Wheeler Winston Dixon (born March 12, 1950) is an American filmmaker and scholar. His scholarship has particular emphasis on François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, American experimental cinema and horror films. He has written extensively on numerous aspects of film, including his books A Short History of Film (co-authored with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster) and A History of Horror. From 1999 through the end of 2014, he was co-editor, along with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, of the Quarterly Review of Film and Video.Susan Wloszczyna, April 2, 2010, USA TODAY, How to watch your dragons: 10 fire-breathing beasts on DVD, Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, Quote = “Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924)...Highly recommended by Wheeler Winston Dixon, editor of Quarterly Review of Film and Video.” In addition, he is notable as an experimental American filmmaker with films made over several decades,The New York Times, 1991, review, Women Who Made the Movies (1991), Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, “This documentary by filmmakers Gwendolyn Foster and Wheeler Dixon pays homage to women directors and filmmakers throughout the history of cinema...” and the Museum of Modern Art exhibited his works in 2003. He taught at Rutgers University, The New School in New York, the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and as of May 2020, is the James E. Ryan professor emeritus of film studies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
Early years
Dixon was born in 1950 in New Brunswick, a city in New Jersey halfway between New York City and Philadelphia. He grew up in Highland Park, New Jersey, and graduated from Highland Park High School in 1968.Foster, Gwendolyn Audrey "Community, Loss, and Regeneration: An Interview with Wheeler Winston Dixon", Senses of Cinema. Accessed February 7, 2020."Commencement Speakers Stress Views of 'Quest'", The Central New Jersey Home News, June 19, 1968. Accessed February 7, 2020. In the late 1960s, he was a member of New York's "underground" experimental film scene while working as a writer for Life Magazine and Andy Warhol's Interview magazine. In 1970, he co-founded the musical group Figures of Light. In London, he participated in Arts Lab in Drury Lane, making and screening short films. Returning to the United States, he worked with an experimental Los Angeles-based video collective called TVTV. Dixon received a Ph.D. in English from Rutgers University in 1982.
Experimental films
During the course of several decades, Dixon made numerous experimental films. In 1991, along with filmmaker Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, he made a documentary entitled Women Who Made the Movies. In 1995, in France, he made a film entitled Squatters. In 2003, the Museum of Modern Art acquired all of his experimental films, including the following:
Quick Constant and Solid Instant (1969)Note: featured a Fluxus group-performance piece and the poetry of Gerard Malanga Madagascar, or, Caroline Kennedy's Sinful Life in London (1976)Note: about a fictional Caroline recuperating from a hangover Serial Metaphysics (1972)Note: an examination of the American lifestyle recut entirely from existing television advertisements What Can I Do? (1993)Note: a rigorous, tender portrait of an elderly woman who holds dinner-party guests in thrall to her difficult family life.
His films have also been screened at the British Film Institute, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Jewish Museum, The San Francisco Cinématheque, Arts Lab, The Collective for Living Cinema and The Kitchen Center for Experimental Art. In March and April 2018, along with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, the BWA Contemporary Art Gallery in Katowice, Poland, presented a month long retrospective of Foster and Dixon's new video work. In May 2018, he presented a screening of his videos, along with the work of Gwendolyn Audrey Foster and Bill Domonkos at The Museum of Human Achievement in Austin, Texas. In the summer of 2018, he had a one-person show at Filmhuis Cavia in Amsterdam, and his "Catastrophe Series" of ten videos were screened as part of a group show at Studio 44 Gallery in Stockholm, Sweden. In the fall of 2018, he had a one-person show at La Lumière Collective in Montreal, Canada.La Lumiere Collective In December 2018, he had a one-person show at Studio 44 in Stockholm, and a one-person show at the OT301 Gallery in Amsterdam. In January 2019, his complete video work was collected in the UCLA Film and Television Archive in Los Angeles. On June 23, 2019, he had an invited one person screening of his new digital video work at the Los Angeles Filmforum at the Spielberg Theater.
