Influential Warwick film critic and academic dies

Victor F. Perkins, co-founder of Warwick’s Department of Film and Television Studies, has died aged 80.

Victor, known academically as V.F. Perkins, began teaching at the University of Warwick in 1978, co-founding the Department of Film and Television Studies whilst working here. The department is now frequently ranked amongst the best in the UK for Film Studies.

He is renowned for developing the field of Film Studies across the UK, with his first text, “Film as Film” published in 1972, being an integral work in the subject to this day.

On his page on the Warwick website, Perkins wrote: “My main academic aim is to develop a deeper and more clearly articulated appreciation of the work of some great film artists.”

He lists Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles and Jean Renoir as just some of these “great film artists” that his interests lay with.

Despite retiring as a full-time lecturer in 2004, Perkins was still active as a film critic, teacher and academic at Warwick until his death on July 15 2016.

Dr Alastair Phillips, current Head of the Department of Film and Television Studies, sent an email to Film students upon news of Perkins’s death.

It read: “Victor will be remembered by generations of students, scholars and colleagues for his compassionate and insightful wisdom, critical insight, and generous spirit of intellectual enquiry.”

He added: “For myself and many others who fell under the spell of his work, he helped me see and think more clearly.”