Limitations and Roadmap
It is not within the scope of this unit to discuss film history or theory at large, but ways of thinking about film, which are historically situated, permeate our approaches. I have read as deeply as time allowed, and so the unit is an attempt, in the same way that an essay in an attempt, to deploy a fruitful sequence of study, juggling some of the most persistent lines of inquiry in film studies. For instance, we will not specifically address film adaptation but will consider how film transforms reality. We will not talk explicitly about a particular film’s references, how it relates to past filmmaking, but we will debate how art communicates with reality through the ideological world. We will ask if film is a language but keep the number of film codes low. We won’t delve deeply into the social determinants of the film industry (Marxism), but we will use immanent analysis to call out the contradictions in systems. Plot and characterization will remain in the background as assumed foci in English classrooms, while we foreground questions about timing, rhythm (effects of montage or cutting), texture (the finer details of a shot’s composition…personality of location: lights, lines, color), and feeling structure (emotion + aesthetics).
It’s within the map of this unit to use the constraints, resistance, and possibilities of filming space, which is an element of how the medium of film reiterates and crafts meaning and resonance, to push and pull against questioning and re-envisioning schooling and the educational dimensions of our lives. Interlocking groupings of students focused on education and film will help physically juxtapose the tension of our inquiry; one member of each education group (called little communities) will constitute another unique group focused on film (called ensembles) when they convene. If the education groups are labeled by direction on the compass rose, there would be one east, west, north, south, etc. in each film group, which would have their own naming convention, perhaps unique or obscure film terms picked from a hat?
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