Before Star Wars, before Lucasfilm — there was a 24-year-old George Lucas fresh out of USC film school, working on set with Francis Ford Coppola and dreaming up a feature film called THX 1138.
This episode from 1969 looks at the evolution of graduate film schools by featuring George Lucas. Lucas talks about his belief in the personal film over the studio machine, and developing a feature film out of his student short THX 1138 4EB, winner of the very first National Student Film Award in 1968. He describes making a behind-the-scenes film of the Coppola feature film, The Rain People.
Lucas first studied painting and sees his generation of filmmakers reclaiming the camera as an artist’s tool, and making films on their own terms.
This 1969 episode “Film Generation,” narrated by Alan Alda, is from NET Festival, a 1960s American television anthology series that focused on cultural, performing arts, and documentary specials. It showcased high-quality performances in jazz, drama, and opera, often featuring renowned artists and unique cultural portraits.