Columbia, Mon Amour
The great Columbia University is my Alma Mater: M.Phil and Ph.D. in Sociology and Film (President’s Fellow)
I have also taught at Columbia’s Department of Sociology for about a decade, 1983-1991, courses such in the Sociology of Film, Film and Society, and Politics and Society.
I had spent several sabbaticals at Columbia’s School of the Arts (Film Division) and Sociology Department.
In 2010-2011, I was honored to replace my mentor, the great Andrew Sarris, when he was too ill-disposed to teach his classes in French New Wave and International Cinema of the 1930s.
Characters (in films and books) who attended Morningside Heights campus.
As told in the original Marvel comics, “Daredevil,” Matt Murdock studied at Columbia Law School before becoming an attorney by day and crime-fighting superhero by night.
In the 2003 Daredevil movie, Ben Affleck stars as Murdock alongside Jennifer Garner and Jon Favreau, who play fellow Columbia Law alumni Elektra Natchios and Foggy Nelson, respectively.
Kate Hudson stars as Andie Anderson in 2003’s How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, a key romantic comedy. Anderson, a women’s magazine writer and a graduate of Columbia Journalism School, puts her reporting skills to work when she writes an in-depth article on everything not to do at the start of a relationship.
Released in 2008, Revolutionary Road is based on the 1961 Richard Yates novel about middle-class malaise in 1950s suburbia.
The drama marked the first (and still only) reunion of DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as romantic leads since Titanic.
DiCaprio plays Frank Wheeler, a restless New York City salesman who, according to the book, studied at Columbia College.
In P.S., a 2004 film based on the novel by Helen Schulman ’86SOA, Topher Grace plays F. Scott Feinstadt, an applicant to Columbia’s School of the Arts who has an (extremely unethical) affair with an admissions officer, played by Laura Linney.
At the end of the escapade, Feinstadt receives an acceptance letter.
In the 2007 rom-com I Think I Love My Wife, Chris Rock plays Richard Cooper, a married banking professional who flirts with infidelity when he reconnects with an attractive old friend, played by Kerry Washington. A Columbia diploma displayed in Cooper’s office reveals that he’s an alumnus.
At the end of The Nanny Diaries, a 2007 comedy based on the book by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, Annie Braddock (Scarlett Johansson) leaves her stressful job as an Upper East Side nanny and applies to graduate school for a master’s in anthropology. Although Columbia isn’t explicitly mentioned, Braddock is shown holding application materials while sitting on a fountain outside Low Library.
It’s rare for Columbia to be mentioned in a Bollywood film, but in the 2007 Indian hit Ta Ra Rum Pum, Rani Mukerji plays Radhika Banerjee Singh, a pianist who meets her future racecar-driver husband while studying in the University’s music program.
