"Los Angeles - Filmmaker George Lucas, the man behind the Star Wars movie franchise, says he hopes to revitalise the study of cinema through a recent $175m gift to the University of Southern California, his alma mater.

Lucas' donation last month, the biggest private gift received by USC, is being used to endow and rebuild its School of Cinematic Arts. The university broke ground on the project on Wednesday.

""In the academic world, movies are not very high up on the radar.... Movies are kind of down there, sort of a sub-set of a liberal arts education,"" Lucas, 62, said after the ceremony.

""I wanted to send a signal ... to all the universities that have film schools,"" he added. ""This is like the law school or the journalism school or the architecture school. This is an important part of our society and needs to be taken seriously, and hopefully this will get their attention.""

The first $75m of Lucas' donation will pay the cost of constructing a new building to replace a facility he helped build years ago. The remainder of his gift will establish an endowment that Lucas hopes to expand through further fund-raising efforts.

The USC School of Cinematic Arts, founded in 1929 by actor Douglas Fairbanks, is the oldest film school in the nation and the first to offer a doctorate programme.

Lucas received his undergraduate degree from the school in 1966. After his first big success as writer and director of American Graffiti, he went on to usher in a new era of special-effects filmmaking and blockbuster movies as creator of Star Wars.

More recently, he has reunited with director Steven Spielberg to produce the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones film franchise the two launched in 1981 with Raiders of the Lost Ark.

He also plans to produce and direct the upcoming World War II film Red Tails, about the first black pilots to fly in a combat squadron.
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