A View from the Classroom: Film & History Conference

Abstract

A View from the Classroom:Film & History Conference Jessica Schoenbaechler Scholars and practitioners poked, prodded, dissected and analyzed issues relating to film and history—from recent boy bands to documentary classics—at the fourth Film & History Biennial Conference in Dallas, Texas, which ran from November 8 to 12. Hosted by Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies and sponsored by The Center for the Study of Film and History, the conference drew an international attendance of scholars, students, editors, filmmakers, writers and historians for five days of academic paper presentations, film screenings and question and answer sessions. Noteworthy speakers included Raymond Fielding, Dean Emeritus at Florida State University Film School; filmmakers [End Page 9] Chris Hegedus and DA Pennebaker; and Betsy McLane, former executive director of IDA and co-author, with Jack Ellis, of A New History of Documentary Film. Known for his instruction at UCLA, Temple University, University of Iowa, University of Houston and Florida State University, Professor Fielding has published books on The March of Time and the history of American newsreels, and has served as vice president of Zoetrope Studios, founded by his former student, Francis Ford Coppola. "Despite what poets say, the truth is not necessarily beautiful, nor does it set us free," said Fielding in his introduction to several March of Time newsreels. "Truth tells us who we are, why things fit and why they're not working out the way they're supposed to." According to Fielding, The March of Time, despite being scorned by print journalists, was often the only photographic representation of historic and controversial events from 1936-1951, and had tremendous impact on how people saw the world. The series, which included re-enactments and hidden cameras, was actually banned from Germany, Japan, Russia, Italy and Spain, and was censored in several democratic countries. Fielding highlighted "Inside Nazi Germany" (1935) and segments on Louisiana politician Huey Long; the last public executioner using the guillotine in France; and a humorous piece from 1936 on a Princeton student group, the Veterans of Future Wars, whose mission was to obtain bonus pay upfront for their certain draft into World War II. Pennebacker and Hegedus discussed their 30-year partnership with clips from Dont Look Back (1967), Monterey Pop (1968), The War Room (1993), Startup.com (2001) and Al Franken: God Spoke (2006). Pennebaker fondly recalled the homemade camera rig he first used, which was the size of a small typewriter, held 10 minutes of film, and required constant monitoring for telltale sounds of the end of the roll."We shot 35 hours for The War Room versus 400 hours for Startup.com," said Pennebaker. "You don't have to worry about the roll running out, but then you've got the burden of overabundance. It requires a totally different process of editing." Other screenings included Glen Marcus' The March of the Bonus Army (2006), a documentary about the 1932 march of World War I veterans demanding payment of compensation promised for war service, and Strong Enough to Break (2006), Ashley Greyson's documentary about the band Hanson's three-year struggle with its record label and its decision to start its own label. Allen Mondell and Cynthia Salzman Mondell of Dallas-based Media Projects, Inc. opened the conference with a discussion of the films they have made together over the past 30 years, including Sisters of '77. Also known as The Spirit of Women, the 2004 film received a CINE Golden Eagle and a Telly Award, and aired on PBS' Independent Lens. The filmmakers were introduced by Bart Weiss, director of the Video Association of Dallas. With up to ten different theme-based panel presentations happening at any given time, conference goers often had difficulty deciding which to attend. Topics included individual auteurs, films and film movements; pedagogy, ethics, genres, hybrid forms and the history of film; and issues of the environment, war and minority populations. I attended several of the panel discussions about environmental issues and films, including Hanna Musiol's "Primitive Environments in Robert and Francis Flaherty's Documentaries," in which she pointed out the ways that images of people and the environment are often embedded with the filmmaker...