Jeanine Basinger

Jeanine Basinger (born February 3, 1936, Ravenden, Arkansas ) is an American film historian who was the Corwin-Fuller professor of film studies at Wesleyan University and the founder and curator of the university's cinematic archives.

Early life and education Jeanine Basinger was raised in Brookings, South Dakota. She first became interested in film at the age of 11 when she worked as an usher at The College Theater.

Career Basinger first arrived in Middletown, Connecticut, where Wesleyan University is located, in 1960 as marketing director of American Education Publications, In the late 1960s, art professor John Frazer recruited her into helping him set up the university's first "serious film course" at a time when it was, according to Sam Wasson, unclear what that meant. a member of the Steering Committee of the National Center for Film and Video Preservation, and one of the Board of Advisors for the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers. On February 11, 2005, she was named to the board of directors of the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. She has been said to have built Wesleyan's Film Studies program into one of the ten best film schools in the world. Graduates include Akiva Goldsman, Joss Whedon, Michael Bay, Paul Weitz, Laurence Mark, Paul Schiff, Gary Walkow, Alex Kurtzman, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Toby Emmerich, Nick Meyer, Marc Shmuger, Rick Nicita, Bradley Fuller, Dana Delany, Stephen Schiff, Rodger Grossman, Toni Ross, Bradley Whitford, Sam Wasson, Domenica Cameron-Scorsese, Liz Garcia, Jon Turteltaub, Owen Renfroe, Jeffrey Lane, Ed Decter, Zak Penn, Jeremy Arnold and Miguel Arteta.

She has appeared in numerous documentaries and in a dramatic role in A Better Way to Die (2000). In 2006 she participated in Wanderlust, a documentary film on road movies and their effect on American culture.

Awards 1996 Wesleyan Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching 2005 Governor's Arts and Tourism Award from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the American Film Institute on June 7, 2006 2008 Theatre Library Association Award for The Star Machine 2013 Wesleyan Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching 2024 Robert Osborne Award

Works

Books The World War II Combat Film: Anatomy of a Genre (1985, 2003) Anthony Mann: A Critical Study The It's a Wonderful Life Book Shirley Temple (1975) Lana Turner (1976) Gene Kelly (1976) A Woman's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women 1930-1960 (1993) American Cinema: 100 Years of Filmmaking (companion book for a PBS series). Silent Stars (1999) The Star Machine, Alfred A. Knopf (2007) . About the height of the studio system in the Golden Age from the 1930s to the 1950s. I Do and I Don't: A History of Marriage in the Movies (2013) The Movie Musical! (2019)

Audio commentaries The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, with film historian Kenneth Geist Gigi, with actress Leslie Caron In This Our Life It (1927 film) It's a Wonderful Life (Criterion laserdisc) Jezebel Laura, with composer David Raksin The Philadelphia Story Pearl Harbor, with director Michael Bay Sergeant York The Tall T Three Coins in the Fountain Week-End in Havana The Wild One