Movies As Literature

So we've been going through the curriculum Movies As Literature by Kathryn L. Stout, B.S.Ed., M.Ed. & Richard B. Stout, B.S.Ed.

It seems these people need "clean" movies to protect us from ourselves a sentiment I don't agree with. Even with their watchdogging they have warnings on many of these films.

I'll admit I absolutely despise literary criticism which this is supposed to teach. That's one reason why I chose it. I hate it. I'd have a hard time teaching it. I think messages should be pretty clear in a work of literature or a movie.

I don't think you should have to twist the piece all upside down and backwards to get at the "deeper" meanings. Many of these so called deeper meanings I tend to think are simply BS but that's my issue. I still think the kids should know how to do this because they'll have to do it in college.

Here is the list of movies covered:

• Shane
• Friendly Persuasion
• The Quiet Man
• Arsenic & Old Lace
• The Music Man
• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
• The Maltese Falcon
• Rear Window
• Emma
• The Philadelphia Story
• The Journey of August King
• To Kill A Mockingbird
• A Raisin in the Sun
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Henry V
• A Man For All Seasons
• Chariots of Fire

So far we have watched through The Music Man.

I found Shane to be a sweet little naive western. My kids found it to be anachronistic. I think they rather hated it.

I suspect it was chosen in part, for the religious elements. These elements were very subtle for most of the film. It was in the list of essay questions I found the authors of the curriculum had chosen to spot light the issues.

It's funny but I would have expected a few more stand out lines in a "literary movie" but perhaps the fact that it was based on a novel and somewhat religious qualifies it in the authors minds.

The scenery and photography were particularly interesting to me. I also found the "innocence" of the characters and archetypes shown in the film to be somewhat fun. I really enjoyed Jack Palance as the bad guy, paid gunslinger.

Having never read to the book I wonder if they left the fate of Shane open to interpretation in it? If anyone knows please share that information with me okay?

Friendly Persuasion was amusing for me because the mother / minister is in such denial throughout the film. While her goose attacks her youngest son on a daily basis she maintains the goose is a family pet that wouldn't hurt anyone.

When her husband indulges in a Sunday horse race to church she blames the horse not her husband.

Throughout the film she is supposed to be the moral compass but refuses to see what is actually happening in real life.

I read some of the notes on the movie. I have to say I think it's great that Gary Cooper refused to end his part of the movie in a "macho" way. He was known as a rough and tough guy in the film. So film execs and maybe his own publicity people thought it might ruin him to be so peaceable in the film. They wanted to change it so that he did some gun slinging. But Gary Cooper saw the value of the part and wasn't so caught up in his image and ego and vetoed that idea! Good for him!

It also said in the notes that the part was originally deemed too henpecked. So the script was changed from the book so that the part of Jess Birdwell was more independent and yes, disobedient to his wife and his religion. This also makes him easier to identify with because "He who is without sin and all that." It makes the film more fun too as he goes against his wife quite a few times in amusing ways.

I find it difficult to believe that any invading army during the civil war or any war could be persuaded in a friendly way to not attack the ladies or burn the farm.

The conflict within the film that no violence should be done by the Quakers presented a very interesting quandary during one of the worst times of bloodshed that our country has ever seen.

The Quiet Man was one I was actually looking forward too because I heard there was a spanking scene in it. (Hey I can look forward to stuff like that without telling the kids yanno! LOL).

I also enjoyed many an hour with my Dad watching John Wayne movies. He was sure his father looked like John Wayne. I was sure he looked like Gary Cooper but anyway, good times were had.

This was one I didn't recall ever watching. Again it dealt with issues of violence / non violence, at least between men. I'm detecting a theme running through these movies now.

The scene in which he was dragging his wife from the train was very violent IMO though comically done. I was laughing my ass off when a village woman gave Wayne's character a stick and said, "To beat the lady." Well it was something to that effect. What next? Gags? Whips?

Still as amusing at the scene was meant to be it brought up some serious issues to my mind. As a child who has been dragged around like that and seen their mother dragged around I knew first hand how very dangerous and terrifying it can be. I also know what it can lead to.

