{"id":14535,"date":"2011-07-04T20:37:58","date_gmt":"2011-07-05T01:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/?p=14535"},"modified":"2011-07-08T10:03:42","modified_gmt":"2011-07-08T15:03:42","slug":"robert-sklar-historian-of-film-and-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/2011\/07\/04\/robert-sklar-historian-of-film-and-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Sklar, historian of film and culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

KT, Adrienne Harris, and Robert Sklar. Beijing, 1988.<\/em><\/p>\n

We have just learned of the death of Professor Robert Sklar after a bicycling accident.<\/p>\n

This is a great loss. Bob was a scholar of immense energy and keen intelligence. His books will endure for a very long time, built as they are on careful scholarship and imaginative interpretation. Bob’s background in American Studies made him a pungent cultural historian of cinema long before Cultural Studies became a subfield of film studies. A researcher of old-fashioned virtues, he wrote with a transparency and vivacity that scholars seldom muster. He also didn’t shrink from political criticism, as seen in some of his work for Cineaste<\/em>, a journal with which he was identified for many years.<\/p>\n

Bob was a down-to-earth, good-humored guy. When David taught for a semester at NYU in 1979, Bob was a great boss, warning that one had to know every department’s “folkways.” When we were invited to China to lecture, the genial presence of Bob and Adrienne made it a trip we’ll always remember–not least for Bob’s daily quest to find a Times<\/em> so he could check on baseball scores. This remarkable man will be much missed.<\/p>\n

Matt Singer’s tribute to Robert Sklar is at IFC here.<\/a><\/p>\n

PS 6 July:<\/strong> See also \u00a0Frances Guerin’s<\/a>, Eric Kohn’s<\/a>, and Jim Hoberman’s<\/a> tributes to Bob.<\/p>\n

PPS 8 July:<\/strong> See Richard Allen’s comprehensive tribute on the SCMS site<\/a>, and the Variety<\/em> story as well<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KT, Adrienne Harris, and Robert Sklar. Beijing, 1988. We have just learned of the death of Professor Robert Sklar after a bicycling accident. This is a great loss. Bob was a scholar of immense energy and keen intelligence. His books will endure for a very long time, built as they are on careful scholarship and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film-scholarship","category-people-we-like"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14535"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14557,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14535\/revisions\/14557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}