RFT films 2016

Rainbow Sprinkles

City Dogs

Favorite film scenes

For this assignment, choose a favorite film scene that is no more than 5 minutes long.

After showing the scene (I’ll have a laptop set up; just remember how to find the clip online), you will tell the class why you think this it is especially good.

Points to discuss:

1. What are the factors that combine to make it an effective scene?
2.  Is the language powerful? Explain.
3.  Is the atmosphere important? Explain.

 

Please note: No songs, and no cartoons.

 

The passive voice and slavery

How Texas Teaches History

ELLEN BRESLER ROCKMORE

OCT. 21, 2015

A TEXAS high school student and his mother recently called attention to a curious line in a geography textbook: a description of the Atlantic slave trade as bringing “millions of workers” to plantations in the American South. McGraw-Hill Education, the publisher of the textbook, has since acknowledged that the term “workers” was a misnomer.

The company’s chief executive also promised to revise the textbook so that its digital version as well as its next edition would more accurately describe the forced migration and enslavement of Africans. In the meantime, the company is also offering to send stickers to cover the passage.

But it will take more than that to fix the way slavery is taught in Texas textbooks. In 2010, the Texas Board of Education approved a social studies curriculum that promotes capitalism and Republican political philosophies. The curriculum guidelines prompted many concerns, including that new textbooks would downplay slavery as the cause of the Civil War.

This fall, five million public school students in Texas began using the textbooks based on the new guidelines. And some of these books distort history not through word choices but through a tool we often think of as apolitical: grammar.

In September, Bobby Finger of the website Jezebel obtained and published some excerpts from the new books, showing much of what is objectionable about their content. The books play down the horror of slavery and even seem to claim that it had an upside. This upside took the form of a distinctive African-American culture, in which family was central, Christianity provided “hope,” folk tales expressed “joy” and community dances were important social events.

But it is not only the substance of the passages that is a problem. It is also their form. The writers’ decisions about how to construct sentences, about what the subject of the sentence will be, about whether the verb will be active or passive, shape the message that slavery was not all that bad.

I teach freshman writing at Dartmouth College. My colleagues and I consistently try to convey to our students the importance of clear writing. Among the guiding principles of clear writing are these: Whenever possible, use human subjects, not abstract nouns; use active verbs, not passive. We don’t want our students to write, “Torture was used,” because that sentence obscures who was torturing whom.

In the excerpts published by Jezebel, the Texas textbooks employ all the principles of good, strong, clear writing when talking about the “upside” of slavery. But when writing about the brutality of slavery, the writers use all the tricks of obfuscation. You can see all this at play in the following passage from a textbook, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, called Texas United States History:

Some slaves reported that their masters treated them kindly. To protect their investment, some slaveholders provided adequate food and clothing for their slaves. However, severe treatment was very common. Whippings, brandings, and even worse torture were all part of American slavery.

Notice how in the first two sentences, the “slavery wasn’t that bad” sentences, the main subject of each clause is a person: slaves, masters, slaveholders. What those people, especially the slave owners, are doing is clear: They are treating their slaves kindly; they are providing adequate food and clothing. But after those two sentences there is a change, not just in the writers’ outlook on slavery but also in their sentence construction. There are no people in the last two sentences, only nouns. Yes, there is severe treatment, whippings, brandings and torture. And yes, those are all bad things. But where are the slave owners who whippings, brandings and torture. And yes, those are all bad things. But where are the slave owners who were actually doing the whipping and branding and torturing? And where are the slaves who were whipped, branded and tortured? They are nowhere to be found in the sentence.

In another passage, slave owners and their institutionalized cruelty are similarly absent: “Families were often broken apart when a family member was sold to another owner.”

Note the use of the passive voice in the verbs “were broken apart” and “was sold.” If the sentence had been written according to the principles of good draftsmanship, it would have looked like this: Slave owners often broke slave families apart by selling a family member to another owner. A bit more powerful, no?

Through grammatical manipulation, the textbook authors obscure the role of slave owners in the institution of slavery.

It may appear at first glance that the authors do a better job of focusing on the actions of slaves. After all, there are many sentences in which “slaves” are the subjects, the main characters in their own narrative.

But what are the verbs in those sentences? Are the slaves suffering? No, in the sentences that feature slaves as the subject, as the main actors in the sentence, the slaves are contributing their agricultural knowledge to the growing Southern economy; they are singing songs and telling folk tales; they are expressing themselves through art and dance.

