Thinking About Movies

Film students throughout the world study film noir, but Saint Peter’s University is home to the man who wrote the book on it. Professor of English William Luhr, Ph.D., has authored and co-authored more than 10 books on film and literature throughout his career. The Jesuit educated professor is also a dynamic teacher who seamlessly connects his areas of expertise in a way that engages and inspires Saint Peter’s students.

You have taught at Saint Peter’s since 1977. Did you always intend on teaching?

Well, teaching and writing. I like it—I like dealing with students. I like a job that allows me to engage in things that give me pleasure. My passions are film and literature, so it’s a good fit.

As a professor of both film and literature, do you find that you make connections between the two in your lessons?

It happens all of the time. As a portion of my Victorian Literature class, I’m showing the Hughes brothers’ film, “From Hell.” It’s about the Jack the Ripper era and it has some very interesting things to say involving racism and class structure in the Victorian period.

A simple hook on which to hang it—it’s a film by the Hughes brothers; two guys whose careers before this have been entirely based on contemporary African American masculinity. For them to suddenly leap into a film that takes place in Victorian England, in which there is not a single black character, and yet the film is centrally about race is quite remarkable. It’s about Victorian England at the height of its power, and the dominant race is literally consuming itself. It’s a strong statement about racism.

Which of your books did you enjoy writing the most?

Probably Raymond Chandler because it’s come back so many times. It came out in a second edition years after I wrote it. I just wrote a piece for an Italian journal because they had a conference in Verona on Raymond Chandler 50 years after his death. They asked me to do the keynote address so it enabled me to dive back into the work I did and I still find it very interesting. The work on Chandler (a novelist and screenwriter who influenced the American hard-boiled detective fiction) helped a lot with the work on my film noir book. It was probably my most fun book.

Why does film move you?

I guess that I love it because I love it. I’ve enjoyed it since I was a child. It’s entertainment for me, but it also makes me rethink what’s going on around me. I enjoy it culturally, I enjoy it aesthetically—it keeps the balls bouncing.

Who is your favorite filmmaker?

I’d say my top three are John Ford, Jean Renoir and Blake Edwards. I co-authored two books on Edwards. He was Hollywood from birth. For me he was a barometer of mass media for the past three quarters of a century. He died last year, but for the last 25 years or so when he was making a film, he would invite me out to spend time watching it being made.

What’s it like being on the set of a major motion picture?

It’s endlessly fascinating. They taught me many practical things. One of my first revelations was how boring a production can be to an outsider because it’s mostly standing around. Secondly, most of film production is a blue-collar job. Most of the people on the set are the technicians. Most of the time, the only person that knows how the whole thing fits together is the director. So they all have incredibly interesting things to tell.

I would spend an afternoon with Bruce Willis or a cameraman and say, “treat me like a three-year-old—why did you just do what you did?” It was just fascinating how many of them didn’t know what the end product would look like—it’s not what they were there for. They simply focused intensely and professionally on their piece of the mosaic. You’re there for a week witnessing constant work being done, and when you see the final film, it was like four minutes of what was shot.

One of your books is about film noir, can you define it for us?

It’s a genre. For me, it’s the most protean and influential form of all American genres, even more so than the Western. It appeared during World War II, and for me it very much depicts the dark side of the American Dream. Films noir aren’t happy, they don’t have happy endings (although many are darkly witty) and they’re not about success stories. They don’t fit the traditional paradigm. They are systematically stories of failure, depression, betrayal and torment and they appeared at a time when these topics were transgressive. They’re basically the flip side of the “Greatest Generation.”

How do you react to your students enjoying a classic film?

It’s a rush. It’s an absolute rush. To have them laugh at all of the right places. When we’re walking out of the theater I’ll say, “What are you doing, Mary?” and she’ll say, “I’m texting my friend to tell her that she has to see this film.”  For these films to still have potency with them, it’s a great rush.

William Luhr, Ph.D., is a professor of English at Saint Peter’s University. He received a B.A. in English from Fordham University and a M.A. and Ph.D. from New York University. Other works by the film scholar include The Coen Brothers’ Fargo, Raymond Chandler and Film and Thinking About Movies: Watching, Questioning, Enjoying, co-authored with Peter Lehman. Dr. Luhr also serves as co-chair of the Columbia University Seminar on Cinema and Interdisciplinary Interpretation.