The sadly ironic thing about it is that when this movie was made this sort of violence by a husband was considered normal and okay by most authorities.

I was turned off by the female characters seeming materialism but I couldn't blame her for wanting what she was entitled too and wanting her man to stand up for her. I think in modern times this looked much worse to my kids than it would have in times long past.

So the climax of the film was when the traumatized character who had been considered a pathetic coward decides to fight (a man) back. The end result the time honored and sometimes mythical idea that once two men fight they become friends for life.

Other notes, the Irish brogues are difficult to understand. I was really wishing there were subtitles on the DVD!

The costuming was just wonderful though often a bit mismatched. I can say I often wonder why the make up, hair and costumes are of such poor quality these days compared with the pure art of what they were way back when!

Arsenic & Old Lace was a very interesting choice IMO. It's a complete farce about murder. It reminded me of some of Shakespeare's comedy of errors in a way. It was also kind of noir-ish and goth-ish. I found it quite amusing. I think even the kids enjoyed it a bit.

However from a non-violent POV this movie fails the test! Also from a moral one it again fails. Those aren't my issues but I did find it a most curious choice!

The Music Man was a very hard sell with the kids. It was just too anachronistic for them. For me it brought back memories because when I was in high school, all those many moons ago, we did the show as a school play!

I enjoyed the trip down memory lane though Shirley Jones's high pitched singing did surprise and HURT my ears! I didn't remember that!

I do find the diction of actors, particularly female actors in older films is better and sweeter to listen to in general than the too often mumbled and gutterized elocution of the actors these days!

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Bleacheddecay

I agree and tend to think stories shouldn't be so vague that we can't understand them, but I wonder what you mean when you say you hate literary criticism like this. I'm not sure a deeper meaning has to be crystal clear, though. This looks like a very interesting list of films to teach. Is there any information online about how you teach these films? You got me really curious.

I've taught To Kill a Mockingbird and dissected the scene where Atticus shoots the dog as symbolic of morality defeating prejudice (sickness) to my students and it worked like a charm as my students are just beginning to think at a deeper level.

BTW, I just finished doing an "Introduction to Film" lesson for my media students using one of the films you listed, Henry V. I used Branagh's version by showing the 4 minute tracking shot at the end, discussed theme, and had a discussion about the use of music (glory to God) and the images (death and destruction). My 8th-graders, not always the smartest kids, lol, were really able to see how Branagh had communicated an anti-war theme. It was cool. They are a bit young, though, to really get the irony of the music, even if they were able to figure out how the music was in contrast to the images. They were also able to see how strong a visual image can be in terms of theme.

I love Arsenic and Old Lace and wonder how you discussed the morality in that film!

One of my professors suggested I write an educational book where I list about 5 films and talk about how I could teach them to students. (He helped me get a journal article published.) I'm flattered he thinks I could do it, but I'm not sure I have the nerve to try, lol....

You just named five of my fave movies, so what you're doing is terrific!

Shane: I never really saw it as a religious allegory (of course, I prefer "spiritual" to "religious"). I always saw it as a White Knight vs. Black Knight Fairy Tale. I also saw it as a coming of age story.

Friendly Persuasion made MY top 100. It's one of the most loving, beautiful and humorous films I've ever seen. The family loves each other, but they still feel the need to try to reinforce each other, especially at home. Mom and Dad have to fight over their differences because they have different genes, but they still present one of the most homogeneous families, knowing that they have to give and take during such a trying time.

The Quiet Man gets blasted as somehow being a total cliche and an insult to the Irish (Come on now, all the pricipals are as Irish as can be, so blame them if you want and not me.) Then again, I won't care because this is probably Wayne's best performance and one of the most romantic films I've ever seen.

Arsenic and Old Lace is one of the funniest films I've ever experenced. Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre both make fun of Boris Karloff [who should have played the Massey role (as he did on stage)] but it's still wonderful because the script is so perfect no matter who plays the role, it's gonna be good.

