University of Chicago-History

The University of Chicago's Documentary Films Group is the oldest student film society in the United States. It had its beginnings in the early 1930s when a group of students living in the university's International House came together around an interest in the emerging documentary genre. In 1941 the name "Documentary Film Group" was adopted, and the group began showing films in the university's Social Sciences building.

Early favorites of Doc Films, as it later came to be called, included documentaries produced for the Works Progress Administration and other government agencies. Documentaries on international subjects were also shown, with Flaherty's Man of Aran receiving half a dozen screenings during the 1940s. Almost from its inception, the group showed fiction films as well as documentaries, with a focus on bringing to campus European films to which students might not otherwise be exposed. The group made explicit that its purpose was not merely to provide entertainment to the campus community, but to explore and cultivate an appreciation for film as an educational and artistic medium. The idea that film could be a legitimate subject for serious study was not widespread in the 1930s and 1940s, making Doc Films' mission an unusual and innovative one.

In the 1950s, Doc Films continued to show rare, avant garde, and experimental films, sometimes flouting censors to do so. The group took an interest in the work of Kenneth Anger and Maya Deren, who visited the campus in 1951. She was among many famous visitors during the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, including Alfred Hitchcock, King Vidor, John Ford, Otto Preminger, George Cukor, Fritz Lang, and Anais Nin.

As student films societies increased in number and prominence in the 1960s, Doc Films continued to be a leader. 1962 was the inaugural year of the Midwest Film Festival, a Doc Films project. The fact that judges included the likes of Josef von Sternberg and Pauline Kael is indicative of the importance and influence of student film societies in the world of artistic and experimental film, and to Doc Films' reputation in particular. By this time, the group had taken on a strong auteurist leaning, manifested in the championing of hitherto under-appreciated American Westerns and B-movie melodramas, particularly the works of John Ford. This philosophy governed the group's activities and screening practices throughout the 1960s and 1970s. They continued to screen documentaries and European "art" films, however, as well as such experimental works as the short films of Stan Brakhage. In 1968, screenings were moved from the Social Sciences building to Quantrell Auditorium in Cobb Hall.

Doc Films' activities and projects frequently went beyond screening movies. The members had interests in movie-making themselves, and in criticism. The late 1960s and early '70s saw two forays into print media: Voyeur, a small magazine featuring short articles, cartoons, and other informative tidbits, and Focus!, a more professionally-produced critical publication. Although both magazines were published irregularly and plagued with financial problems, Focus! reached nationwide distribution and attracted the attention of Sidney Pollack and Sam Peckinpah, among others.

The group's presence on campus nurtured a scholarly interest in cinema at a time when universities were just beginning to include films classes among their curricula. Persons affiliated with the group proposed courses, and lent their equipment and projecting skill to classes and other campus groups.

In 1986, a gift from Max Palevsky enabled the construction of a movie theatre in Ida Noyes Hall. The accordingly-named Max Palevsky Cinema has been the group's home since then.

From the guide to the Documentary Film Group. Records, 1923-2008, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)