“Just Put a Movie On…”
For the first time in my living memory, September has come around and I haven’t gone back to school. Even in the fall of 2020, my college was offering the ability to take classes hybrid and I moved to an apartment on the campus. But now, I’m graduated, working, and living with my parents until I decide to either go to graduate school or find a new job somewhere else. I’m at a point of uncertainty, as for the first time in my life I really don’t know what’s coming next for me. It’s unsettling, but I suppose there is some freedom in it.
Recently, after I waited to see it for nearly seven years, I watched Orson Welles’ Franz Kafka’s The Trial, and it was one of the most incredible things I’ve seen. I absolutely loved every minute of it. My junior-year English teacher in high school wanted to show us this version when we spent the year learning about Kafka, but he wasn’t able to get a copy of it, so we had to watch the 1993 version. It’s fine.
But after such a long wait, I suddenly had it tangibly in my hands, and the thought of watching it felt like a full-circle moment for my education. I couldn’t help but want to dissect it, to research every frame, and then discuss it with a group of people who had done the same. Simply put: I wanted to be in a film class.
I want to talk about this scene from The Trial (1962) SO BAD…
There is something about being forced to watch a film critically that makes you appreciate it in a much deeper sense than if you were to casually watch it. Sure, there’s a time and place for everything, but I appreciate those close examinations of film. They provide an intellectual and emotional attachment to the media that will last a lifetime.
Whenever I come across a film I watched for a class, I remember the first time I watched it, sitting down and taking notes, and the subsequent discussions that arose from it. It enhanced the viewing experience in a way that is difficult to replicate at home. Media means something because we make it mean something. Once we decode it into our frameworks of understanding, we breathe life into it and give it meaning to a greater cultural context. We create the meaning that exists in our minds.
Thinking about this has made me reflect back on the film-specific courses I’ve taken throughout college and all of the movies I’ve watched for them. It’s made me think about the role of film in education, and what it truly means to be a media scholar. So for my article for this fine Birdbath Back-to-School issue, I want to reflect back on all the films I’ve watched in college for media* courses.
*I did actually watch a lot of documentaries in Psychology classes, but I’ve limited this article to just film classes (but thank you Professors Schultz & Principe for the great psych classes!)
MEDA-120: Intro to Film History with Professor Hardacker
This was the first film studies class I ever took (co-currently with intro film production) and it really did change my life. Professor Hardacker exposed me to so many films, way beyond the list of what we watched for class, which really changed my perspective on film. It was the first time that I didn’t just think films were art, but felt like they were. It instilled the emotional core of filmmaking in me. My notes from the class are riddled with notes in the margins of things she mentioned in class that I wanted to see or look up later when I had time. I think that this is the comprehensive list of films watched in the class, but it’s entirely based on my calendar at the time. I feel that there have to have been a couple more that I missed, but I can’t determine what they were. I just know that it was fantastic to be in a big room of people who cared about films like I did.
MEDA-331: Sundance Film Festival Travel Course with Professor Hardacker
The experience of learning about Sundance and attending the festival was incredible. It also made me realize the most important something of my academic career: I was in the wrong major.
I was surrounded by aspiring filmmakers soaking in the ways in which the films were made, and I realized I didn’t care like they did. I love film. I love watching and discussing them. The experience of attending this festival was incredible, and I will remember it forever.
But I remember the exact moment I was watching a panel with the filmmakers of The Social Dilemma, where they were discussing making this documentary about the negative impacts of social media, and I just kept thinking about how I wanted to be the person who was researching social media. The person who has studied media phenomena and how they impact people. I realized sitting there that I wasn’t in the right place. I wasn’t going to be an editor or a director or on a film crew. I needed to go into media studies, whatever that means (I still don’t even know).
On the bus ride back to the airport, I told my advisor that I needed to somehow change my path, and by the next year, I had applied to Whitman and was transferring for Fall 2021. It’s wild that I can pinpoint my life’s trajectory over the past couple of years to a singular moment. Without that moment, I would never have come to Walla Walla, never would have met anyone at Whitman, and I wouldn’t be writing for Birdbath. Really, anything could have happened. Who knows?
