"DOCUMENT RESUME ED 146-910 IR 005 335 AUTHOR--;-k Wegner,- Hart TITLE - Teaching with Film. INSTITUTION- Phi Delta Kappa, Bloomington, Ind. TUB.DATEr. 77 '--110TE. , 41p. EDRS PRICE ,- .HF-$0.83,HC-$2.06 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Adtiovisual Aids; Cartoons; Dccuaentaries; *Educational- Resources; Files; *Film Study; Foreign Language Files; :*Instructional Films; Secondary Educaticn IBSTRACT lany-featUre length files and films made for television are adaptable to _classroom use, especially in thearts, 'humanities, and social-sciences, and studentS,way accepta 4ell-produced film- (even if it is-older) lore readily thanan inex0eisively produced educational fils._Thisbookiet_discusseshOw aniaated filas, narrative featureuilas, doctixentaties,and,personal fills light -he used for teaching, and offers:many specific fills as exaaples. Separate chapters are devoted to.film selectiob, presentation of a film-to students, and whereto obtain tills. The adthoi AdieCates-the teaching-of' film ata Icrm_of literature (such as art ,ca:Arama) by integrating _film studies into the _required cutticuluk:in'the junior and senior high tchtols.1JAB) *********************************************************************si *' Dccuaents acquired by ERIC include many irfcrlalbnpdblished * material& not available fro, other sources. ERIC makes Every effort * tO_Obtain the available, leverthilets, _items of marginal * * reptoducibility are _often encountered and this Affects-the quality * -* of the microfiche and hardccpy reproductiont ERIC _lakes available, * * via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service 1EDRSy. EDRS is not, * responsible for the quality of the original _document. Reproductions * * supplied by EDRS are the-best that can be made from the original. * *******44******44****************************4*************************.. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, ,EDUCATIONA WELFARE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO- DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN ATING IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS _o STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRE- SENT OFF ICIAL NATioNAI INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY Teaching With Film By Hart Wegner v.? Tr_ "PERMISSION TO-REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTEDBY Phi Delta Kappa. TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) AND USERS OF THE ERIC SYSTEM" Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 77-840-40 ISBN 0-87367-103-1 Copyright 1977 by The Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation Bloomington, Fridiana TABLE -OF- CONTENTS Encountering the 'Film Generation' is N. Using Film in the Classroom 7110 Failure -of Education Film 10, Narrative Feature -Films 12 , 'The Animated Film 14 The-Docunintary 17 The Experimental and Personal Films 19 The Selection of Films 20 The Presentation 22 Who Makes Films? 28 Script and Film in Language and Literature Courses 31 Teaching Film- 33 The Future of Film Studies 35 Supplement: Teaching with Narrative Feature Films 37 3 O Encountering the 'Film Generation' Concerned observers of education have noted a progressive de- terioration- in the reading and writing skills of American students during the lastdecade. SOme critics have blamed this atrophy of liter- acy skills on the students' dependence upon film and-television:Un- able to spell or to Wrte a simple coherent sentence, students slump in front of a television set or flock to the movies. Motion picture stu- dios and the television networks have been blamed for the Creation of this,OaSsive mass audience. But is film really to blame for deficiencies in writing and reading 3kills?_tontributory factors may well include a combiiiz.,oh of popu- lation shifts, school overcrowding, school violence, absenteeism, an overall decline in professionalism in teaching, and a general degen. eration of crafts-and skills in our society. Even visual education methods are attacked by outside critics. Many teacher's are alarmed by the incursions of film and television into their classrooms and often effectively resist the organized de- velopmentiof visual skills. The current attempt to return to educa- tional basics, howeve-, should not exclude film education in the in- 'creasingly visual world of the twentieth centuiry. _ Using film in the classroom may appear to some traditionalists as opening the gates even wider to a Trojan hotle, preparing the way :for -an attack of illiteracy. But the 'act is that teaching through film May not greatly change TV viewing habits in die student's home, just as emphasis on- reading is not likely to change patterns of movie at- tendance, The important point is this: What is being seen can be in- tegrated,into the general process of learnin 'sit possible that our students see too m ch and read too little? Any-instructor who.refets to specifiC e feature films in the 4 classroom and- expects :instant- recognitionwill_ meet- blank stares when he mentions Ford; Kubrick,or Bergman. He soon realizes that- stu-defits are not seeing too much,-buttoo little, and what-they see is often-not understood. Otir