Film Studies in Schools

Movies and moving images are becoming such a huge part of daily life. Definitely!

quietdriver3 said:Why shouldn't American studies cover film? In my school—back in middle school—our teachers used to show us films for our literature assignments; we even studied documentaries and those old-school script formats—you know, the ones with two columns for visuals and audio. We had all of that...

Where on earth did you go to school? I don't recall ever having that in my curriculum—though I guess I heard from folks in other parts of the country that they actually had a Film Culture class.😕

quietdriver3 said:I don't think we should treat it as its own separate thing, honestly, because music and art classes already have those interactive components where students actually get to sing or draw, whereas let's be real, the film program just doesn't have the budget for that kind of hands-on stuff, and since English class already covers things like poetry and scriptwriting, maybe we should just reorganize the current curriculum to weave more film studies into the existing structure.

I feel like Amanda Lopez50 hit the nail on the head regarding what this instruction ought to look like, since art and music in elementary school serve a completely different purpose than a high school course designed to broaden one's general film culture, and just as you weren't expected to be Da Vinci in art class—even if you had to understand composition, color theory, and lighting or recognize the masters—nobody expects you to walk out of a film studies class suddenly knowing how to direct a feature or write a screenplay.

Maybe in high school, I don't know, somehow. But man, I feel like the costs would be, well, huge!! Plus, I doubt students would actually be stoked about it. They already have such a heavy workload as it is. And honestly, if we're going down that road, why not just make comic books their own separate subject instead of tying it to film? 🙂 Personally, I think it’d be better if it just stayed within the American literature curriculum, maybe just making it a bit more prominent. Like, maybe coveringสัก 20% of the material.

wearygardener13 said:Wait, where on earth did you go to school? I don't remember anything like that back in my day, though I guess I heard people from other parts of the country mention they actually had film culture classes. 😕

I actually had stuff like that back in middle school. In high school, we didn't really dive into movies much at all—which is kind of ridiculous if you think about it—but during our required reading, we’d get through scripts and analyses of certain documentaries and things like that. So, yeah, it was part of the curriculum. I was born in '80, so... maybe that was like fifteen or twenty years ago? Something like that.

True, it’s not really doable. Though now that any idiot with a smartphone can record video, it’s becoming way easier to pull off.

...you know where things start to fall apart when you confine film studies strictly to the realm of American linguistics? It’s not just that you end up with totally disinterested instructors most of the time—and let's be honest, if they're actually English professors who specialized in language, they usually know next to nothing about cinema. They end up teaching nothing more than the rigid stuff straight out of a textbook. Compare that to someone who studied fine arts or drama—they actually bring a different perspective to art than someone whose primary obsession was grammar, right? Instead of exploring anything meaningful, the whole lecture devolve into the absolute worst part: drilling classic film structure—remember those "introduction... climax..." charts buried at the back of an English textbook? 🙂—mostly through rote memorization. They completely bypass what actually matters in a movie—its artistic weight, its message, its social relevance, all of that. In my humble opinion, that kind of approach kills any genuine love for film rather than fostering it...
...obviously, I'm oversimplifying here, but I think you get my drift, even if you don't agree with me...

Amanda Lopez50 said:...of course, I'm oversimplifying things here, but I think you get my point, even if you don't necessarily agree...

I guess I see what you mean, but honestly, if the same people can teach poetry, they could probably handle film too. I'm mostly just looking at it from a budget standpoint, I suppose. And yeah, like blueranger12 mentioned, technology is always moving forward, so maybe some workshops could work, but then there's the whole issue of scheduling conflicts and the risk of just raising a generation that ends up hating movies altogether...

In a perfect world, sure, that would work, but I don't know, it doesn't feel all that realistic to me. 🙂

...look, I get where you're coming from, but I decided to just let my imagination run wild for a second and picture the absolute peak of film culture...🙂 now, how realistic is that? Hmm. To some extent, sure, but there’s one catch: willpower. And let's be honest, that's the one resource we're most lacking around here. You need massive, sweeping ideas—they're what push you toward a realization that might not be perfect, but it's damn good. Because if you start with a tiny goal, you'll end up with nothing 🙂

...but honestly, I should probably go to sleep instead of daydreaming on here 🙂

I don't think this would cost a fortune. It’s not like TVs or DVD players are some huge luxury these days.
Just call a PTA meeting, tell everyone the school is absolutely broke, and see if they'll cough up ten bucks.

So, 10 bucks times 30 kids per class... that's easy money.

And please, don't even start talking about those elementary school movies.🙂 Back in my day, we had "media studies," which was hands down the most boring class in the entire district. I swear, reading complex sentences was way more entertaining.