The Music Man is one of my fave musicals. Robert Preston gives an award-deserving performance. I'm telling you; my students have a built-in prejudice against older movies. I don't understand because I also know that many of them don't enjoy new movies. What can I say? If you want to roll the dice, good for you, but that basically negates whatever you already posted.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

I agree that things don't need to be the sort of message film that it hits you over the head but when academics dissect literature and make it into something else, it just really hacks me off.

Now for me, so often this turns into a "look how smart I am" exercise. Or it turns the work into something unlikely or unrecognizable. When I took English Lit in college that sort of thing just really angered me.

To me the best lessons are not perfectly, crystal clear, but are sort of intuitive. You know what I mean? You just feel them when you read the book or watch the film.

If you google the title of the curriculum you can find information online about this and probably look at at least one lesson example.

It's actually for grades 7 and 8 but I have a reluctant reader and I decided to give it a try. I have higher expectations and criteria for my students on their essay writing because they are in higher grades.

As an end of the year project I will also require them to create a unit of their own based on a "worthy" film that they like. Worthy in this case means that like the curriculum examples the film was based on a book but unlike them, I don't care about morality as defined by these people, censorship and nonviolence issues.

Your class sounds pretty cool although I've never much cared for the book or movie To Kill a Mockingbird myself.

About Arsenic and Old Lace, I found the idea of just shutting relatives away in a "home" for mental illness quite repugnant. We have some seriously mentally ill people in our distant family so that one really got to me even amid the humor.

I'm not actually trying to teach morality the way the authors of the curriculum are btw. I have a while different, less classically religious (and, IMO repressive), take on it.

Of course we talked about the level of wrong (murder) done by the aunts and their accomplices vrs the brother and his accomplice.

Our lead was considered the hero of the piece in a way but he was an accomplice to the aunts in his way as well as willing to lock away everyone to keep these family secrets (murder) from coming out!

I think your professor is right and you should write an educational book about movies! He sounds like a great mentor!

BTW, I've tried to get my kids to write a curriculum called something like: Literature in Video Games or Literature As Anime. I think they would be big sellers but I could be wrong. A lot of the market of homeschoolers are religious and wouldn't like these.

Much of the market is changing though as more and more people homeschool for reasons other than religion. I think the secular homeschooling market will grow a great deal in the next decade.

Thanks!

I too prefer the term spirituality to religion! I truly do. I agree with you that Shane is more of a western fairy tale. I did laugh at the black hat and white hat thing because I saw that in the movie and thought, perhaps that's part of the cliche.

I loved the way in Friendly Persuasion the father backed up the son for doing, not what was okay in their religion but what was right in the son's heart!

I also loved the "persuasion in the barn!" That was a lovely, sweet, scene.

I thought the accents in The Quiet Man sounded authentic, perhaps a bit too authentic as I mentioned I had difficulty making out what they said! I even have some Irish in me and I'm not offended. I doubt my grandfather who was half Irish would be either. Of course, he loved to drink and fight. LOL.

Young people today generally do have a prejudice against older movies. At least most of them do. My daughter is into quite a few older movies.

After seeing Disturbia, we rented Rear Window so she could see the origins of the film. She loved them both. She watches quite a few old movies because she loves them.

My son is another matter. I believe by the end of this course he will have a new appreciation for older movies though. I hope so!

BD

• A Man For All Seasons
• Chariots of Fire

These movies were both murderously slow. They were also so self righteous about Christianity that I found it irritating.

In the first movie, a guy decides that he (along with other Christians of his particular ilk) only know what is "right". He then proceeds to create his own martyr as if it is some great glory.

Now in my own personal hierarchy of needs, surviving is the most important thing. So I had a real problem with that philosophy. It angered me.

In the second movie one guy runs for God. The other to be as good as everyone else even though he is Jewish. (IMO, he shouldn't feel a need to prove that).

I think there might have been an interesting story in there somewhere but the pacing was so slow, any interest in the story was destroyed by that and a lack of focus.

