His love for cinema started when his father took him to see a double feature of Lawrence of Arabia and Marooned at an early age. Most children would be restless watching the former movie—clocking in at over three hours and forty minutes—but Ken Windrum remembers being mesmerized by the classic epic starring Peter O’Toole.
“Even at age seven, I liked sitting through movies, never being impatient,” Windrum said. “My father was surprised how I just sat there for six hours and ten minutes – though I’m sure I got up a few times.”
After receiving a bachelor’s at UCLA, Windrum initially wanted to direct movies, but he discovered he worked better and found greater joy in teaching about film. After getting a Master’s in Critical Studies at NYU, he worked his way to fulfilling his PhD in Film and TV Studies at UCLA. Windrum recounts his first connection to Pierce College, starting as an adjunct job.
“I was teaching a UCLA class for people who have never been a TA before, and one of the students was a teacher in the [Pierce media arts] department who has taught for ten years,” Windrum recalls. “He asked me if I would be interested in teaching my Pierce classes. And I did and loved it.”
Since 1998, he has worked at Pierce College as an Associate Professor of Cinema, where he teaches courses in screenwriting and animation, among others.
Whether many students are serious about studying the art of film or not, Windrum knows how to create a lasting impression in his lectures with a strong voice and a blunt demeanor while sharing his passion for movies. The same goes for his co-workers, like Instructional Assistant Morgan Keith in the Media Arts Department, who notes that Windrum will often relate a film to what is occurring in the world.
“He’ll always have great feedback and an interesting perspective, and he’s willing to share, engage, and hear your opinion,” Keith said. “You always know where you stand with him and how he feels. I appreciate his directness.”
Every semester, his classes showcase films and invite experienced writers and filmmakers from the industry. The guests offer advice to prospective students who wish to pursue work in the film industry. Windrum says his ultimate goal is to get students to look at movies critically.
“I hope that they go to movies afterward and analyze them in a way they never did before,” Windrum said. “They should see movies as something structured with decisions that have been made, and it’s a piece of form with all these narrative and stylistic decisions.”
Some people get into sports or music as lifelong interests, but movies came naturally to Windrum. His taste is broad across all genres or mediums of film. In 2019, he published his doctoral dissertation as a book, “From El Dorado to Lost Horizons,” which studies traditional American cinema from the late 1960s to early 1970s.
“I decided to focus on the movies that nobody focuses on,” Windrum said. “When people talk about that period, they talk about all these movies [including Easy Rider] which broke the rules and were these radical transformations. But people were still seeing the traditional films [Patton, Disney movies, musicals] they’ve been going to, especially older audiences. When you do history, you have to flatten it out and make a story out of it.”
As a fan of the cinema experience, Windrum keeps up with the latest trends and frequents the theater to catch the latest films. He is unafraid to go against the popular narrative. For example, one of his favorite Steven Spielberg movies is A.I. Artificial Intelligence, though the ending is divisive for the moviegoing public and critics.
Associate Professor of Journalism Jeff Favre notes Windrum’s passion for cinema is infectious.
“He gets me excited to rewatch movies or motivates me to watch ones I’ve been putting off,” Favre said. “He’ll say, ‘You’ve got to see that.’ Ken Windrum knows more about film than anyone I’ve ever met and I know a lot of people who are into cinema.”
One of Windrum’s all-time favorite movies is 2001: A Space Odyssey, which deals with abstract ideas of humanity, space, and artificial intelligence. The latter is catching on in the industry, much to the chagrin of many inside people. For Windrum, the future of cinema is fairly bleak but enduring.
“I feel art movies will always be something that a small group of elites in urban cities go to,” Windrum said. “For the rest of the world, there will be blockbusters or Marvel movies in Belmont, Montana. The middle has gone to streaming. Many people will stay indoors and watch movies at home. There’ll be fewer theaters, but they will still be around. People will still like to go out in groups or on dates.”