George Lucas gives $175m
2006-10-06 09:14
Los Angeles - Filmmaker George Lucas, the
man behind the Star Wars movie franchise, says he hopes to
revitalise the study of cinema through a recent $175m
gift to the University of Southern California, his alma mater.
Lucas' donation last month, the biggest private gift received by USC, is being used to endow and rebuild its School
of Cinematic Arts. The university broke ground on the project
on Wednesday.
"In the academic world, movies are not very high up on the
radar.... Movies are kind of down there, sort of a sub-set of a
liberal arts education," Lucas, 62, said after the
ceremony.
"I wanted to send a signal ... to all the universities that
have film schools," he added. "This is like the law school or
the journalism school or the architecture school. This is an
important part of our society and needs to be taken seriously,
and hopefully this will get their attention."
The first $75m of Lucas' donation will pay the cost
of constructing a new building to replace a facility he helped
build years ago. The remainder of his gift will establish an
endowment that Lucas hopes to expand through further
fund-raising efforts.
The USC School of Cinematic Arts, founded in 1929 by actor
Douglas Fairbanks, is the oldest film school in the nation and
the first to offer a doctorate programme.
Lucas received his undergraduate degree from the school in
1966. After his first big success as writer and director of
American Graffiti, he went on to usher in a new era of
special-effects filmmaking and blockbuster movies as creator
of Star Wars.
More recently, he has reunited with director Steven
Spielberg to produce the fourth installment of the Indiana
Jones film franchise the two launched in 1981 with Raiders of
the Lost Ark.
He also plans to produce and direct the upcoming
World War II film Red Tails, about the first black pilots to fly in a combat squadron.