Finally, there were too many cast members that looked too much alike. That's often a movie killer for me. If I have to keep wondering who this one is or that one, yep, it's distracting.

I'm really wishing someone had or would create another curriculum with more interesting, movies that didn't focus on Christian ideals so much.

Next up, Henry V.

What did you think of the actual movies, though? Can you separate your evident distaste for Christianity from the films themselves, and judge them as films separate from your theological disagreements? I ask because saying things about how they're slow, and saying you can't tell the characters apart, strike me as extremely surface-level judgments about the films -- both of which, by the by, are considered classics by most. Particularly Chariots of Fire, which is downright brilliant. It'd be a shame if such an important, beautiful film were lost to even one viewer because their religious opinions overwhelmed any chance they might have had to enjoy it.

Yes, I can separate but I think you missunderstood what my distaste is ecactly, Yoda. It's not a distaste of Christianity which I think at it's best is a great thing. It's a distaste of self righteousness. It seems that this is the value held up rather that Christianity itself, and to me that's not pleasant or preferred.

In the curriculum it gets to the point of the author aparently not noticing what's wrong with what happened here, in the film, but rather vaulting what happened because the characters happened to be some form of Christian.

These films are ones that I try to enjoy as films from the onset as films. Slow pacing is almost always certain death of that enjoyment. I don't really care how many people fall in line with the idea that a film is great, if it doesn't work for me as a film, it doesn't work. As I said, I thought there was a potentially good story in Chariots of Fire but it wasn't fully realized due to a number of fatal flaws.

To me, not being able to tell the characters apart is no small flaw. It's a huge one that casting, writing, directing and actors failed in. Whenever that happens it breaks the willful suspension of disbelief necessary to stay engaged in a film. It doesn't just happen in films that are somewhat about being Christian however. It's not a surface thing IMO. You should want the story told well and the characters distinct enough for the view to know who they are in order to remain engaging to the viewer.

Of course films and the enjoyment of them are highly objective things. If someone tells me they love a film I can't enjoy I don't take it personally. I just figure we are all different.

In A Man For All Seasons, Sir Thomas More is actually standing up to Henry VIII's decision to form a new church so that he can divorce one wife so that he can marry another one. It's a battle of wills and convictions, but it's completely intermingled in spiritual faith and what rights the King has to do what he does. It's a lot more complicated than you make it sound. I know you believe in standing up for your principles and denouncing what you find to be unjust. Are you saying that threatened with death and/or dishonor that you would compromise your principles in order to survive? You don't seem like somebody who would do that, and obviously it was the tragedy of More's family that he didn't compromise his either.

As a side note, both A Man For All Seasons and Chariots of Fire won Best Picture Oscars, and I've never had any problems with getting confused by who was who in the latter film, but I'll admit that at the time, the film did introduce American audiences to several new faces, who apparently are somewhat obscure to this very day.

Yes, that's exactly what I am saying. I would chose to survive if not for myself, then for my family. I am not so hard headed and righteous that I wouldn't be practical and survive.

I didn't say it wasn't complicated. It is. I simply said what my issues with the film and my attempt to enjoy it were.

I do believe in standing up for principles but not to the point of martyr-ism. To my way of thinking that's just wrong headed, being prideful and stubborn. It turned my stomach quite frankly.

Sometimes one has to bend in order to survive and possibly to make a positive difference in the world. Now it could be argued that martyring oneself would make a greater impact and difference but I would never willingly take that path nor think it was a good path for anyone I cared about. Survival is far more important. If I didn't believe that, I very likely wouldn't be here today, and of course, my children might well not be here as well.

The best thing Sir Thomas More did in the movie was send his family away. I hope it kept them safe but in many cases it would not.

Finding the allusions and metaphors in art is what makes alot of it great art. And for some of us it doesn't take twisting the piece all upside down and backwards to see this. Art means different things to different people. Some people look at a circle and see only a circle, others look at it and see an eternity.

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

BTW, Sir More's great defiance not only got him killed, it also lessened the power of the church around the world and particularly in England.

