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| blurred by Cal |
I dunno if that's the right word.
Let's try this again. What do all of you think about movies occupying a large amount of space on a course syllabus? Moreover, what do all of you think about course assignments being based on assigned movies.
I ask because in my pseudo-professional-tutorial position, I see assignments from across my "university's" rather crappy curriculum. And each semester, I see more students coming to my office with questions about papers that they have to write on movies. Some of those papers are called film reviews; others are traditional thesis-driven argumentative-type papers.
And when I read these papers, they almost inevitably contain sentences very similar to the following example: "Pacifically, A Christmas Story is bias against gun ownership."
After reading 4+ pages of prose like that, I can't help but think that these "university" "students" should be reading a lot more than they do. I also can't help but think that disciplines like American Studies (which is forever playing with its own archive) should stop trying to be hip, bro, and should refrain from juxtaposing weeks of discussion on A People's History of the United States with weeks of discussion on The Ghost of Tom Joad. Perhaps following Zinn with, I don't know, another book would work? Besides, Tom Joad sucks anyway.
So everyone, and pacifically the bloggers on College Misery, what are your thoughts?
P.S. Weigh in on film studies, too. Sure, film studies classes should study films. However, the bigger question is about whether or not those disciplines are inherently rigorous. And then, of course, what defines rigor? Furthermore, why do, say, a whole lot of humanities professors get to say things like, "Next semester, I'm teaching an English class that is a film studies course." Grrrr. I'm obviously bias against this stuff.
I'm a grad student at a uni where the college is probably in the top 20 nationally based on whatever they base these things on.
ReplyDeleteI went to check the recent film Bridesmaids out of the library for my bachelorette party this weekend? No can do. It's on course reserve.
Okay, I'll take the bait. I teach film studies. I really don't think I need to defend it as a worthwhile discipline, since obviously films are cultural artifacts that can tell us a great deal about society and that provoke all sorts of philosophical inquiries about aesthetics, representation, movement, etc. As for rigor, we tend to assign just as much reading as in other classes in the humanities but add on a screening or two each week, sometimes assigned as homework and sometimes viewed as a group (usually depending on technology and classroom space). The fact that students can't write about film is certainly a problem, though I suspect that they tend to write equally poorly about every subject. The greater problem is that students assume that these courses are going to be easy, so they put very little work into their papers. Usually the intro course snaps them out of this, since it has twice as many contact hours as the intro class in most other majors and tends to award lower grades.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ursula.
DeleteMy degree is in the humanities--not in film studies--and I've just grown tired of seeing non-film studies departments create courses around film.
This aggravation stems largely from having a class of English majors stare blankly at me when I ask them to define something like dramatic irony. Then I'll look at what's being taught in the rest of the English department, and a sizable chunk of the courses contain "filmic texts."
It's even more horrifying to know that dramatic irony, if memory serves, is a device often used in film. But, you know, race, class, and gender . . .
I seem to remember that the way they did it at Northwestern was that there were regular film studies classes, which met 2-3 times per week for 50-75-minute sessions that oscillated between lecture and discussion, supplemented with film clips and shorts, and that entire feature films seen were shown in a two-hour or longer lab section, which met 1-2 times per week. This meant that "Gone with the Wind" and "Lawrence of Arabia" still needed to be broken in two.
DeleteUrsula, I'll agree with you--they do think courses with the word "Film" in the title are going to be a cakewalk.
DeleteCal beat me to the graphic...dammit. But it's a goodie.
ReplyDeleteOh, and well said, Nothaughty!!
I'm blushing, CM.
DeleteAny "discipline" that has to modify one word with the word "Studies" is not a discipline. 'Nuff said.
ReplyDeleteWHOOOOOOOA
DeleteCome again? I believe a cat must have walked across your keyboard, because that does not read like a sentence an educated being would type.
DeleteBio-logy. From " Bios," Greek for Life, and "Logia," Greek for Study or Story.
DeleteStudy?
Biology must not be discipline.
You might start working on your apoLOGY. ("Logia" for story)
:)
I am with Ursula and Nothaughty.
ReplyDeleteFilm is an Art, and deserves to be treated and studied as art. It is the most modern of the art forms and important to understand because it is own modern means of expression.
Like Theater, it is often misused. Unlike theater, it is Overused.
To understand it as an Art, you need to have knowledge of art, politics, history, and so on. I find myself teaching more history than film so that the students can place the film within its context.
