Re: "20 classic films that every child should see" (2 responses)

From: filmgene <[email protected]>

Leo is correct in noting that any list will necessarily involve  
prejudices and unchallenged dogma within it. Today's critical universe  
is so diverse that we are in danger of becoming a world of niche  
advocates and losing a shared culture may be the price exacted for the  
sake of diversity.

In my experience in teaching film to college students, I have noted a  
prejudice against works of the past and an alarming tendency to assume  
that if a work is not relatively current, it has nothing to offer a  
modern audience. This inevitably leads to a stunted cultural universe  
in which one assumes that intelligence, wisdom and artistry began the  
year of one's birth. The richness of the past is marginalized and each  
generation reinvents the wheel over and over again.

There is some value in learning through one's own discoveries and  
mistakes, but how much more efficient would it be for budding artists  
and audiences to have the benefit of the past to enrich their own  
creations or their own reactions?

It seems to me that a reasonable compromise would be to require  
exposure to a wide range of historical works without specifying  
"classic" titles or authors. A range of options for each decade of the  
20th and 21st centuries could be suggested and periodically revised,  
balanced by genres, geography and such. The important thing is to  
require the past to be a part of any worthwhile curriculum.

Trusting students to discover the past is futile while specifying a  
canon is paternalistic and inherently prejudiced. The danger is in the  
choice between isolating and trvializing history against establishing  
rigid categories of hierarchy which stifles research and exploration.

By far, the most rewarding moments of teaching in my career have been  
the ones in which students have discovered, through my guidance,  
insights into their own lives from some long-forgotten works which  
they have had the illusion of discovering for themseves.

That, it seems to me is the heart of great education -- allowing  
students to believe they have discovered something by themselves  
through subtle and careful guidance rather than by commanding  
obedience to some rigid canon.

Gene Stavis
New York, NY

-----------

From: "Lizie, Arthur" <[email protected]>

If kids don't watch these films how else are they going to learn about  
the dead white men who have been kicked out of our school systems?

Seriously, any attempt at canonization is an opportunity to engage in  
a discussion (not a diatribe) about how and why canons are formed. At  
the very least, it offers a snapshot of one ideological point of view  
that can be worked against. I teach around the Sight and Sound lists.  
Students not only get introduced to films that are useful to view if  
only to make sense of a good deal of literature about film, but also  
get to see how cannon-building leaves them (and, with some  
intersections, women, non-Europeans, GLBT, etc.) outside the process  
(in ways that, say, amazon.com or IMDB don't).

"Key" is in the dictionary as an adjective, at least here in the  
States. But I guess the dictionary is just a canonization (showing my  
lack of intellect with a "z" instead of an "s?") of words, so I guess  
it really doesn't matter.

And "Kind Hearts and Coronets" is more endless than timeless.

Arthur

Arthur Lizie, Ph.D.
Chair, Dept. of Communication Studies
Associate Professor, Media Studies & Communication Technologies
Bridgewater State University - Maxwell Library 215J
508-531-2170 [email protected]