Limp Bizkit front man to feature Vassar in film

Marcella Veneziale Staff Writer

The Vassar experience at the center of a new Fred Durst film is an unfamiliar one for many students. Various film websites, as well as Variety magazine, have described the soon-to-be-filmed The Education of Charlie Banks as the story of a Vassar student who receives a visit from “the scariest kid from his old New York neighborhood” (comingsoon.net).

While this subject may seem contrived, the relationships of the cast and crew to Vassar are compelling. Limp Bizkit front man Fred Durst directs the film, raising questions about his decision to choose Vassar for the film’s locale instead of other colleges across the country.

College Relations has not been contacted by Iridium Entertainment, the film’s production company.

“Nobody has asked for it to be filmed here,” said Director of Media Relations Jeff Kosmacher. Although the film focuses on a Vassar student, the shooting location has already been scheduled for Providence, RI.

The lead role of Charlie Banks, the student with the mysterious visitor, is played by Jesse Eisenberg, who starred in The Squid and the Whale, directed by Vassar alumnus Noah Baumbach ’91. Deceased actor John Ritter’s son Jason is slated to star in Charlie Banks.

Baumbach got his start by working on the 1995 film Kicking & Screaming, while others will recognize his lead from Squid and the Whale from films such as The Emperor’s Club and The Village. He garnered media attention this year for Squid and the Whale, and had been active in writing and film production for years before the film’s release. As early as 1996, he was named one of Newsweek’s “Ten New Faces,” co-wrote The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) with Wes Anderson, and contributed short stories and anecdotes to the New Yorker’s “Shouts & Murmurs” column. The Squid and the Whale, described as a “sleeper hit” by imdb.com, has won awards at the Sundance Film Festival, New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the National Board of Review for best screenplay.

Charlie Banks is far from Vassar’s first media appearance. Upon introducing prospective students to the All Campus Dining Center (ACDC), student tour guides often note that the façade of the dining hall was used as the model for the university in The Muppet Movie, because it seemed the most collegiate-style building on campus. Jim Henson and his crew could not, it seems, tear themselves away from campus, and used images of Strong House in the fly-over scenes from The Muppets Take Manhattan.

Vassar is also mentioned briefly in the films Moonraker, Sabrina, Police Academy, Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, Closer, Dolores Claiborne, and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion.

Mary McCarthy ’33 may have been one of the first to cause a public stir about Vassar. Her fictional novel, The Group, published in 1963, was controversial for its frank discussion of eight Vassar women from the Class of 1933 and their experiences with childrearing, homosexuality, mental illness, and dabbling in Communism. In more recent years, Spin magazine published an article about the unsavory dating practices of male Vassar students.

Although Vassar has been superficially mentioned in numerous films, Kosmacher noted that, “Nothing like this has happened in the three years I’ve been here.” Many of the film’s details remain unresolved, and students will have to wait to discover the extent of Vassar’s fictionalized role in the film.