Scholarship and film criticism Dixon writes extensively. He has published in Senses of Cinema, Cinéaste, Interview, Film Quarterly, Literature/Film Quarterly, Films in Review, Post Script, Journal of Film and Video, Film Criticism, New Orleans Review, Film International, Film and Philosophy and other journals. His book A History of Horror was reviewed by Martin A. David who criticized it as a compilation lacking a narrative structure, although David noted there were "generous and moving portraits" of horror masters such as Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and Lon Chaney Jr.Martin A. David (book reviewer), August 3, 2010, New York Journal of Books, A History of Horror, Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, Quote = “...The result is not so much a book as a compiled, and quite extensive, laundry list of, as the title promises, a history of horror ...” Dixon was quoted commenting on horror films,Sarah McBride of Reuters, January 11, 2013, Chicago Tribune, In spite of violent national tragedies, horror films endure, Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, Quote = “...Texas Chainsaw 3D ... said Wheeler Winston Dixon, author of "A History of Horror"...”Nick Clark, 20 February 2012, The Independent (UK), Simon Oakes: 'It's a welcome return. We've managed to fire people's imaginations', Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, Quote = “...Wheeler Winston Dixon ... said: "Hammer broke into prominence by being a cutting-edge studio....” women directors,Ben Sachs, April 9, 2013, Chicago Reader, Tomorrow at the Portage, see one of the few female-directed Hollywood films of the 1950s, Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, Quote = ...The Bigamist (1953)...Film scholar Wheeler Winston Dixon...in an informative essay he wrote... Hollywood film moguls,Cameron Mount, October 5, 2012, The Daily Nebraskan, UNL professor Wheeler Winston Dixon unearths realities of pre-1950s Hollywood contracts, corporate egos in new book, Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, Quote = “...Wheeler Winston Dixon...new book “Death of the Moguls: The End of Classical Hollywood,”..” new technologies for delivering movies such as streamingHosted by Mark Lynch, July 31, 2013, WICN.ORG, Wheeler Winston Dixon: STREAMING, Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, Quote = “...Tonight on Inquiry we welcome back WHEELER WINSTON DIXON...” and 3-D,Rebecca Keegan, September 25, 2011, Los Angeles Times, 3-D makeover coming to aging Hollywood blockbusters, Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, Quote = “Converting a film to 3-D "undercuts the quality of the film and the verisimilitude of the film," said Wheeler Winston Dixon.” and public relations of movie stars and directors.Stephanie Steinberg, August 2, 2012, The Boston Globe, Time to come clean as soon as possible: Crisis management requires fast action in era of social media, Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, Quote = “...to slow the endless speculation about the circumstances and reasons behind the breakup, says Wheeler Winston Dixon.” He has been quoted about the film business,Daniel Miller, April 9, 2013, Los Angeles Times, What the Michael Lynton contract renewal means for Sony, Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, Quote = “Wheeler Winston Dixon...said that Lynton's relatively long run atop a studio is a testament to...” such as discussing firms such as Miramax.Daniel Miller, July 08, 2013, Los Angeles Times, Miramax chairman's exit adds another hurdle for firm's turnaround, Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, Quote = “The problem that is going on right now with Miramax...said Wheeler Winston Dixon.” His views have been quoted about particular movies.Jessica Guynn and Dawn C. Chmielewski, May 25, 2013, Los Angeles Times, The Internship, now starring...Google, Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, Quote = “Wheeler Winston Dixon...called The Internship an "epic piece of branding" for Google.”Daniel Miller, March 13, 2013, Los Angeles Times, Participant Media hopes more filmgoers will get its messages, Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, Quote = “Wheeler Winston Dixon...aid social action campaigns for films such as Snitch are essentially marketing tools..”Ethan Gilsdorf, May 9, 2010, The Boston Globe, Merry men: Russell Crowe is the latest to inhabit the evolving role of Robin Hood, Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, Quote = "The Adventures of Robin Hood became “the most eye-popping and action-packed version of the legend," according to Wheeler Winston Dixon.” In addition, he has talked about late night television shows.Bill Keveney, Jan. 23, 2010, USA Today, Conan vs. Jay vs. David vs. Jimmy, Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, Quote = “To handicap the weeknight competitors, we canvassed interested industry observers, including: Wheeler Winston Dixon. ” He is regarded as an authority of future trends in filmmaking; for example, in 2013, he described the current decade as a "postfilmic era" when "movie film will no longer exist and all movies will be shot digitally". He predicts that film will cease to exist, since all movies will be digitally delivered to theaters. He has been critical of filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino:
As a film historian, he wrote about the moguls of the 1950s:
In 2014, when computer hackers infiltrated Sony Pictures Entertainment, Dixon was quoted in the Los Angeles Times that the exposure of confidential studio emails and films served as a "wake-up call to the entire industry."Meg James, Ryan Faughnder, December 13, 2014, Los Angeles Times, Fallout from Sony hack may alter how Hollywood conducts business, Retrieved December 14, 2014 In December 2015, he was quoted by Manohla Dargis in the New York Times on the demise of the DVD format, saying that "if you go on Amazon and you see some great black-and-white film, and it’s going for $3, or any kind of foreign or obscure film, buy it, because it’s going out of print, and they’re not going to put them back into print.”Manohla Dargis, December 9, 2015, New York Times, The Best Movies of 2015, Retrieved December 27, 2015
In 2020, the New York Times interviewed Dixon on the new wave of horror films from Universal Studios, and why the more recent "Dark Universe" films were unsuccessful. Dixon noted that "there will be films about Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, long after we’re gone. They’ll still be mining these things. But the ones that will be effective will be made by people who are sincerely invested in the material and treat these creatures with deadly seriousness."Robert Ito, February 27, 2020, New York Times, There’s No Dark Universe Anymore, Just One Monster After Another, Retrieved February 27, 2020
In 2016, Dixon returned to experimental cinema working in HD video, with such films as An American Dream, Still Life, and Closed Circuit. From 2010 to 2020, he coordinated film studies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He has also written extensively on the films of the late Robert Downey Sr.; Dixon and Downey were friends from the late 1960s up until Downey Sr.'s death in 2021. In 2022, Dixon participated in the BFI / Sight and Sound poll of the greatest films of all time, selecting Andy Warhol's The Chelsea Girls as his top pick.Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time, , Retrieved April 12, 2023 In October 2025, the fourth edition of his book A Short History of Film, co-written with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, was published by Rutgers University Press.
Personal life Dixon is the nephew of the artist Nina Barr Wheeler.
Publications His books (as author or editor) include: Synthetic Cinema: The 21st Century Movie Machine (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)