James Charney

James Charney, MD has loved movies since taking the first class in film history offered at Columbia College. He became the very definition of an amateur: a self-taught lover of film, film history, and film craft and ultimately developed a popular seminar at Yale College called Madness at the Movies. He has given talks on film history and taught courses and workshops based on the Yale seminar at The American University in Rome, Arcadia University in Rome, The University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, and the Yale Alumni College, and it is the basis of his first book, Madness at the Movies (2023). He and his wife, Diane, spend half the year in New Haven, Connecticut, where he continues to teach in the Medical School at Yale, and half the year at their home in Umbria, Italy, to be near their son, Noah, and his wife and 2 daughters who all share his passion for the movies.