This year's scholar-in-residence, Professor of English Mark Bates, is bringing film front and center with a series focused on director and screenwriter Samuel Fuller. The series will run throughout the 2023/2024 academic year and include a selection of films produced, written and directed by the Worcester-raised filmmaker.
Fuller's work, which spans six decades, is an "in your face" journey through hard hitting topics such as war and race. A prolific creator, Fuller was also an actor, novelist and cartoonist. He was raised in Worcester in the 1910s, by his parents who were Jewish immigrants from Russia.
"Fuller's films talked about race in a way that not many people were doing at the time. He also intentionally integrated his cast. While people of color weren't usually in starring roles, they were cast as well-rounded characters instead of stereotypes that were common during the time period," Bates said.
Each film in the series will be introduced by Bates, who teaches the course A Survey of Hollywood Film, and be followed by an open audience discussion.
Because Fuller's work covers topics that are still relevant to us today such as race, Bates said that the film series is an opportunity to have an open dialogue about important issues. He also commented that this is another way to acknowledge the cultural contributions of people from Worcester.
The first event of the series will be held on October 26 at 5:30 p.m. in HLC 101 with a screening of the Emil Weiss documentary "Falkenau, Vision of the Impossible" (1988), which includes interviews with Samuel Fuller, in addition to the footage Fuller shot at the liberation of the Falkenau concentration camp in 1945 while serving as an infantry corporal in the 1st Infantry Division.
For more information, contact Mark Bates at mbates@qcc.mass.edu.