students have been denied the visualtraining that would en- able them-t-O cope-intelligently -withan increasingly visual environ- ment The need to offer visual instruction hasnot appeared urgent to many educators, becaus'it was assumed that wewere teaching the "film generation, " -a misnomer popularizedin the 1960s. The-ims- -Omer served -as justification for the eAclusionof visualliteracy from -ouieducational goals: if-the written -orm of literature must be taught through a succes- , sion of grades, then it seems ratherincongruous that- iilma far more cpMplex-amalgam of literature, art, rhusjc, drama,-architec- ture, and a-variety of technical arts and crafts--shouldbe considered "self-teaching." During the period of the silent filmit was assumed thatifim the universal language, because peoplewith many different-lan- guage backgrounds could understand certain imagesand symbols; -however, even a universal language hasto be learned and should be taught Film should hot be pitted againSt literature,but should be in- tegrated into the curriculumas one art among other arts. When ;D. W Griffith developed theconventions of narrative film, he used novelistic techniquesas models, particularly the tech- niques of Victorian novelists suchas Dickens. It never occurred to Griffith that he might be killing literature.He firmly believed that he was adding a new way of literary story telling. Hesaw film as another advance in the history of humancommunication, a step less trau- matic than the change from the oraltradition to the written forms of literature.' Film-is the most influential art formdeveloped since the advent of literature It is not an enemy of literaturebut an integral part in the ever- changing literary communication. Whatthe written text was to the highly developed oral tradition, filmhas become to the printed text,-One stage evolves into the other, andit wodd be naive to be- ., 'For clarity and econornv we use the itiaculine formof pronouns throughout this fastback when no spectitc genderis implied lute we recognae the trend away horn this practice we see no grateful alternative Ve hope the reader will impute no sexist motives: certainly no SCtiSfIl is intended. Um tailors' 6 5 lieve that film-is the final advance of literary evolution in the history of mar kind. Having_ developed as a consistently popular medium from painted literature more than three-quarters of a century ago, film has not destroyed its matrix, as is evidenced by an annual publi- cation of more than 40,000 books in the United StateS. Literature and film can coexist in a manner similar to television- and radio, radio and the legitimate stage, or television and the legiti- mate stage. The advent of television did not destroy radio, but -rede- fined the role the radio was to play in our lives. Radio did not destroy -tiv! legitimate stage. nor did film, instead, the theater changed. Film does not threaten literature and literacy, because It a literature, and it has emerged as a dominant art formiin our century. Film has re- mained an educational stepchild, however, used and abused in-the classroorii, when t should be treated with the same love and respect as the older chiloren in the family of arts and disciplines. (' 76 -Using Film in the Classroom 0ne-of-the_majGrforces in the development of film, D. W. Griffith believed that film could be used to teach many different subjects and teach them much better than before. Griffith obviously was right, if we dare to admit it. We can bring the best instructors, scientists, and poets into our classrooms, and ,even the remotest community schooi can now become part of the whole world in an unprece- dented-wayif we use film intelligently. If film7can teach so well, why is itt the one medium of instruction least used to its potential? Are we, the instructors, apprehensive about being replaced by disembodied images on the screen hypno- tizing "our" students? Filth is the most influential and seductiv e force available tous to teach,-to convince, and to transmit ideas and information -or simply to show the world as it is. Audiences respond more emotionally and react more violently to film than do readers to books. Authoritarian governments -find that they must control the film inC4stry. Lenin recognized this fact when he claimed that film was the most impor- tant-art:form of the Marxist revolution. With good reason, the issue of-violence in film and television has been debated for years, while scant attention is paid to violence in books. Triumph of the Will, Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda masterpiece celebrating the rise of Nazism, was banned in the U.S. during World War II and for many years-afterward, and yet Hitler's Mein Kampf remained in printas Merely-a Work of curiosity value. If film has such potential, it k distressing to see how poorly used it is in instruction and the extent to which studentsare unfamiliar with its history, aesthetics, and techniques. We are continuouslysur- rounded by the effects of film (and its offspring, television), and yet 8 7 in most instances we have failed to teach our students what film is and what it is capable of achieving inits moments of greatness.