I knew Thomas Elsaesser for 32 years and, like so many other people, I thought my close association with him would continue for decades to come. With the mere mention of his name, vivid memories come to mind – of intense discussions in MA seminars, or sitting at his kitchen table in his home in Amsterdam drinking tea, or listening to one of his many keynote speeches, or going with him to the Film Museum in Amsterdam (the old one, in Vondelpark). He was a peripatetic character who was always ‘there’ – wherever he was located – a presence one could rely on for guidance. I plan to offer here merely a series of scattered recollections, thoughts, and memories of events involving Thomas that were instrumental to my own intellectual and personal development. Thomas was there in his office in the Autumn of 1987 when I enrolled at the University of East Anglia (UEA) on an MA in linguistics and wanted to take his Film Theory class. But the class was full, so he asked me to join his Early Cinema class, which I did (although reluctantly). In Early Cinema, each student signed up to give a presentation from the incredibly long list of required reading that Thomas had compiled. I selected Raymond Bellour’s essay on Griffith’s film The Lonedale Operator. My 10-minute presentation extended to 30 as I expounded on Bellour’s theory of repetition and alternation, which I combined with Oudart’s theory of suture – and I threw in some of Metz’s work on metaphor and metonymy for good measure. There was a long pause after my presentation. Thomas then turned to me and said: ‘Okay, you can join the film theory class’. I became a lifelong member of that class, always trying to keep up with his thoughts, ideas, and prolific output of papers and books. (A few years after the seminar, Thomas’s edited book on early cinema was published: Early Cinema: Space Frame Narrative [1990]. There were all the readings from the class. The book remains a key text in the study of early cinema.) Thomas encouraged me to stay at UEA to write my Ph.D. thesis under his supervision. Even though I was one of a dozen students he was supervising, he was there to offer detailed feedback and lists of dozens of books and essays. The summer before I began my thesis, I wrote a long (10,000 word) review of Mystifying Movies, Noël Carroll’s attack on ‘contemporary film theory’. In those days before email, I posted it off to Thomas. He sent back a long letter, which began ‘This is what bank holidays are for ...’. He NEW REVIEW OF FILM AND TELEVISION STUDIES 2020, VOL. 18, NO. 1, 123–125 https://doi.org/10.1080/17400309.2020.1704459

中文翻译：

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纪念托马斯·埃尔萨瑟（1943-2019）

我认识托马斯·埃尔萨瑟32年了，和其他许多人一样，我认为与他的紧密联系将持续数十年。仅提及他的名字，就会使人联想到生动的记忆-在MA研讨会上进行激烈的讨论，或者坐在他家中阿姆斯特丹的厨房餐桌旁喝茶，或者听他的许多主旨演讲中的一个，或者和他一起去阿姆斯特丹的电影博物馆（旧博物馆，位于冯德尔公园）。他是一个游击队人物，无论身在何处，他总是“在那里”的存在，人们可以依靠它进行指导。我打算在这里只提供一系列分散的回忆，思想和对与托马斯有关的事件的记忆，这些对我自己的智力和个人发展至关重要。1987年秋天，托马斯（Thomas）在他的办公室里，当时我就读于东英吉利大学（UEA）的语言学硕士学位，想上他的电影理论课。但是课堂上人满为患，所以他要求我参加他的“早期电影院”课程，尽管我很不情愿。在Early Cinema中，每个学生都签了名，以Thomas编写的冗长的必读内容清单中进行演示。我选择了雷蒙德·贝卢（Raymond Bellour）在格里菲斯（Griffith）的电影《独行侠》中的文章。当我阐述Bellour的重复和交替理论时，我的10分钟演讲时间延长到30分钟，我将其与Oudart的缝线理论相结合-并投入了Metz的一些关于隐喻和转喻的著作，以取得很好的效果。我的演讲后停了很长时间。托马斯然后转向我说：“好的，您可以参加电影理论课”。我成为该班的终身成员，一直试图跟上他的思想，想法以及大量的论文和书籍。（研讨会之后的几年，托马斯编辑了有关早期电影的书：《早期电影：空间叙事》（1990年）。全班同学都在阅读。这本书仍然是早期电影研究的重要内容。）托马斯鼓励我留在UEA撰写博士学位。论文在他的监督下。即使我是他所指导的十几个学生之一，他还是在那里提供详细的反馈意见以及数十本书和论文的清单。在我开始发表论文的那个夏天，我写了一篇长篇（一万字）的电影《神秘电影》的评论，这是诺埃尔·卡罗尔对“当代电影理论”的抨击。在发送电子邮件之前的那几天，我将其发布给了Thomas。他发了一封长信，它开始于“这是银行假期的目的……”。他对《电影和电视研究2020年》的新评论。18号 1，123–125 https://doi.org/10.1080/17400309.2020.1704459