Films for a Research Paper:
Films at the Festival:
MEDA-401: Film Theory & Criticism with Professor Hardacker
This was the last class I took at Pacific University, and I loved it so much. I was so sorry to go. I thoroughly enjoyed discussing these films with my class, and every experience yielded a lot, even when we were watching something kinda bad like Aloha (2015). I think of the classes on this list, I would most want to retake this one. I wish I had felt more assured in myself and confident enough to share my opinions freely, and many of the films I want to (or already have) revisted with a closer look.
FMS-387: Film & Media Theory with Professor Elseewi
I had (and still have) one major takeaway from this class: Harrison Ford. We only watched four movies for the curriculum (and I watched one film for an essay), but of the four THREE starred Harrison Ford. I think that is wonderful. Now, of course, I did take a lot away from this class. Habermas, Panopticon, my bestie Henry Jenkins etc.
It was the class I took immediately after transferring to Whitman, and this is what made me feel secure like “Oh yeah, I made the right decision and this is where I’m supposed to be.” It’s bittersweet, but I think it was really important for me.
But I will also remember Harrison Ford.
GLIT-325: Japanese Fiction with Professor Shigeto
I’m not sure that I have ever seen a progression of media in a class as perfect as Professor Shigeto’s in Japanese Fiction. The ways in which threads brought us from piece to piece were truly incredible, and every discussion was an absolute treat. From this class, I was able to finally watch some of Hamaguchi’s work, which absolutely changed my life. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is undoubtedly one of my favorite movies of all time. Most of the films were amazing and the discussions brought them to life in ways that I never would have expected.
FMS-315: Bad Objects with Professor Frank
This film may be the least memorable part of Bad Objects, but I think that’s a good thing! It was an absolutely fantastic class that sparked wonderful discussions. It was one of the most fun classes I’ve taken, because it was incredible to watch Drew Gooden for homework and present for 30 minutes to a class about Merge Mansion, and those things actually be something academic and productive. It was so much fun.
Watching this, however, was a good experience, and one that I will remember fondly.
FMS-210: Horror & Society with Professor Elseewi
The final film class I took in college was with the incomparable Professor Tarik Elseewi and was titled Horror and Society (I think, I was never sure what the actual title was). I was terrified to take the class because I am a bit of a scaredy cat, but I was incredibly appreciative to have been able to take it. I loved it. I didn’t love every movie, but this class opened my eyes to the genre of horror and made me realize that I can actually handle a scary movie. I also think this class receives an award for having the most films watched! Congrats!
Okay, I’ll admit it: this article had very little to do with media, and nearly everything to do with me reflecting on my experiences with media and education. My entire education has been measured by the media I am analyzing and critiquing. I mean…it is film and media studies.
But I think that there is something to how my education was enhanced by learning through film, and these films were enhanced by the critical lens. My drive in media studies has always been to research and write about digital media and the internet, but learning through film forced me to think about other perspectives.
Film has the beautiful power to create empathy through storytelling. Many forms of storytelling have the ability to do this, but there is something special about the accessibility and relatability of film. Reading about something may not provide the same amount of emotional interaction as seeing something happen.
Film also is so widely loved and consumed and talked about that you could choose one particular film, and covering every aspect of its conversation could take months. Film is multi-faceted and simple and personal and commercial and so contradictory in a way that is interesting and can be talked about for eternity.
I love being given the opportunity to learn through film. I hear jokes occasionally about how film majors have the easiest job in the world because they just have to watch movies. I may also be guilty of making said jokes (“sorry I can’t come, I have to watch 2 episodes of undercover boss”).
But I don’t think that in film classes we were just watching and studying film. We were studying art, which really means that we are studying the ways in which people interact with them. Movies don’t exist in a vacuum, and you cannot critically analyze them without taking into account the creation, context, and reception of them. In every way, when you’re sitting in a film class, that’s what you’re doing.
You’re analyzing representation, and the ways commercialization play into a film’s success, and the cultural impact of a piece of work. It’s studying culture, it’s studying society, and…it’s a humanities discipline…or maybe it’s social science?
Big Film and Media Studies (of the entire world of academia) can’t even quite decide what that phrase that makes up its title means, so who am I to try and define it?
In the meantime, I’m gonna head off to do what all film enthusiasts and scholars that you know should be doing: seeing Five Nights at Freddy’s, of course.
