| Description | This series contains film course outlines, course programme and screening notes, timetables, letters, film catalogues, planning notes, and essays, for the period in which Dickinson taught at the Slade School of Fine Art.
[Thorold Dickinson joined the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London [UCL], in 1960, to begin a career teaching film in their new Film Department as Head of Film Studies - a role he kept for eleven years Dickinson taught courses in cinema from 1960 to 1971, with a variety of subjects covering different perspectives on film and the history of cinema.
The film showings became very popular, to the extent that it was rumoured that people were enroling on courses at the university in order to attend the screenings. Some of the films Dickinson showed had not been seen in the UK before being screened at UCL, and Dickinson made impressive efforts to obtain film reels from various countries in order to show his students. In addition to this, Dickinson's film courses would sometimes run in collaboration with other departments across UCL, including a course with the History Department, where A. J. P. Taylor contributed lectures in relation to the films shown.
It was whilst at Slade that Dickinson introduced the Slade Film History Register, which catalogued films throughout the UK that were of certain significance, such as newsreels or historical film. This later became the British Universities Newsreels Database (BUND), held at the British Universities Film and Video Council [BUFVC]. For further information go to http://www.bufvc.ac.uk/databases/newsreels/about/history.html
Whilst formally retiring from Slade, Dickinson continued to participate in the promotion of film education for several years. He also wrote 'A Discovery of Cinema' in 1971, much of the content and structure of which reflects the way he taught film at Slade.] |