Ronald Bergan(néGinsberg,2 November 1937 – 23 July 2020) was a South African-born British writer and historian. He was contributor toThe Guardian(from 1989) and lecturer on film and other subjects as well as the author (or co-author) of several books including biographies.[1]

Career

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He was born Ronald Ginsberg inJohannesburgand educated there, in England, and in the United States. In France, he taught literature, theater, and film at the Sorbonne, the British Institute in Paris, and the University of Lille. He held a Chair at the Florida International University in Miami where he taught Film History and Theory. He lectured on film history atFAMUin Prague.[2]

He was a writer forThe GuardianandRadio Times,journalist, biographer, film historian,International Festival of Independent Cinema Off Camera(the head of the Jury), Film Festival Juror, founding president of FEDEORA[2](Federation of Film Critics of Europe and the Mediterranean) in May 2010 in Cannes, and film critic.[1][3][4][5]

Personal life

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In 1960, Bergan married Maureen Myersohn, who later changed her name to Catriona. They lived primarily in London. They had a son, though they were impoverished at his birth and could not raise him, and so they arranged to have him adopted and raised by Myersohn's mother, who lived inRhodesia,nowZimbabwe.[1]The couple briefly separated in the early 1980s but reconciled. However, in the early 2000s, after Bergan's stint at Florida International University in the United States, they moved toBiarritz,France, and thenPrague,Czechoslovakia.[1]

In 2020, Bergan and his wife moved to Scotland. He died on 23 July 2020, aged 82, from urosepsis.[1]

Bibliography

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  • Bergan, Ronald, ed. (2008).François Truffaut: interviews.Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.ISBN9781934110140.
  • Jean Renoir: Projections of Paradise.Harry N. Abrams. 1 September 1994.ISBN978-0-87951-537-9.[6][7]
  • Ronald Bergan.Robyn Karney.Bloomsbury Foreign Film Guide(London: Bloomsbury, 1988, 1991),
known, in the United States, as theHolt Foreign Film Guide,Henry Holt and Company,1989
thenThe Faber Companion to Foreign Films.Faber & Faber.1992.ISBN978-0-571-12919-5.

References

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  1. ^abcdeHirschhorn, Clive (28 July 2020)."Ronald Bergan obituary".The Guardian.Retrieved22 March2021.
  2. ^ab"Fedeora - Federation of Film Critics of Europe and Mediterranean".Archived fromthe originalon 23 January 2021.Retrieved23 March2021.
  3. ^"Ronald Bergan".LibraryThing.Retrieved22 March2021.
  4. ^"Ronald Bergan (1937-2020)".Sabzian.be(in Dutch).Retrieved22 March2021.
  5. ^"Ronald Bergan 1937 – 2020".International Federation of Film Critics.Retrieved22 March2021.
  6. ^James, Caryn (1 September 1994)."BOOKS OF THE TIMES; A Film Maker Defies Biographers".The New York Times.Retrieved23 March2021.
  7. ^Anderson, John (22 August 1999)."'Illusion' Comes Back to Life / Jean Renoir's classic 1937 anti-war film rereleased ".SFGATE.Retrieved22 March2021.
  8. ^Rubenstein, Joshua (27 June 1999)."The Dictator's Cut".The New York Times.Retrieved23 March2021.
  9. ^"Online film festival:a review".culture360.Asia–Europe Foundation.Retrieved28 January2023.
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