In Memoriam: Pamela Berger

Dr. Berger, who joined what was then the Boston College Fine Arts Department in 1974, had a special interest in iconography and published a book, The Crescent on the Temple, which described how the Dome of the Rock came to stand for the Temple of Solomon in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim art. She also published The Goddess Obscured, which examined how the goddess of seeding and sowing was transformed into a female saint in the imaginations of peasants in the Middle Ages.

Among the medieval art history courses she taught was Mysteries and Visions, which covered such areas as the imagery of Judaism and early Christianity, the mosaics of the First Golden Ages of Byzantine Art, Celtic-Early Christian Irish art, and the art of the Vikings and of Islamic Spain. Another class, Image and Imagination, focused on the symbolism and the multiplicity of meanings in works of art from Mozarabic Spain and the Romanesque and Gothic north.

In the mid-1980s, Dr. Berger took her scholarly interests in a new direction, drawing inspiration from a 13th-century Latin text that depicted the conflict between a Dominican friar named Etienne de Bourbon and a peasant woman thought by her community to have the powers of healing. She found herself drawn to the narrative and the major themes it represented, as well as its revelations of everyday life in medieval France.

“I knew I wanted to share this story with as many people as possible and suddenly thought, ‘l'll make a movie,’” Dr. Berger recalled in a 1987 interview with the Boston College Biweekly. When she told her family, she added, her husband and two teenage children “fell on the floor, laughing.”

But Dr. Berger wasn’t deterred. She did some historical research in France, wrote a 125-page script, and received National Endowment for the Arts funding to set the film in motion; she also received financial support from the French Ministry of Culture and other sources. She recruited Suzanne Schiffman, a former co-screenwriter and assistant director to Francois Truffaut, to help her refine the screenplay and direct the film. Although Dr. Berger’s role was largely that of creative consultant—providing photos and information to help ensure medieval authenticity—she was there for every scene over the eight-and-a-half weeks of shooting.

The result was Sorceress, which Dr. Berger told Biweekly, exemplified “the dramatic confrontation of the Middle Ages that pitted the folk culture of the peasant villagers against the official culture, particularly that of the Church.” The film had its international debut at the Toronto Film Festival in 1987, and earned Schiffman a French Academy Award (César) for best first work.

In a companion booklet posted on the film’s website, Dr. Berger wrote that while Sorceress was a recreation augmented by insights from historical sources, folklore, botany, anthropology, and art history, it was also “a work of the imagination, a fiction created by one medievalist who tried to fashion each scene so that the whole would seem authentic to other medievalists. Not only was the dramatic narrative devised within the rubrics of medieval life and thought, but the material world of the Middle Ages was recreated as authentically as possible.”

Dr. Berger went in a different direction for her second film. Looking for a story set locally, she came upon a novella by Abraham Cahan about a Jewish immigrant in early 20th-century Boston returning to his Polish homeland who selects a bridegroom for his Americanized daughter without her knowledge—a turn of events setting up a clash between old and new-world values.

Dr. Berger wrote a screenplay that drew on the works of other early 20th-century immigrant writers, particularly Anzia Yezierska, and reworked the female roles, creating stronger and more fully realized characters. Having observed her Sorceress colleague Schiffman at work, Dr. Berger felt she could take on the challenge of directing, and attended an American Film Institute master class to further prepare herself.

Her directorial debut, The Imported Bridegroom, debuted in 1989 at the Montreal Film Festival and was shown opening night at the Boston Film Festival.

In a 1990 Biweekly interview shortly before the film was screened at Coolidge Corner Cinema in Brookline, Dr. Berger described her approach to filmmaking, and the pleasure she took in the process: “At the scripting stage, I love picturing what it will look like. As I write it, I sometimes visualize possible cuts. I love the writing and can see some of the pacing as I write it. I also love sensing the rhythm of how a film will move. Then I immerse myself in objects, architecture, manuscripts, images, books and paintings of the period. I also love the casting process, deciding who can best merge his or her own personality into that of the character. I found the shoot supreme, enjoyed the editing process and loved working with the composers.”

Kilian's Chronicle: The Magic Stone, which Dr. Berger wrote, directed, and produced, was released in 1994. The story takes place five centuries before Columbus, when the Vikings were lost in the North Atlantic. According to the Icelandic Sagas, the Norsemen sent two Irish slaves ashore to explore the land, and one of them—Kilian—stole a navigating stone from the ship so the Vikings could not find their way home. Dr. Berger’s film recounts Kilian’s adventure and his encounters with the native people of America.

Dr. Berger supplemented her knowledge of the Vikings with expertise from scholars in Native American, Scandinavian, and Irish studies, as well as elders from the Native American community. Archeological discoveries in Newfoundland during the 1970s and ’80s provided further impetus for the project.

“I wanted to tell the first story of America,” she told the Boston College Chronicle in a 1994 interview. “The sagas reveal that, in a unique occurrence, the Native Americans at that time actually chased out the Europeans in this very first recorded encounter. It was clear to me when I read the ancient texts that this was one of the only triumphant chapters in Native American history until recent times. It hadn’t, however, been seen this way by historians until newly discovered material made it possible.”

Two years later, Dr. Berger revisited The Imported Bridegroom by turning it into a musical comedy that was staged in the Robsham Theater Arts Center in January of 1998. As she had done in filmmaking, Dr. Berger—a Cole Porter fan who loved musicals like Annie Get Your Gun, Guys and Dolls, and South Pacific—went the do-it-yourself route, she explained to Chronicle: “I got books out of the BC library on how to produce a musical. I always tell my students, once you get a liberal education, you can teach yourself anything.”

Dr. Berger contacted some professional writers about creating a libretto, she told Chronicle, but did well enough on her own: Within two weeks, she had written 10 songs, and by the fall of 1997 had nearly 30, though not all were used in the final production.

Dr. Berger stayed true to her teaching and research, and was involved in some milestone campus events. She contributed to Visualizing lreland: National Identity and the Pictorial Tradition, a collection of essays examining Irish artwork from the late 17th- to early 20th-century that was an accompaniment to a McMullen Museum of Art exhibition. She also took part in another McMullen exhibition commemorating the Fine Arts Department’s 25th anniversary.

At the 1994 Faculty Day event, Dr. Berger joined a panel of faculty members who reflected on the administration of retiring University President Donald Monan, S.J.

Dr. Berger retired after the 2020-2021 academic year.

A native of New Britain, Conn., Dr. Berger earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a doctorate from New York University.

She was a founding member of Our Bodies, Ourselves, a nonprofit organization that published a book of the same name in 1970, which offered information related to many aspects of women’s health and sexuality. Dr. Berger contributed to early editions of the book, including a chapter on alternative modes of healing.

Dr. Berger is survived by her husband Alan, their children Noah and Laurel, and two grandchildren.

Funeral services were private.