Some further thoughts on taught film history

My previous piece Some basic problems in taught film history led to a lot of comments and responses, more than anything I have posted in a long time. Some had questions, or felt I had been unclear or too narrow about a couple of points, so I want to expand a little on that. But first two memories:

A film scholar once describing to me his research into authorship, and the course he was teaching on the subject. I got increasingly uncomfortable because judging by what he was saying he had little awareness about the history of thinking around auteurs and authorship, and he had almost no understanding at all about how the studio system in Hollywood worked and the complexities of filmmakers' positions in that system, which depended upon things like the contractual status of a given director, his position within the system, and for which studio and in which decade he was working. Finally I exclaimed "But that is not true!" to which he replied the immortal words "Maybe not, but that is what I am teaching."

Another scholar at another time was giving a conference talk about Yasujiro Ozu, focusing on how unique his style was. But he was only comparing Ozu to filmmakers in the West, primarily Hollywood. When I asked "How would you compare Ozu with a contemporary Japanese director like Mikio Naruse?" he replied that he was not familiar with Naruse's work. That to me is bad scholarship. You cannot discuss a filmmaker's alleged uniqueness without comparing her to her peers in her own context. I am not saying he was wrong in arguing Ozu is unique, I am saying that he would not know if he was. The only thing he was in a position to say was that Ozu was different from mainstream Western cinema, but that is not interesting. It is Ozu's relationship to his Japanese contemporaries that provide the answer to the question of whether he had a unique style. And this the scholar had not investigated. He is not alone in this. It is frequently the case, as I have argued before, that a scholar writing/teaching about a particular filmmaker from outside the United States, will only, or primarily, compare her to a generic Hollywood filmmaker, as if this would enhance our understanding of this particular filmmaker.

This is in a way an answer to one response I have got: that it seemed as if I was dismissing the importance of individual countries and national context. I did say that I think film history text books, and course layouts, often put too much emphasis on the national, especially in relation to European film history, and do not take enough consideration for how people, styles and movements cross borders. I also said that it should be possible to do a text book which was not organised by country. But that was just a suggestion, or an experiment. I did not say countries did not matter, only that the balance between the national and the regional or global is often skewed towards the national. But countries and national context do matter, like in my example about Ozu above. Unique national production traditions and censorship rules are things that influence films and filmmakers. In film history studies there is a lot of talk about the Production Code in Hollywood, and pre-code films, but what the situation was, and is, in other countries is not nearly as well discussed and understood as it should be. When I teach Swedish film history, I also talk about how Sweden was the first country to have a state censorship board, Statens biografbyrå, initiated in 1911 and the influence it had until at least 1995. As both Hasse Ekman and Ingmar Bergman can vouch for, among many others, these censorship regulations had an impact on the films that they made.

Me visiting a film archive in Tbilisi, Georgia, where they are working on keeping their national film heritage alive.

Another question I got was about film history as a concept. Who gets to decide was film history is, what is implied with the words, and who gets to teach what? What does it even mean to teach? But I was not addressing those issues in my article. I was talking about facts, accuracy and knowing enough to be able to make the arguments you are making, and being humble enough to accept how little you know. I make a distinction about the history of film, which is a large, expansive reality which nobody can know or fully comprehend, and taught film history, which is a narrow snapshot of the vast totality of the history of film, and a narrow snapshot that is chosen by scholars, teachers and faculty out of a number of considerations, such as necessity, personal interest or student requests. What we teach, and how, is personal, and there are many different ways of going about it, some better than others. A topic worth addressing further in another article.

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I have done a couple of posts before on these issues, and of our idea of film history. Here are three related links:

On using Max Weber and Gedankenbilder when considering film history.

On my philosophy of teaching.

On two different approaches to studying films, which I call abstract and tactile.


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About censorship in Sweden: Martin Scorsese's Casino (1995) was the last film for adults that was released after having had scenes cut, or to be more precise: "Sweden's last censored non-pornographic adult film". As he was Scorsese, he filmed an introduction to the film, addressing the Swedish viewers and letting them now that the version they were about to watch was not his original cut.

The autumn semester - on teaching, thinking and the utility of it

Next week I begin teaching again, after the summer break. (A summer break from teaching, not a summer break from work. The work-free phase was considerably shorter than the summer.) At the moment that means I am engaged with planning lectures and preparing clips and readings. It also means that this is the period in which I am required to read awful text books. The book I read this week, which will remain unnamed, should never have been put in front of a student, and my students will definitely be spared. I sometimes think I should start a journal devoted only to reviewing text books for film studies. Is the book accurate? Is it coherent? Is it relevant? Is it written in a language understandable by the students? Does the book have a comprehensive index? You would be amazed how many book fail these simple tests.

