New Classes

I originally started the semester out with only 8 hours of classes--two regular Freshman O.E. and the special class of students who are paying big money to study abroad in England next year (and whose English is god-awful). Feeling like 3 classes would be anti-climactic for my last teaching semester, I introduced an "idea" for a "movie class" to my "boss," "Steve". The department was sold on the idea, but it was clear it would never be a real class, but more of a club (less work for me!). I wrote a brief semi-fictional autobiography and a class description and sent it to Steve along with the most eccentric photographs of myself that I could find.

My first class had a whopping 4 people. I then decided that it might be helpful to actually tell some of my current students about it. The second week had a better showing with a lot of my freshmen attending. I had hoped for some older students. I started with The Searchers, considered one of the best westerns ever made and good introduction to the class (the first film of many introductory film classes). Though it is a pretty straightforward movie, there are several key subtleties in both the plot as well as the artistic composition of the film. For example the most important camera shot in the film is the "doorway" shot, in which a character is framed looking inside a room or house from the outside (or vice versa). It is supposed to represent the barrier between the wilderness and civilization, or between the lone cowboy and the comforts of family life.

Easy, huh?

They seemed to get the plot, though I am not sure they saw too far beyond a typical cowboy story. I tried to get a conversation going about the typical Western themes seen in the film, including racism, but no dice. At least I'm pretty sure I got my points about cinematography across.

The other problem is that it is an old film, which for most Chinese students equals boring. Unless it is full of colors and effects, they tend to lose interest. But many of those kinds of movies have little narrative or artistic value. The problem with those that do is that they are often way above their heads. I have had to find a balance of excitement, relevance, and simplicity. Films that try to say too much to the audience don't work. Blade Runner was too cerebral, Lost in Translation was about right. As long as their is something unique about a film, it works, and usually I concentrate on that one unique thing rather than analyze the whole film from an artist's perspective. For LIT I concentrated solely on the nature of the main character's relationship, including the unheard lines that Bill Murray whispers into Scarlett Johansson's ear.

Unfortunately our discussions about the films are only ever one-sided. I will ask them what they liked about a film, or what they thought was interesting, and they will say it was "funny" or "exciting." Then I will proceed to lecture about the "subtleties" that they may have missed. It's more of a lecture class than I would have wished, but I have never had a problem telling people how I interpret a movie.

Which is the right way to interpret a movie.
Leb Wohl