Art, Art History, and Film Faculty
John Michalczyk
Professor and Director, Film Studies Program
Co-Director: Jewish Studies Program
Art, Art History, and Film Department
John Michalczyk
Ph.D.
Contact
Devlin Hall 420
Telephone: 617-552-3895
Email: john.michalczyk@bc.edu
Education
- B.A., Boston College
- M.A., Boston College
- M. Div., Weston School of Theology
- Ph.D. Harvard University
- Thesis: Andre Malraux's Film "Espoir": The Propaganda/Art Film and the Spanish Civil War
Courses
Propaganda Film
Coming of Age in Literature and Film
Holocaust and the Arts
Film Criticism and Theory
Documentary Film
Documentary Film Production
War is Hell: Combat Film
History of European Film
Cold War Revised on Screen
Biography and Autobiography into Film
Film Adaptation
Social Issues in Literature and Film
Film: LIterature and Law
Research Interests
Political Literature/Film/Arts:
Social Justice Documentaries
World War II/Germany/France
Conflict Resolution/Transformation
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
European Film/Literature
Latin American Political Film
Irish Political Film/"The Troubles"
Biography
After completing doctoral studies at Harvard University in 1972, John Michalczyk undertook a theology degree at Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, MA. He earned a Masters of Divinity, having graduated “With Distinction” in 1974.
In September 1974, Michalczyk began teaching at Boston College as Assistant Director of the Honors Program where he taught courses in theology, philosophy, and literature. A short time later he added to this curriculum, Film Studies. While continuing to teach in the Fine Arts Department/Film Studies Program, he published 14 books ranging from studies of medicine and ethics in the Third Reich to religion and human rights in the Soviet Gulag. He served as Chair of the Fine Arts Department, now the Art, Art History and Film Department, from 1996 to 2011.
In 1991, Michalczyk first began to produce professional documentary films, the first being The Cross and the Star: Jews, Christians and the Holocaust,” which has been viewed by thousands of viewers since this time, on television, at conferences, and in Holocaust curricula at colleges and universities. In more than twenty-five years of production, he has created three series of films, some of which have been broadcast on PBS television and others earning Emmy nominations. The first deals with Jewish subjects such as anti-Semitism and Displaced Persons, the second with a focus on disabilities from the perspective of the disabled, and the third, most recent one, on conflict resolution/transformation. In the latter series, Michalczyk produced eight films, dealing with the Balkans, Northern Ireland, the Mideast crisis, the Sicilian Mafia, South Africa, the Gulag, the Berlin Wall, and Kenya. In May 2010, he co-edited a book on a curriculum based on the conflict resolution series.
Since 2002, Michalczyk has mentored countless students in producing films about social justice as part of the Jacques Salmanowitz Program at Boston College. These students have produced more than 50 documentaries on international subjects. For the past several years he has co-directed the Jewish Studies Program. He continues to organize conferences, with many having touched on the Holocaust, World War II, the Spanish Civil War, McCarthy and the Press, Japanese Internment Camps, and the like. Over the past years he has collaborated with his wife, Susan, on projects dealing with film production and publication.
Publications
Books
- 2018 - Nazi Law: From Nuremberg to Nuremberg (Bloomsbury, UK)
- 2014 - Filming the End of the Holocaust: Allied Documentaries, Nuremberg and the Liberation of the Concentration Camps (Bloomsbury Academic)
- 2013 - Through a Lens Darkly: Films of Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing and Atrocities (with Rev. Raymond Helmick, S.J.; Peter Lang, Pub.)
- 2010 - Conflict Resolution Films: Reconciling with the Other (Ed. with Raymond Helmick, S.J.; Etoile Productions)
- 2007 - Religion, Human Rights & the Gulag (Étoile International Productions)
- 2003 - Confront: Resistance in Nazi Germany (Peter Lang, Pub.)
- 1999 - Holocaust and the Arts, Ed. (Brill Pub.)
- 1997 - The Resisters, the Rescuers, and the Refugees (Sheed & Ward)
- 1994 - Medicine, Ethics, and the Third Reich: Historical and Contemporary Issues (Sheed & Ward)
- 1986 - Italian Political Filmmakers (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press)
- 1984 - Costa-Gavras: The Political Fiction Film (Arts Alliance Press)
- 1980 - The French Literary Filmmakers (Arts Alliance Press)
- 1977 - Ingmar Bergman: La Passion d’être homme aujourd’hui (Beauchesne, Paris)
- 1977 - André Malraux’s Film Espoir: Art and Propaganda in the Spanish Civil War (University, Mississippi Press)
Articles
- On film and its relations to literature and the arts in: American Society Legion of Honor; Annali d’Italiansistica; Cineaste; Cinema (Paris); Cinema and Society (Paris); Contemporary French Civilization; Current Research in Film; French Review; Literature /Film Quarterly; Magill’s Cinema Annual; Mélanges Malraux Miscellany; Stanford French Review; Twentieth Century, Cambridge Press Scholars Literature; Boston Globe, etc.
