Few individuals in the motion picture industry have experienced a career as diverse as Lewis Jacobs. Although trained as a painter Jacobs went on to become a producer, director, writer, and designer for film, theater, and television. In addition, he wrote numerous books and articles concerning film history and criticism including the classic The Rise of American Film and has taught filmmaking at several institutions. During his career he has won over two dozen awards and citations for his film projects.
Jacobs was born in Philadelphia and trained there as an artist. However, during the 1920s he discovered the artistic challenge of film and turned to that medium. Largely self taught as a filmmaker, Jacobs experimented widely with 16mm film, and by 1940 he was regarded as one of the foremost American makers of experimental films. In 1931 Jacobs was involved in founding the short-lived magazine Experimental Cinema, the first American magazine devoted to film as a serious artistic and social force.
During the late 1930s Jacobs started the first film workshop in America at the New School for Social Research. Later in his career he also taught filmmaking and screen writing at the Philadelphia College of Art, Pratt Institute, New York University, and City College of New York.
Beginning in 1941 Jacobs became involved in the making of motion pictures for several major Hollywood studios. For four years he was under contract with MGM as a screenwriter and later as a director. At Columbia Pictures for two years he worked as a story editor and producer for new talent. He then worked for Security Pictures (UA) and various independent studios as a production designer. In 1946 Jacobs co-authored and co-produced the musical Shootin' Star.
In 1950 Jacobs left Hollywood and moved to New York City where he devoted himself to the production of documentary, experimental, educational, and industrial films and to teaching. On his own and for other companies (most notably MPO Productions) he worked on over 50 film projects and commercial advertisements. A filmography for this work, of which the single most recognized title was his 1954 film The Raven, is included in the collection. Jacobs also worked as associate producer at CBS on Out of Darkness, as director for Hutterites of Canada, and as author of the “John Carter Brown Story” for the Search program.
During this phase of his career Jacobs was also involved in a number of additional major motion pictures including Men at War (UA, 1945), for which he was producer, designer, and second unit director, and Sweet Love, Bitter (1965) a controversial film which he wrote and produced.
Jacobs' credits as a writer of film history and criticism include numerous articles and reviews, The Rise of American Film (first published in 1939), The Emergence of Film Art, Compound Cinema: the Film Writings of Harry Alan Potamkin, Film Writing Forms, Experimental Cinema in America, Introduction of the Art of Movies, and Movies as Medium.
