George Amberg and Robert Gessner Papers
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Abstract
The George Amberg and Robert Gessner Papers contain the personal and professional papers of George Amberg and Robert Gessner. The bulk of the collection was created by Gessner. The collection documents the development of university film education, the formation of The Society of Cinematologists, and Gessner's career as a screenwriter, novelist, and poet. Amberg's work at New York University (NYU), the University of Minnesota, and the Minneapolis School of Art is also documented.
Biographical Notes
Robert Gessner
Robert Gessner was a pioneer in film education, a film professor at NYU, and a published poet, novelist, and screenwriter.
Gessner was born October 23, 1907, in Escanaba, Michigan. He received a B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1929 and an M.A. from Columbia University in 1930. Gessner started teaching at NYU in 1930, replacing Thomas Wolfe as an English professor. In the early 1930s he was a screenwriter in Hollywood, and his book "Massacre" was made into a film by Warner Brothers in 1934. Gessner began teaching cinema studies in 1935 in NYU's Division of General Education, and in 1939 he taught the first cinema course for credit in a liberal arts college, "Cinema as a Literary Art," at Washington Square College. Gessner founded the Motion Picture Department at NYU in 1941, the first four-year film curriculum leading to a B.A. degree in motion picture studies in the United States.
Gessner's articles on cinema were published in The New York Times, Variety, Theater Arts, and other publications. His published books include: Massacre; A Survey of Today's American Indian (1931), Broken Arrow (1933), Upsurge (1933), Some of My Best Friends are Jews (1936), Here is my Home (1941), Treason (1944), Youth is the Time (1945) and The Moving Image, A Guide to Cinematic Literacy (1968). He won The New Republic International poetry contest in 1934. In 1959 he became the founding president of The Society of Cinematologists (now called the Society for Cinema and Media Studies) a professional organization of film educators, filmmakers, historians, critics, and scholars. He was the first visiting professor to lecture in Israel (at Hebrew University), and he also lectured at film centers around the world, including universities in Rome, Vienna, Poland, Paris, Yugoslavia, and England. He received two Ford Foundation grants: one to produce a series of experimental films at Harvard university in 1962-63, and one to lecture at film academies in Eastern Europe in 1962. In 1964 he was Chairman of the Jury at the International Film Festival in Cork, Ireland, and appeared on the CBS television program Camera Three. In 1966 he was a fellow at Kings College, Cambridge University. He finished his book The Moving Image, A Guide to Cinematic Literacy before he died in June 1968.
George Amberg
George Amberg received his Ph.D. from the University of Cologne in 1930. He was a curator in the Department of Theater Arts at the Museum of Modern Art (New York) from 1943-1948 and also worked as a photographer. He taught in the Division of General Education at NYU from 1948-1952, establishing the first course in experimental film ("New Frontiers in the Cinema") in 1950. He became a professor at the University of Minnesota and the Minneapolis School of the Arts, teaching a variety of humanities courses. His published works include: Art in Modern Ballet (1946), The Theater of Eugene Berman (1947), and Ballet in America: The Emergence of an American Art (1949), as well as many articles in publications such as Theater Arts, Interiors, and Graphis. He returned to NYU in 1966, becoming a professor of Cinema and the director of the graduate Cinema Program. In 1968 he became President of The Society for Cinematologists. He edited the encyclopedic New York Times Film Reviews, 1913-1970 (1971).
Sources:
The George Amberg and Robert Gessner Papers"Robert Gessner, Film Professor" published in the New York Times June 17, 1968
Arrangement
All series except Series IV (Records of The Society of Cinematologists)and Series VIII are arranged alphabetically. Series IV is arranged chronologically. When there was an original folder title, it is shown in quotes; otherwise, a title has been assigned to the folder based on its contents.
Original order has been maintained within each folder. The collection arrived at the NYU Archives in folders labeled with an alphanumeric code (A1, A2) on a label that obscured handwritten folder titles. There were no discernible series, and the creator's original order was not evident at the folder level; however, there was evidence that within each folder the original order had been maintained. The alphanumeric code has been written on the folders.