Chapters/Essays
- 2017-18 - "High Treason in the People's Court" in Nazi Law: From Nuremberg to Nuremberg.
- 2015 - "Ike's Horror Movies," America in WWII, June 2015, Vol. 11, No. 1.
- 2014 - "Of Crosses and Stars: Judaeo-Christian Iconography in Fritz Lang's Metropolis," in Faith and Spirituality in Masters of World Cinema, Vol. III.
- 2013 - Six chapters on genocide and film, in Through a Lens Darkly
- 2009 - “The Psychology of the Bystander and ‘The Other’ in Holocaust Film,” in Jonathan Friedman’s Performing Difference: Representations of The Other in Film and Theatre (with Susan Michalczyk).
- 2008 - “Père Ubu: Archtype of Social Dysfunction,” in Semblance and Reality in Georges Rouault 1871-1958, McMullen Museum of Art Catalogue, pp. 229-245.
- 2007 - “Art in WWI,” in In a New Key, McMullen Museum of Art Catalogue.
- 2006 - "In the Eye of the Storm: Controversies and Americanization of Holocaust Film," in American Popular Culture: Historical and Pedagogical Perspectives, Seymour Leventman, ed. Cambridge Scholars Press, pp. 12-21
- 2004 - "Celluloid Passion," in Philip Cunningham's Pondering the Passion
- 2003 - "Troubled Silences: Trauma in John Huston's Film Let There Be Light" in Matelski/Street's War and Film (with Susan Michalczyk) [Reprinted in 2009 for Huston Journal]
- 2002 - "The Ethics of Nazi Human Experimentation," in J. Pawlikowski (Ed.) Ethics in the Shadow of the Holocaust.
- 2001 - The Plume and the Palette (On the partisan clergy in Open City) and Messages from the Underground (On BBC Propaganda & French Resistance)
Guest Film Curator
- 2017 - Museum of Fine Arts (Boston): "Costa-Gavras: Encounters with History" (with Susan A. Michalczyk)
- 1989 - Museum of Fine Arts (Boston): "Costa-Gavras: The Political Thriller and Beyond" (Programming and Catalogue)
Film Production (Producer/Director/or Scriptwriter)
- 2016 - Nazi Law: Legally Blind (with Susan Michalczyk)
- 2016 - Lou Montgomery: A Legacy Restored (with Susan Michalczyk)
- 2014 - A Matter of Conscience: Confronting Clergy Abuse (with Susan A. Michalczyk)
- 2013 - Who Takes Away the Sins: Witnesses to Clergy Abuse (with Susan A. Michalczyk)
- 2011 - Kenya: Passing the Baton
- 2009 - Writing on the Wall: Remembering the Berlin Wall
- 2009 - Confronting Amnesia: Frozen Memories of the Russian Gulag
- 2007 - Creating Harmony: The Displaced Persons Orchestra from St. Ottilien
- 2005 - "I'm in Here" (Disabilities series) Rick’s Eyes on the Prize: Running with Team Hoyt; I, Claudia: In the Deaf Community of Nicaragua; Andrea: A True Gem
- 2004 - Killing Silence: Taking on the Mafia in Sicily
- 2003 - Different Drummers: Daring to Make Peace in the MidEast
- 2002 - Displaced: Miracle at St. Ottilien; Michael’s Eagle Eyes; Celtic Waves: The Flow of Irish Emigration
- 2001 - South Africa: Beyond a Miracle
- 2000 - Unexpected Openings: Northern Ireland Prisoners
- 1999 - Prelude to Kosovo: War and Peace in Bosnia and Croatia (PBS)
- 1998 - Out of the Ashes: Norther Ireland’s Fragile Peace (PBS)
- 1997 - December’s Dilemma: The Creche, the Dreidel, and the Star (PBS); In the Shadow of the Reich: Nazi Medicine (PBS)
- 1995 - Of Stars & Shamrocks: Boston’s Jews & Irish (PBS)
- 1992 - The Cross and the Star: Jews, Christians, and the Holocaus
- 1988 - Fidelity Not Mutual (25 min.) (Screened at Athens, Ohio Film Festival)
- 1986 - Fred Wiseman: Filming the American Institution (28 min.)
Film Script
- 1989/1997 - Feature Script: Black Diamond
Film Critic
- Cannes Film Festival in 1977, 1979, 1981 for French Review
Board of Directors
- Documentaries International Film Foundation (D.C.)/Foundation for Moral Courage (1994-2002)
Awards/Honors
- Directory of American Scholars
- Contemporary Authors
- Fulbright (Italy)
- Mellon (Costa-Gavras)
- "Palmes Académiques" (French Government)
- IREX (US Government/Poland)
- TASH (The Association for the Severely Handicapped)
- Distinguished Media Award for "Nazi Medicine" documentary
- Emmy Nominations (3).