I find it very difficult to teach film because so many, too many people, use in as a subject when they don't know anything about it as an Art form. It is such an accessible Art form that it has lost its meaning. Just becuase you watch a lot of films, and watch the behidn hte scenes does not make you an expert. ( Please, when I tell people I teach film, their first response is to reel off a list of film that I should be teaching. )
It is just one of many art forms and should be studied in that manner.
I find it aggravating to see Film in English, history courses, film in religion courses and so on taught by people who would be utterly appalled to have me teach English, religion, history, political science. This leads to the problem of students who think they understand film when they get my classes. They are not taught how to understand film as its own subject. Sure, film addresses history, politics, and so on, but it is its own subject, not a teaching tool.
And please, do not talk to me about people who assign a 'video' as a class project. Making a film is more complex than picking up a camera.
I assign films , but in my classes, films are the subject to be dissected and discussed. We watch few but important texts.
sorry for all the typos. eating a sandwich and typing in a fury....
DeleteThis is an interesting discussion. I agree with the notion of just anybody teaching film in their own disciplines. It's not just "movies," people, it's a rich and important discipline all on its own.
DeleteI really rarely wade in to the process, but in grad school I took some courses in film and lit with Jack Jorgens, so I figure that gives me a pass every now and again.
But the wholesale scheduling of a ton of films to augment an English class always seems spurious to me.
Well, Drive can't be as good as Crash. That movie spent, like, years at #1 on the Netflix top 100 movies list. 'Nuff said.
DeleteIf you ask, then if I were to want to watch a film that features a classic postmodern version of the hard-boiled detective embodied by a classically trained actor who empahsized action over dialogue and uses a skilled chase sequence, it would be, of course, "Bullit."
DeleteI'll second Ursula as someone who both studies and teaches film-adjacent media (horror of horrors [to some, I'm sure] I study YouTube). A course that works with many media types can be equally as rigorous as a written-text-only course. However, media-focused courses tend to attract students who assume they can expend equal amounts of effort on watching the media and their actual assignments without it having an effect on their grade.
ReplyDeleteHow can a course inherently be rigorous or not? Rigor is determined by the curriculum and standards.
ReplyDeleteWhile the average quality of the class may be low, that doesn't mean that the discipline itself cannot be difficult. Creating a piece of artwork of high quality from finger painting is not inherently more easy than brush painting, even though most finger painting is done by preschoolers. Organic chemistry is not an easier discipline than inorganic chemistry, even though org chem is taught two years earlier.
DeleteStockStalker, dude, can you analyze a sequence using the standard language of film theory and film production? Really, no? Do you even know what a sequence is, as opposed to a take or a shot, without Google? Then shut up.
DeleteOh my.
ReplyDeleteDr. NN, usually I find myself in agreement with you. But not today.
So, if the professor uses a film, the course isn't rigorous?
I'm confused. And agreeing with ^BB.
I’ll go ahead and be in the minority here. I am trying (and failing) not to take umbrage at your suggestion that I am somehow dodging my duties—teaching critical thinking and writing-- if I use film in my courses. My literature of nature class just read two book-length works on climate change, and we spent this week watching An Inconvenient Truth (plus a TEDTalk by James Hansen).
I resent the implication that I'm doing this because I don't want to teach or something. I see it as reinforcing the written texts I’m teaching—all three are connected quite clearly both by me and by my students. My students take notes, and discuss the film both online and in class.
I also resent Dr. Tivo's implication that because I did not study film as a genre, I'm unqualified to talk about it when I use it in my lit courses. I call bullshit, for several reasons:
1. Are you going to tell me that because I did not major in theater that I cannot teach an intro to drama course where we read and dissect plays? I don't need to talk about staging to talk about the story, the characters, the plot, or the dialogue (but since I worked as a dramaturg in Chicago for a few years, I can, and do, sometimes).
2. Are you going to tell me that because I did not major in film, I cannot talk about the story contained therein? For example, I teach science fiction literature and film. I don't need to talk about camera angles and mise-en-scene when I'm discussing the points Ridley Scott is trying to make in Blade Runner (though I can, and have done so). I am trained to talk about story, plot, character, dialogue, etc. How does that make me unqualified to discuss films?
3. Are you going to tell me that a documentary has no place other than in a film class? That I can’t use a documentary on, say, food production in the US as a companion to a full-length book when I teach argumentation and critical thinking in a composition class? Nope. Sorry. You’re wrong. Because I do it. And it’s successful on a number of levels.
I do agree, though, that Film deserves its own place in the pantheon of studies.