To gain control over the collection, it was grouped into 8 series:
- Correspondence
- Subject files, projects, proposals, and course materials on film and film education
- Biographical materials
- Records of the Society of Cinematologists
- Writings
- Films
- Non-English Material
- Scrapbooks
Scope and Content Note
The bulk of the material was created by Robert Gessner.
This collection covers the development of film education in the United States, The Society of Cinematologists, and Robert Gessner's career as an educator and writer. In addition to film, Robert Gessner wrote about Native American life in the United States, anti-Semitism, and labor issues.
Series I: Correspondence is divided into two subseries:
Sub-series A Amberg Correspondence: The bulk of the material is correspondence related to Amberg's film project "The Captive Eye," including notes from significant film industry figures regarding permission to use their work in the project.
Sub-series B Gessner Correspondence: Contains Gessner's professional correspondence related to film and film education, the cinema program at NYU, film festivals, and publishing.
Correspondence that was originally filed with subject files is in Series II, correspondence of The Society of Cinematologists is in Series IV, and correspondence originally filed with writings is in Series V.
Series II: Subject files, projects, proposals, and course materials on film and film education.
Contains both Amberg and Gessner subject files. The bulk of the material consists of published articles, press releases, clippings, and notes on films and directors, film and television education, film production, and film festivals that Amberg and Gessner used in their work. The series also contains proposals, notes, working papers, and some correspondence regarding projects including the American Cinema and Television Academy, and NYU's closed circuit television courses. Course materials include syllabi, exams, slide sheets, and lecture notes for courses in Cinema and the Humanities.
Series III: Biographical Materials is divided into two subseries:
Sub-series A: Amberg Biographical Material includes Amberg's curricula vitae from 1968
Sub-series B: Gessner Biographical Material includes reviews of Gessner's work, articles about his career, curricula vitae, and other biographical material.
Series IV: Records of the Society of Cinematologists
The Society of Cinematologists (now the Society for Cinema and Media Studies) is a professional organization founded in 1956 at MoMA's Third Annual Conference on Cinema. Its members include film educators, filmmakers, historians, critics and scholars. This series contains Society of Cinematologists board minutes, newsletters, and correspondence from the organization's founding and its early years, and Reminiscences of a Cinematologist, a narrative account of the Society by Robert Gessner.
Series V: Writings is divided into two subseries:
Sub-series A: The Writings of George Amberg includes Amberg's typescripts of screenplays and articles on film and ballet
Sub-series B: The Writings of Robert Gessner includes Gessner's manuscripts, typescripts, notebooks, and working papers for novels, poetry, screenplays, and articles. Also includes related correspondence as originally filed.
Series VI: Films
Nine cans of 35mm film elements, which are currently being processed and evaluated by the NYU library's Barbara Goldsmith Preservation and Conservation Department.
Series VII: Non-English Material
One box of unprocessed material including film posters, articles, and clippings in German, French, and Italian.
Series VIII: Scrapbooks
Two leather-bound scrapbooks containing articles, ephemera, and correspondence regarding the publication and critical reception of Robert Gessner's novels Traitor and Youth Is the Time; and one additional scrapbook compiled by Gessner on instruction at NYU.
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Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
This collection is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use materials in the collection in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date (if known); George Amberg and Robert Gessner Papers; MC 199; box number; folder number; New York University Archives, New York University Libraries.
Location of Materials
Provenance
The Robert Gessner Papers were donated to NYU by Doris Gessner in 1969. George Amberg oversaw the donation of the Gessner papers to NYU, and his papers were eventually intermixed with Gessner's. The George Amberg and Robert Gessner papers were transferred to the NYU Archives from the George Amberg Memorial Film Study Center (Tisch School of the Arts) in 2006. Robert Gessner's scrapbooks, comprising Series VIII of the collection, were transferred from the Fales Library and Special Collections at NYU in 2010. A third scrapbook (compiled by Gessner on instruction at NYU) was found in the New York University Archives clipping collection and integrated into this collection in April 2019.
About this Guide
Processing Information
A third scrapbook (compiled by Gessner on instruction at NYU) was found in the New York University Archives clipping collection and integrated into this collection by John Zarrillo in April 2019. Processing decisions made prior to April 2019 have not been recorded.