Film and American Studies: Questions, Activities, Guides

Abstract

television viewer absorbs from the screen is staggering. John Harrington in his Rhetoric of Film (1973) states: the time a person is fourteen, he will witness 18,000 murders on the screen. He will also see 350,000 commercials. By the time he is eighteen, he will stockpile nearly 17,000 hours of viewing experience and will watch at least 20 movies for every book he reads. Eventually, the viewing will absorb ten years of his life (p. v.).* Until recently, no self-respecting American college or university would even consider including the study of film within the standard disciplines of History or English. Film was believed to be an opiate of the masses-light entertainment and nothing more. Because this assumption prevailed, any teacher who used films could expect to be accused of shirking classroom responsibilities. In recent days, however, a combination of factors, including declining enrollments and obvious student interest in film, together with a sense of the threat of the visual media, have worked to justify the inclusion of film in History and English department offerings. Gradually and grudgingly, academics have begun to acknowledge that film can be more than mere diversion or at best a journalistic tool. Not all observers of this growing scholarly interest in film have been happy with these developments. Peter Rainer of the Film Critic has complained that erstwhile lit profs [are] scrambling over each other to become the new Aristotles of the Cinema-securing their full professorships and