There are no sentences, in these excerpts, anyway, in which slaves are doing what slaves actually did: toiling relentlessly, without remuneration or reprieve, constantly subject to confinement, corporal punishment and death.

The textbook publishers were put in a difficult position. They had to teach history to Texas’ children without challenging conservative political views that are at odds with history. In doing so, they made many grammatical choices. Though we don’t always recognize it, grammatical choices can be moral choices, and these publishers made the wrong ones.

Wagner College Foreign Language Film Festival: October 19-22.

Here is the schedule for the Wagner College Foreign Language Film Festival and accompanying workshops and concert, October 19-28th.

All screenings will take place in Manzulli Board Room from 7:30-10pm, with the exception of the Irène Jacob screening, October 22, which will be held at the Lycée Français– 505 EAST 75TH STREET  NEW YORK, NY.

October 19th, 7:30pm– short Italian Language films curated by Francesca Cappola, talk back with Franscesca Cappola following screening
Cappola’s recent short film, Flamingos, premiered at MoMa and Lincoln Center as part of New Directors/New Films. It is set during the Fall of the Berlin Wall and tells the story of Alice, a nine year old girl who spends one last day in the park with her father. The story develops around the delicate and uneasy relationship between a lost father and a daughter on the verge of understanding the difficult dynamics of her family. Cappola’s film will screen along with 5 other short films by Italian directors. Pizza will be provided by the Italian Club following this event.

October 20th, 7:30pm– Jean Gentil, talk back with Director Laura Amelia Guzman following the screening Premiered at Venize Film Festival, Jean Gentil  follows the journey of Haitian immigrant Jean Remy Genty, a French teacher looking for work in the Dominican Republic. This journey takes him from the urban bustle to the jungle. This is a stunningly photographed and poignant film, especially in light of Dominican Republic’s immigration debate, which in many ways mirrors our own.

Workshop with Laura Amelia Guzman- 1- 2pm, Campus Hall 201- The director of Jean Gentil will meet with students prior to the screening to speak about the process of making herfilms.

October 21st, 7:30pm– Forbidden Films, talk back with director, Felix Moeller following the screening1,200 feature films were made in Germany’s Third Reich. According to experts, some 100 of these were blatant Nazi propaganda. Nearly seventy years after the end of the Nazi regime, more than 40 of these films remain under lock and key. Director Felix Moeller interviews German film historians, archivists and film-goers in an investigation of the power, and potential danger, of cinema when used for ideological purposes.

Workshop with Felix Moeller- 4-5pm, MH44- The director of Forbidden Films will speak about editing the film, the process of making it and the subject matter it deals with.

***At Lycée Français- 505 EAST 75TH STREET  NEW YORK, NY***
October 22nd– a night with Irène Jacob featuring a screening of the film Red, talk backIrène Jacob following the screening
Acclaimed actress Irène Jacob has been in over 50 films. She won international recognition while working with Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski in Red (1994), part of his highly praisedThree Colors series. She was awarded “Best Actress” at the Cannes Film Festival for her performance in Kieślowski ‘s The Double Life of Veronique (1991). Wagner is excited to partner with the Lycée Français to offer this screening to the Wagner community and the greater NYC public!

We are also thrilled to bring Irène Jacob to Wagner Campus for two additional events!

Workshop October 27, 2:40pm in Spiro 3– Irène Jacob will visit Prof. Stalcup’s class to speak about her career and French Cinema. This event is open to the entire campus.

Concert October 28th, 6pm in the Coffee House- In addition to being an actress, Irène Jacob works as a Singer-Songwriter with her brother, Francis Jacob, who has been working as a professional musician based in NYC for the past 20 years.Along with a small, intimate, multicultural band, the siblings will present a mix of songs from their last album, “Je Sais Nager” (Sunnyside, 2013) and their forthcoming album, “En Bas De Chez Moi,” to be released in January 2016.

Reviews of Jacob’s work as a Singer/Songwriter

“As a vocalist, Ms. Jacob is witty, funny, beguiling, persuasive, charming, melodic and more; quietly beautiful, mesmerizing and hypnotic.”
County Times

“One doesn’t need to understand French to feel the power, passion and beauty of their music.”
County Times

“A wonderful confection that would be right at home on the left side of 60s go go music. Loaded with contemporary touches, it’s attitude is old school, but primed for modern ears. One of those wild records that exists in a time zone all it’s own, it’s hard to imagine being a world weary hipster without this on your mp3 player. Defining cool throughout.”
Midwest Record

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