Steven Jacobs

Steven Jacobs (1967) is an art historian specialized in the interactions between film and the visual arts. His other research interests include the visualization of architecture, cities and landscapes in film and Belgian modern art. He is (co-)author of The Wrong House: The Architecture of Alfred Hitchcock (2007), Framing Pictures: Film and the Visual Arts (2011), The Dark Galleries: A Museum Guide to Painted Portraits in Film Noir (2013), Screening Statues: Cinema and Sculpture (2017), The City Symphony Phenomenon: Cinema, Art, and Urban Modernity Between the Wars (2018), Art in the Cinema: The Mid-Century Art Documentary (2020), and Marcel Broodthaers and Film: A Second of Eternity (2024). In addition, he has published in journals, edited volumes and exhibition catalogues. He has curated film programs for the Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, CINEMATEK Brussels, Art Cinema OFFoff, and other organizations and venues. He currently teaches history of modern art at the Department of Art History, musicology, and theater studies at Ghent University and film history at the Department of Letters at the University of Antwerp.

Il Cinema Ritrovato 2023

Gerard-Jan Claes, Steven Jacobs, Jonathan Mackris, 2023
ARTICLE
22.11.2023
NL EN

Drie bezoekers van Il Cinema Ritrovato bespreken drie films die ze dit jaar op het festival zagen en die hen bijbleven.

Il Cinema Ritrovato 2023

Gerard-Jan Claes, Steven Jacobs, Jonathan Mackris, 2023
ARTICLE
22.11.2023
NL EN

Three Il Cinema Ritrovato visitors discuss three films that they saw at this year’s festival and which stayed in their memories.

Notes on Cinema Ritrovato 2021

Steven Jacobs, 2021
ARTICLE
08.09.2021
NL EN

Just like last year, a coronavirus edition of Bologna’s unsurpassed Cinema Ritrovato festival took place this summer. The festival is unique for its broad focus on the history of film, showing new restorations and recent (re)discoveries rather than new films.

Notities bij Cinema Ritrovato 2021

Steven Jacobs, 2021
ARTICLE
08.09.2021
NL EN

Net zoals vorig jaar vond deze zomer een corona-editie plaats van het onvolprezen Cinema Ritrovato-festival in Bologna, dat met zijn brede focus op de gehele filmgeschiedenis enig is in zijn soort. Niet zozeer nieuwe films worden er vertoond, als wel nieuwe restauraties en recente (her)ontdekkingen.

On Víctor Erice’s El sol del membrillo

Steven Jacobs, 2011
ARTICLE
20.03.2024
EN

With its slow rhythm, focus on the mundane and struggle of finishing a single painting, Erice’s El sol del membrillo can be presented as a meditation on the passing of time, hovering between documentary and fiction. Its title, which was translated into English as Dream of Light (The Quince Tree Sun), refers to the sunny period in the autumn that coincides with the ripening of quinces. Both the filmmaker and his painter character attempt to capture the shifting light as it changes with the passing days.