The life and career of vanguard independent filmmaker Shirley Clarke and the socially conscious films of Charles Burnett will be the topics explored by Laurence Kardish and James O. Naremore, respectively, who have been named 2013 Academy Film Scholars by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Academy's Educational Grants Committee, which selected Kardish and Naremore on the basis of their manuscript proposals, will present the first half of the scholars' $25,000 grant awards at a private luncheon on Monday, March 17.
Kardish is Senior Curator Emeritus at the Museum of Modern Art's Department of Film. His project, Shirley Clarke: The Original Chelsea Girl, is the first book-length critical biography of the visionary New York film and video artist whose unconventional subjects and approaches challenged entrenched social mores, and whose creative activism expanded the aesthetic possibilities of filmmaking. Naremore is Chancellors' Professor Emeritus in the English department at Indiana University. His project, The Cinema of Charles Burnett, is a two-part book that will place Burnett's work in the contexts of the Hollywood film industry and the work of other black filmmakers, with special attention to his leading role in the "L.A. Rebellion" of the 1970s. The book also will offer a complete, annotated filmography, with detailed analyses of Burnett's major works. Kardish and Naremore join 13 other Academy film scholars who are currently working on projects.Videos