Emile de Antonio: Radical Filmmaker in Cold War America

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments Writing this book has been a long process, and I have incurred many debts of gratitude, beginning with the professors with whom I worked in the American Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin. Doug Kellner encouraged this project when it was little more than an idea. Now the first holder of the George F. Kneller Chair in Philosophy of Education at the University of California at Los Angeles, Doug graciously made available his own collection of papers on Emile de Antonio, read through several versions of this manuscript with seemingly unfeigned enthusiasm, and offered a productive blend of encouragement and criticism. Mark Smith humanized the combine known as graduate school with his candor and good cheer. Bill Stott offered good advice on all sorts of matters and patiently explained the difference between well-crafted prose and nonsense. Ira Abrams, now chair of film studies at Columbia College in Chicago, guided me through the intricacies of documentary filmmaking and, like any good film director, told me to never lose sight of the story. Finally , Robert M. Crunden was an invaluable intellectual resource and good friend until his death in March 1999, just a few days before I completed the final manuscript. Bob was a demanding teacher, a prolific cultural historian, and a wise mentor, and he will be missed greatly. The support of the University of Texas, which generously provided a 1993–1994 University Fellowship, allowed for more than a year of uninterrupted research, including a productive venture into the extensive de Antonio archive at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research at the State Historical xi xii Acknowledgments Society of Wisconsin on the Madison campus of the University of Wisconsin. For unrestricted access to this archive, I would like to thank Nancy de Antonio, who has been unflaggingly gracious in offering her assistance. For answering numerous questions about Emile de Antonio, I would like to thank especially Dr. William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Kathy Boudin, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and the late Leo Castelli. I would like to express my gratitude to my friends in the American Studies Department at the University of Texas and elsewhere, especially those brave souls who offered their services as proofreaders and whose suggestions saved me time and effort—Todd Basch, Robert Byington, Ted Hamm, John Logan, Jonathan Silverman, Christopher Shipman, Norman Stolzoff, Richard Watson, and Drew Wood. I must single out Todd, Norman , and especially Jon for special praise. Each labored far beyond the call of friendly duty. Their early support was as essential to the completion of this book as that of friends and colleagues in Oklahoma, my new home, where Ben Alpers, John Bruce, Joan Cuccio, Julia Ehrhardt, John Feaver, Ann Frankland, Morris Foster, Julie Gozan, Sandy Huguenin, Stephanie Jung, Tom Keck, Ari Kelman, Leslie Kelman, Josh Piker, Karl Rambo, Francesca Sawaya, Karen Schutjer, and others are creating an intellectual milieu that defies stereotypes about the windswept heartland. Publishing this book with the University of Wisconsin Press has been a delight. Associate Director Steve Salemson and his colleagues are keeping alive an older model of publishing, one that includes professionalism, courtesy, and intellectualism at all levels of the institutional hierarchy. In particular, I must mention Polly Kummel, who provided copyediting that was both thorough and insightful. I am a fortunate author to be in such hands. Finally, on a more personal note, I would like to thank my parents, Thomas and Joyce Lewis, who have long supported my unaccountable forays into the not-so-distant past. Without their encouragement much of this would not have been feasible. And most of all I would like to thank an extraordinary friend and Acknowledgments xiii partner: Circe Sturm, an anthropologist with a poet’s sense of language , who read each chapter meticulously and offered invaluable advice and support of both an intellectual and emotional nature. For her loving interest in this project and its author, no words of thanks could suffice. I dedicate this book to her. Emile de Antonio ...