Ronald Bergan

{{Short description|South African-born British writer and historian (1937–2020)}}

Ronald Bergan (né Ginsberg, 2 November 1937 – 23 July 2020) was a South African-born British writer and historian. He was contributor to The Guardian (from 1989) and lecturer on film and other subjects as well as the author (or co-author) of several books including biographies.{{cite news|last=Hirschhorn|first=Clive|title=Ronald Bergan obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/28/ronald-bergan-obituary |access-date=22 March 2021 |work=The Guardian |date=28 July 2020 |language=en}}

Career

He was born Ronald Ginsberg in Johannesburg and 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 at FAMU in Prague.

He was a writer for The Guardian and Radio Times, journalist, biographer, film historian, International Festival of Independent Cinema Off Camera (the head of the Jury), Film Festival Juror, founding president of FEDEORA{{cite web |title=Fedeora - Federation of Film Critics of Europe and Mediterranean |url=http://www.fedeora.eu/ |access-date=23 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210123193655/http://www.fedeora.eu/ |archive-date=23 January 2021}} (Federation of Film Critics of Europe and the Mediterranean) in May 2010 in Cannes, and film critic.{{cite web |title=Ronald Bergan |url=https://www.librarything.com/author/berganronald |website=LibraryThing |access-date=22 March 2021}}{{cite web |title=Ronald Bergan (1937-2020) |url=https://www.sabzian.be/note/ronald-bergan-1937-2020 |website=Sabzian.be |access-date=22 March 2021 |language=nl}}{{cite web |title=Ronald Bergan 1937 – 2020 |url=https://fipresci.org/news/ronald-bergan/ |website=International Federation of Film Critics |access-date=22 March 2021}}

Personal life

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 in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. 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 to Biarritz, France, and then Prague, Czechoslovakia.

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

Bibliography

{{cite book |editor-last1=Bergan |editor-first1=Ronald |title=François Truffaut : interviews |date=2008 |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |location=Jackson |isbn=9781934110140}}
{{cite book |title=Jean Renoir: Projections of Paradise |date=1 September 1994 |publisher=Harry N. Abrams |isbn=978-0-87951-537-9 |language=en}}{{cite news |last1=James |first1=Caryn |title=BOOKS OF THE TIMES; A Film Maker Defies Biographers |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/01/movies/books-of-the-times-a-film-maker-defies-biographers.html |access-date=23 March 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=1 September 1994}}{{cite news |last1=Anderson |first1=John |title='Illusion' Comes Back to Life / Jean Renoir's classic 1937 anti-war film rereleased |url=https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Illusion-Comes-Back-to-Life-Jean-Renoir-s-2913687.php |access-date=22 March 2021 |work=SFGATE |date=22 August 1999}}
Ronald Bergan. Robyn Karney. Bloomsbury Foreign Film Guide (London: Bloomsbury, 1988, 1991),

:: known, in the United States, as the Holt Foreign Film Guide, Henry Holt and Company, 1989

:: then {{cite book |title=The Faber Companion to Foreign Films |date=1992 |publisher=Faber & Faber |isbn=978-0-571-12919-5 |language=en}}

{{cite book |title=The Coen Brothers, Second Edition |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-62872-624-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TTyCDwAAQBAJ |language=en}}
{{cite book |title=Sergei Eisenstein: A Life in Conflict |publisher=Skyhorse |isbn=978-1-62872-626-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-UpkCwAAQBAJ |language=en}}{{cite news |last1=Rubenstein |first1=Joshua |title=The Dictator's Cut |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/27/books/the-dictator-s-cut.html |access-date=23 March 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=27 June 1999}}
{{cite book |title=The Film Book |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-0-7566-9188-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f8YeCNSBiOcC |language=en}}
{{cite book |title=The United Artists Story |publisher=Octopus |isbn=978-0-7064-2581-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vKVnQgAACAAJ |language=en}}
{{cite book |title=The Life and Times of the Marx Brothers |publisher=Green Wood |isbn=978-1-872532-08-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5XkdAQAAIAAJ |language=en}}
{{cite book |title=The Life and Times of Laurel and Hardy |publisher=Green Wood |isbn=978-1-872532-07-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=23kdAQAAIAAJ |language=en}}
{{cite book |title=The Great Theatres of London: An Illustrated Companion |date=1988 |publisher=Chronicle Books |isbn=978-0-87701-571-0 |language=en}}
{{cite book |title=Francis Ford Coppola: Close Up: The Making of His Movies |date=14 September 1998 |publisher=Da Capo Press |isbn=978-1-56025-194-1 |language=en}}
{{cite book |title=Anthony Perkins: A Haunted Life |date=1995 |publisher=Little, Brown |isbn=978-0-316-90697-5 |language=en}}
{{cite book |title=Film Isms...: Understanding Cinema |date=15 March 2011 |publisher=Rizzoli |isbn=978-0-7893-2214-2 |language=en |quote=An IQON book; Isms Series;}}
The Eyewitness Guide To Film{{cite web |title=Online film festival:a review |url=https://culture360.asef.org/magazine/online-film-festivala-review/ |website=culture360 |publisher=Asia–Europe Foundation |access-date=28 January 2023 |language=en}}
{{cite book |last1=Lloyd |first1=Ann |last2=Hill |first2=Rob |last3=Bergan |first3=Ronald |last4=Darke |first4=Chris |last5=Frost-Sharratt |first5=Cara Frost-Sharratt |title=501 must-see movies. |date=2010 |publisher=Thunder Bay Press |location=San Diego, CA |isbn=978-1607100881}}
{{cite book |title=Beyond the fringe ... and beyond : a critical biography of Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore |date=1989 |publisher=Virgin |location=London |isbn=9781852271756}}