as Alfred Hitchcock, Jean-Marie Straub, Fritz Lang, Glauber Rocha, Howard Hawks, Luchino Visconti, Werner Herzog, Edgar G. Ulmer, Robert Altman, Jean Renoir, Josef von Sternberg, Francis Ford Coppola and just about every other filmmaker whom I either knew before entering his classroom or have come to grips with on my own educational journey ever since.
And as I would quickly discover, those classes were no easy A's-- Bill demanded that you really put yourself out there and apply everything you could muster from your experience to come to an understanding of these directors and their films, and those were practices which I certainly like to think have stood me in good stead and someone who occasionally writes about films, but even more importantly as someone who makes his way through a life where thinking for yourself has always been, and has come to be even more so, a very precious skill.
Bill was a stern teacher in that he never let you rest on your presumptions, and I was witness to more than one instance of a student getting the sharp end of the stick from him when they chose to regurgitate familiar platitudes about his objects of study rather than dare to harvest an original thought for themselves. But he was also an extremely welcoming presence as a professor, and his insights about how classic Hollywood films could be art instead of just commodities or nostalgia fixations were eye-opening in the best way. This sometimes intimidating man invited me on several occasions to drop by his office and talk about film and life, and those times are among my most cherished memories of being a college student; they were fun, illuminating conversations, as key to the expansion of my theretofore relatively narrow world and getting crucial exercise in sharpening thought as any class I ever attended, including his.
I recall one afternoon, when I was feeling the pressure of getting my credits together in preparation for graduation, when we sat in his office and talked about Walter Hill-- The Long Riders had just come out, and we were both admirers. During that visit he also described at length his good fortune in coming across the oversized poster (was it a two-sheet?) for Rooster Cogburn-- not a great movie, he was quick to acknowledge (and I was quick to agree), but being a man who admired John Ford there was room in his heart and his critical perspective for John Wayne, and it tickled him that the poster was one in which the title under which the movie was eventually released had been substituted with the legend Rogue River, the Southern Oregon river where the film was shot and on which much of its action takes place. (I have no idea whether or not this was ever a working title for the film, and an Internet search for the poster yielded nothing. But it was pretty clear it didn't matter a damn to Bill or to me as I listened to him wax on enthusiastically about the prize that helped make his office unique.)
During my senior year under his tutelage, as if I was being rewarded (it certainly felt like it), Bill captained near full quarters on Coppola and Altman, and during that period he more than once appealed to my ego by referring to me, in private and in class, as "our resident expert on The Godfather," even consulting me to help resolve the issue of what characters were ported over, backward in time, from the 1940s of the first movie to the 1920s Little Italy section of the second-- the question was regarding whether one character in The Godfather Part II was a young version of Sal Tessio, and my wisdom was accepted when it was determined that the character of Genco, played by Frank Sivero, was causing the confusion, likely due to a presumptive resemblance (it must have been the brow) to what one could imagine a young Abe Vigoda looking like.
And I will always be grateful to him for the intense study afforded to what emerged during this time as my favorite movie, Nashville. Our in-class sessions examining and discussing Altman's masterpiece were a whirlwind of excitement and critical stimulation for me and helped cement Altman as my favorite director. I'll never forget Bill's remarks when we projected the film's harrowing, exhilarating finale in the classroom the day after seeing the entirety of the film collectively in our assigned lecture hall. After Barbara Jean is assassinated and the shocked crowd resuscitates to the strains of Albuquerque's rendition of "It Don't Worry Me," that crowd eventually joining in with her, Bill stopped the projected and proclaimed, "If you can watch that scene and not be moved to tears, you're a stronger person than I am."
I also remember a fellow student daring to bring a copy of Pauline Kael's Reeling, to that classroom discussion, the book which featured the reprint of her controversial rave for the film, and I readied myself for fireworks-- given Bill's endorsement of the auteur theory, it was no surprise that he favored Andrew Sarris and The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929-1968 over Kael's writing. But instead, Bill noticed the book, acknowledged it and even discussed Kael's thoughts briefly, and as far as I know that student still passed the class. It was also during this week that Bill afforded me an opportunity that I have never since duplicated-- I was able to attend the 7:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon screenings of Nashville, so scheduled for those students who might not be able to attend the evening screening, as well as that regular 7:00 p.m. evening screening, making this the one and only time I've ever managed to see the same movie three times in one day, and I'm so glad it was this one.
Bill Cadbury was the best sort of influence on me, both as a student given as much to arguing the interpretations he lent to any given work as to absorbing them, and as the human being I eventually became in the wake of experiencing his classes ad learning to think for myself. I will never forget the challenges, the revelations, the affirmations and the criticism he offered to my work, and I am grateful that he was the furthest thing from a rubber stamp on my academic achievements (or anyone else's) that I could have wished for, even during those time when I might actually have preferred that rubber stamp. He helped provide a very valuable education for me in the art form I have loved ever since I can remember, expanding my knowledge and leading me onto paths where I would discover for myself just why that art form was important, its endless possibilities, and what it could ultimately mean to me, if I'd just keep my mind open.
Thank you, Bill, for opening my mind. Happy birthday!
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