Anyway, I am looking forward to actually teach. Being in a classroom with a group of students eager to learn is always slightly intoxicating. Sometimes of course you find yourself with a group of students who are only thinking about what excuse they can come up with in order to leave and do something fun instead, but that is rather rare.

I will be teaching film history, except for Hollywood cinema, key concepts and a course on theoretical traditions. It will be a busy time, for me and for the students alike. Actually, I wonder for whom it will be worse, but probably for some of the students. I will keep that in mind.

Teaching for me is not just about telling the students about things they did not know about before or making them see things in a new light. It is also about learning myself, from interacting with them. Not about films, but about teaching. What works and what does not work? What are the most effective ways in getting their attention or getting them to learn, and enjoy learning? Reading those textbooks will frequently be a strain on them, but the lectures should never be. If they see them as a chore then I have failed. They should look forward to them, but not because they are easy but because they will be meaningful, as well as fun. I do not go easy on them. I can be rather demanding, and if they say things that are wrong, peculiar or incomprehensible I will tell them so and insist that they think again and try again. Here too there is a learning process in that each student is unique and treating them all the same way is not a good thing. Some need coaching, with others you need to be strict and with others the best thing is to make a joke and let them relax. Teaching is an art form, as well as a process.

But the hardest thing is to make them speak freely, and not just repeat what they have read or heard. If I show a clip their response to it will be very different if I introduced it then if I just showed it without saying anything in advance. If I tell them to look for something they will afterwards claim to have found it, but if I tell them nothing in advance and then ask afterwards what they saw I will get more independent answers. I can to a large extent control how they will watch and experience a given clip and sometimes that is a good thing and sometimes it is not. When teaching neorealism, I once showed a clip from Dirty Harry (Don Siegel 1971) and asked them beforehand to look at it from the point of view of neorealism and then afterwards analyse it as such, which went very well. One of the best seminars I have had was when I unannounced showed a clip from All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk 1955) and then afterwards asked them what they were thinking about as they were watching it. That was rather amazing actually. I especially remember the student who began talking about her complicated relationship with her mother.

Jane Wyman in All That Heaven Allows.

What might the point be of that some might wonder. Where is the utility? Well, for one thing there is simple human bonding. These students from all corners of the world, sharing a moment together watching this clip and then expressing their feelings about it. They also learned that contrary to what many textbooks might claim, the experience of watching a film is not the same for everyone. It is a unique meeting between the individual and the film. In addition, I would like to add that sometimes something magic can happen in that meeting.

I also want them to think for themselves, and not succumb to clichés. Much thinking that we do is primarily in clichés, so not actual thinking at all, and most of our opinions are clichés as well. This might sound like I have overdosed on Hannah Arendt but it is fairly obvious and natural. It is also partly related to some things Daniel Kahneman writes about in Thinking, Fast and Slow. One of the most difficult questions to answer is the question why. Why do you think that? Why do you believe this? Why do you feel this way? Frequently people get upset when you ask them that, especially if you do so when you are having an argument, and they get angry, I think, because they have no answer. As I have argued elsewhere we often cannot explain why we think or feel a certain way, and whatever reasons we give are constructions after the fact, often inconsistent and much too simplistic. But it is not impossible, and if we actually start to think about the issues and our feelings, then breakthroughs become possible. (As a side note, when academics claim to have been "thinking things through", they rarely have.)

As you can see teaching film history and theory is for me not just about teaching film history and theory. It is also about improving my abilities as a teacher and, whenever appropriate, encourage my students to think freely and to question what they watch and what they read, and even what I tell them. This is not "critical theory" (as that concept is just an euphemism for "a certain Marxist-inspired way of thinking" i.e. substituting one set of prejudices and clichés with another) but to look at a given text, film, theory or argument and analyse/criticise it on its own terms. Is it coherent? Is it relevant? When it talks about specifics or facts, is it accurate? If it works, does it do so in general or just in specific cases? Those are some of questions (similar to the once mentioned above) that should always be asked when confronted with, for example, a specific film theory. It is also worth pointing out that unthinkingly rejecting something is as wrong as unthinkingly accepting something.

So the utility of film studies is obvious. To learn about one of the most important art forms in contemporary society, to learn about history and techniques, to learn to read and watch with open eyes and open minds, to learn how to formulate an opinion and to defend and understand it, and to learn to think freely.

At least that is the ideal scenario. Obviously I often fail in my efforts to teach but let's not dwell on that right now.

A Serious Man (Joel Coen 2009).