From: Jack Sargeant (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Dec 02 2008 - 12:51:32 PST
to 'get' or 'enjoy' or 'experience' film does not depend on
intellect, what is necessary is a mind that is open to the
possibilities of new experience. Students should posses such a desire
to engage with the new and often challenging, but sadly some seek to
merely re-enforce their own world views and seek evidence that
supports this. I would suggest that their enquiring is stymied by the
fact that they are aware that they need to pass their qualifications,
get a job, and pay back loans, so the freedom offered by learning is
often at odds with economic necessity.
However an additional problem comes with our culture foregrounding a
cannon, students may not be interested in a cannon that is so removed
from their own lives, and the notion of a cannon should be introduced
in teaching via a process of negotiation, exploration and engagement,
rather than as essential fixed unchanging certainty.
Jack
On 2 Dec 2008, at 11:03, Steve Polta wrote:
> It's interesting to me that there is this sense that "getting"
> avant-garde film requires "intellect" or some kind of esoteric
> knowledge. Dare I say it but there is enough in, to use Fred's
> example, a Brkahage film
>
>
> --- On Sun, 11/30/08, Fred Camper <email suppressed> wrote:
>
>> From: Fred Camper <email suppressed>
>> Subject: Re: Teaching film [Was: Experimental films showing at
>> various Universities]
>> To: email suppressed
>> Date: Sunday, November 30, 2008, 11:54 AM
>> Just to clarify:
>>
>> I think that having a great aesthetic understanding of
>> avant-garde film, or any film, does not require being an
>> "intellectual," or scoring well on tests, or
>> having a "high intellectual level." I truly think
>> that just about *anyone* can "get" Brakhage, if
>> they care enough to try to do so. And lathe operation is as
>> honorable as any other profession, and may well be more
>> demanding than most. I clarify because I realized right
>> after posting that what I wrote about the declining
>> intellectual level of college students really sounded wrong,
>> on rereading. What I really should have written is something
>> like, "Some students are less likely to be interested
>> in a liberal arts education in the traditional sense of
>> expanding and freeing one's mind, and hence, less likely
>> to be interested in, for example, avant-garde film."
>>
>> Fred Camper
>> Chicago
>>
>>
>> __________________________________________________________________
>> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at
>> <email suppressed>.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.