Description
Tuesdays: September 16 — October 14, 2025
5:30 — 6:30 p.m.
Every ten years, the British film magazine Sight and Sound in conjunction with the British Film Institute, polls leading critics and scholars, asking them to rank the ten best films of all time. Since the inception of the poll, which is considered the definitive evaluation of the cinematic canon, only four films have been named as the greatest of all time: Vittorio de Sica's The Bicycle Thieves (1948), Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941), Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), and, most recently, Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). Rather than relitigate which film is rightfully declared “best,” this class will use these four films as an entry point onto the art of cinema and as lenses onto the ways that taste changes over time, not just in cinema but in visual culture more broadly.
The lectures will take place in the Torggler lecture hall on five consecutive Tuesdays:
Sept 16 | Sept. 23 | Sept. 30 | Oct. 7 | Oct. 14
Optional screenings will take place on four consecutive Mondays:
Sept. 22 | Sept. 29 | Oct. 6 | Oct. 13
Cost:
$35 for Torggler Patrons | $50 for non-Patrons
Details
- Age: 18+
- Dates: Tuesdays
September 16 - October 14
- Time: 5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
- Cost: $35.00
Instructors
Lucas Matheson is Associate Curator and Exhibitions Manager at the Mary M. Torggler Fine Arts Center at Christopher Newport University.
In addition to his work at the Torggler, he has organized exhibitions and programs at the Clark Art Institute (Williamstown, MA), the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY), the Museum aan de Stroom and CASSTL (Antwerp, BE), Gallery VACANCY (Shanghai, CN), ltd los angeles (Los Angeles, CA), and PSLA (Los Angeles, CA). These curatorial projects have received coverage in the Boston Globe, CultureType, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, Artforum, Contemporary Art Daily, and Artillery.
His art criticism, spanning exhibitions in six countries, has appeared in Artforum, The Wire, and The Manhattan Art Journal.
He has given invited lectures for classes at Harvard University, the College of William and Mary, Christopher Newport University, and the University of Technology, Sydney.