Reply to "Statement to Administrators"

Abstract

The to Administrators in Cinema Journal 30, no. 4, calls for support from administrators for use of film in classroom. No one can object to this call; we all need to show films, but reasoning, particularly comparison with alternative media, seems somewhat faulty. The Statement seems to be flying. in face of both economic reality and pedagogic priorities. Few, if any, institutions are prepared to provide rental budgets commensurate to need. Not only are budgets of $1200 to $2500 per course unrealistic for many of us, they do indeed fly in face of common sense reality that administrators (some of whom are SCS members) perceive. One part of that reality is that a set of video holdings serves needs of general student body, and faculty, better than film holdings due to their ease of access. Spending money for film purchase or rental seems an extravagance if it is for a group of faculty who cannot also make use of alternatives. Video, much more than film, makes using a number of clips, or rearranging a sequence of shots or scenes from a single film, almost painless. Tremendous pedagogic breakthroughs are possible with video (and laser discs) that remain extremely difficult, if not impossible, with film. These advantages are not lost on administrators any more than on most film professors. Why would SCS eschew them? The ideal policy would be to rent or purchase material in format in which it was made. For many of feature films that SCS members show, this would be 35mm. In most cases a 16mm print, even if pristine (rarely case), is a degraded copy, suffering from same truncation of image, and perhaps sound, as lowly videotape. (A nostalgic wish to show the is itself extremely hard to defend when we are always dealing with copies and often with differing versions of films, each of which can make important claims on our attention.) Using flat 16mm prints of Blade Runner or Thelma and Louise makes case quite clearly: secondary characters and dramatic effects that depend on original aspect ratio (such as wide arc of police cars that pursue Thelma and Louise across desert, or male body builder glimpsed at margin of frame at one of gas stations) are simply lost. Using scope prints may still not reproduce original ratio exactly and may still result in degraded sound. Many university classrooms are not equipped to mask a scope image properly, and very few can reproduce high-quality sound from any format.