YACOWAR, Maurice 1942-

PERSONAL: Born March 25, 1942, in Prelate, Saskatchewan, Canada; son of Samuel and Sophie (Gitterman) Yacowar; children: Margaret Mia, Sam Jason Eric. Education: University of Calgary, B.A., 1962; University of Alberta, M.A., 1965; University of Birmingham, Ph.D., 1968.

ADDRESSES: Office—1901 Varsity Estates Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T3B 4T7. E-mail—yacowar@shaw.wave.ca.

CAREER: Lethbridge Junior College, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, lecturer, 1964-66; Brock University, St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada, assistant professor, 1968-72, associate professor, 1972-78, professor of drama and English, 1978-89, chair of department of drama, 1972-75, dean of humanities, 1980-87; Emily Carr College of Art and Design, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, dean of academic affairs, 1989-95; University of Calgary, dean, faculty of fine arts, 1995—. Film reviewer for St. Catherines Standard, 1974-89.

WRITINGS:

No Use Shutting the Door (poetry), F. Cogswell (Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada), 1970.

Hitchcock's British Films, Archon Books (Hambden, CT), 1976.

I Found It at the Movies: Studies in the Art of IngmarBergman, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Jean-Luc Godard, and the Genre Film, Revisionist Press (New York, NY), 1976.

Tennessee Williams and Film, Ungar (New York, NY), 1977.

Loser Take All: The Comic Art of Woody Allen, Ungar (New York, NY), 1979, expanded edition, Continuum (New York, NY), 1991.

Method in Madness: The Comic Art of Mel Brooks, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1981, expanded edition, W. H. Allen (Sharon Hill, PA), 1982.

The Films of Paul Morrissey, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1993.

The Bold Testament, Bayeux Arts (Calgary, Alberta, Canada), 1999.

The Sopranos on the Couch: Analyzing Television'sGreatest Series, Continuum (New York, NY), 2002, expanded edition, 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: Maurice Yacowar is a professor of drama and English who has written several books on film and television. He is currently dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Calgary.

Yacowar became known as a film critic through his studies of Alfred Hitchcock, Tennessee Williams, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, and Paul Morrissey. He wrote a film review column for the St. Catherine Standard and helped launch the first film studies degree program in Canada at Brock University, St. Catherines, Ontario. He was also involved in the transition of the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver to degree-granting status. Yacowar served on the Ontario Film Review Board from 1986 to 1989, and often spoke and wrote about issues of censorship in films.

In The Sopranos on the Couch: Analyzing Television's Greatest Series, Yacowar examines the popular HBO series, which features a Mafia family. He provides background information on the series, and then discusses the show's first three seasons, analyzing why so many viewers find the show compelling, despite the fact that its main character is a criminal and killer. He also discusses the show's themes, similarity to the Godfather movies, music, violence, and social stereo-types, among other issues. In Booklist, Stephanie Zvirin compared the book favorably to another discussion of the show, Allen Rucker's The Sopranos: A Family History, praising its "substance" and thought-provoking analysis.

When Yacowar is not writing or speaking about film, he enjoys collecting and selling Inuit art and international modern graphics.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 2002, Stephanie Zvirin, review of The Sopranos on the Couch: Analyzing Television's Greatest Series, p. 1665.

Films in Review, February, 1994, review of The Films of Paul Morrissey, p. 72.

Publishers Weekly, July 1, 2002, review of TheSopranos on the Couch, p. 71.