James Zborowski
Victor was a major formative influence on me during my postgraduate years at Warwick. His influence, on and off the page, contributed substantially to my decision to write a PhD on Hitchcock, Preminger and Ophuls, and his writing style was a constant model of clarity, insight, and argumentative method.
The thing I valued most about Victor’s presence in the department was precisely his presence. I, like many others, enjoyed endless opportunities for unpurposeful conversation with him: outside the campus supermarket, on the corridor of the Humanities building, in the staffroom at lunchtime, at Cinema Club. In this way, Victor quietly cultivated the day-to-day social and intellectual life of the department. (He also cultivated its wildlife, by keeping the birds well fed.) I still think of this kind of daily, ongoing conversation that moves freely between the sharing of friendship and the exchange of ideas as a fundamental part of a good university experience, and a good life. Victor, so generous with his time and so wholehearted in his encounters, gave me one of my best experiences of this mode of conversation and companionship. I miss him deeply, and will remember him always.