I apologize for the length of my reply, but this touched a nerve. Dr. NN, it sounds like you're only seeing a SMALL PORTION of the students who are writing assignments for those courses (the ones who need the help most desperately). How can you judge rigor of the course when all you see is the work of students who obviously need the help you're providing?
Well said. Dr Haughty falls into the same trap as every other snobby prof -- thinking that EVERYONE who uses a film, video, or media clip is obviously not using it with a purpose.
DeleteFalse premise. Maybe he's just too lazy to think about how that stuff can be used in a class. Lord know the others on this thread have sussed out why so many students think film=fun. Intellectual laziness.
Hear, hear! Well said, BurntChrome.
DeleteI have lost many an honors STEM-type student in my film/media courses because they got their first shitty paper handed back to them and were stunned to discover that their SHEER LUV OF MOVIEZZ wouldn't earn them an automatic A.
It's heartening to see so many people at CM step up to defend my field. But it's frustrating to have it come under attack in the first place, especially by fellow intellectual types who ought to think twice about calling someone else's entire field into question.
Chrome, as a practing theater person, then you are of course aware that the architecture drives the dramatic structure. It is impossible to discuss theater without discussing the relationship between the actor and audience, expressed in its architectural form. Plays are only given meaning through performance. This is why, as you know, we immediately discard any written stage directions, which are not part of the script.
DeleteWe also realize that when we chose plays for perfromance, our first consideration is the theater space. You cannot do "A Doll House" as street theater.
Of course, there is also the problem of the Elizabethean drama. How can you teach Shakespeare without considering that marginal form, the commedia, which has no text to study. Or the Influence of the Stuart Court Masque. Plays , of course, are printed now because Jonson wanted to make some money.
And so on... but then again, why does the English dept here not allow me to teach modern drama or playwriting?
Gotta chime in with the folks that say most anything can be used in an educational context along with the caveat there can be be too much of any good thing.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with NN that it is annoying to have instructors who use films as filler -- an easy fill-in-the-blank in a lesson plan.
But as a former student now instructor of wombat wellness, there have been many films (or segments thereof) which provided excellent illustrative examples.
I was elected during my wombat development class to go to the local video story to obtain a copy of Ordinary People to study wombat family dynamics. (I had to leave a check for $150 as a deposit, if you want to try to date my undergraduate years.) Also during that time, in a wombat economics class, we watched Class Action which I still quote to this day as an excellent behind-the-scenes look of corporate machination.
In my own teaching, it is difficult to find live examples of wombat wellness interventions. One of the best that still exists, and can be shown from start to (artificially fast) finish, is Hawkeye's breakdown in the final episode of M*A*S*H.
So, sorry, NN, I can and will continue to include a judicious use of cinema.
You and NN are talking about distinctly different uses of film. In his case, I think he is annoyed at faculty substituting the watching of a movie for reading the book.
DeleteYou seem to be using film not as a work of art or as a substitute for another work of art but simply as an example of a real phenomenon. You could maybe read a passage out of a book to provide the same example but film creates a stronger reaction, keeps students attention and takes less class time. I think your use is certainly more appropriate than what NN is complaining about.
My department has a Film as Literature course. The person who first developed it was a twit whose idea of curriculum was "Read the book, watch the movie, and then compare/contrast." This appalled the faculty who actually studied film as part of their graduate curriculum. They rebelled, and a few of them actually revamped the entire course so that it's more stringent now. I've never taken the class, but I did a peer review for a colleague teaching it and enjoyed seeing the connections to literary elements highlighted, as well as the emphasis on visual rhetoric as a film device, during the classes I observed.
ReplyDeleteYeah, film as filler sucks, but I can't do this anyway. My classes run so few weeks, and my classroom time is so short, that I don't waste it on anything but super-short clips, and I wouldn't assign the viewing of a DVD to a class of 75. Without a lab where everyone can watch a piece together in preparation for a discussion, I say it's not a particularly useful use of student time. However, I have complete respect for Film and Media Studies. You can only think those disciplines are lightweight if you have never waded through all the turgid, jargon-filled articles that read like ... essays in the sciences.
ReplyDeleteStop feeling sorry for yourself. I actually have to read that dreck! ;-)/2
DeleteFroad, not all of us can be Roald Hoffman. Try reading one of his papers sometime: you may or may not agree with the chemistry, but it's an excellent read.
DeleteMy wicked little heart would sing with joy if Roald Hoffman did research in my field, but alas, he does not.
DeleteBack to film: I suppose one would have to cut up "2001" too, since it's 2.5 hours long. (And yes, I know, everyone says it's a half hour longer than it should be.)