While Henry V's actions lessened the power of the monarchy itself.

The Gutenberg press helped in both of those diminish as well.

The power remains the same, throughout time it's only the name that changes.

More pluses for you! I love philosophical statements!

Thanks, unfortunately they are only statements.

As you wish . . .

• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
• The Maltese Falcon
• Rear Window
• Raiders of the Lost Ark

Looking over my original post I see that when we got to E.T. the movie train derailed somewhat. I'm not sure why but my son absolutely hates E.T. I love it. I think he associates with with getting sick one night and throwing up a great deal.

Anyway, I told him early on I expected him to watch all these movies but that he could opt out of one and only one. E.T. is the one. I never would have expected that. Since we hit that bump in the road, we've been skipping around. He's been picking each film and hoping for good results.

The Maltese Falcon was one he didn't much care for. Once again I think it was a bit anachronistic for him to relate to. I remember I had once tried to watch this movie and given it up.

This time we both stuck with it all the way through. I had to explain old references and strange turns of dialog to him from time to time. I'm glad I made it through the movie but I didn't love it. At least I'll know what others are talking about should it come up in conversation.

I'm not at all sure why either of these films were included in the curriculum. I see nothing particularly religious in them and there is some violence in the second film. It's curious to me . . .

Rear Window what can I say but that I love, love, love this film. My son however did not. Again I'm not sure why it was included. Jimmy Steward plays a real jerk to the lovely, future Princess Grace Kelly. I wanted to belt him a few times. He is usually one of my favorite. I did enjoy the storyline the wit, humor and suspense of the film.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is again one of my favorite movies! I love the female character in the film. I love the humor. I love the action. It's just a fun film!

I like your description of Shane as "a sweet little naive western", when most of the film's fans usually list it as the second best Western movie ever, second only to The Searchers. You would understand Shane a lot better if you read the novella by the same name on which it is based, plus something about the making of that movie.

In the book, the character of Shane is a small man, much as was Alan Ladd in real life, but the film goes to great lengths to make him alway look taller than what he was. That's true for all of his films. Also, a great mystery to me has always been why the film dresses Shane in buckskin leather when in the book he arrives and leaves in store-bought clothes--white shirt, black string tie, black coat, pants, and hat. The idea is that Shane is small but tough and will not tolerate being messed with. Being a small man, he does his fighting primarily with his gun, not his hands, which imples why he is a gunfighter.

That said, the movie has probably the two best fight scenes ever filmed. When Shane punches the cowpoke, the man gets up wiping blood from what looks to be a broken nose. People hit by clubs and chairs go down immediately and take awhile to get up.

You're right to admire the scenery and photography--Shane was shot with what I (not being a cinematographer) would call a long-range lens that put the distant mountains in focus as well as the actors in the foreground. That lens also makes the mountains look much closer than they really were, so that the mountains loom up above the prairie, the ranch, the town. They also made a point of putting all the buildings in the town on the same side of the imaginary "street" in front. Meant they didn't have to build backsides to houses across the street since there were no houses across the street, but as I recall, they actually built the ranch cabin and fixtures. Also they planted 2-3 trees on the hill so that people coming into town on enter through the "gateway" between those trees that separates the town from the prarie.

I must have missed the subtle religious messages you alluded too. I only remember two incidents--the hymn-singing at the funeral, and at the 4th of July celebration when they put the arch over the rancher and his wife and play part of the hymn "Abide With Me." But that song in that context was more of a reference to a husband and wife abiding together than the original religous context. And the hymn at the funeral was certainly appropriate--still is in some parts of the south.

What I saw in place of religious references was an unabashed celebration of nature. First it being shot on location in the west with big sky, big mountains, big stretches of country (as was another great Western of that period, The Big Country). Second, the use of the long-range lens to put more emphasis on the wild, rugged mountains behind them, more the feeling of a settlement on the edge of a wilderness (albeit with less trees the eastern wilderness). But what really mystified me is the performances they managed to get out of the animals in the picture! If you have ever been around horses and cattle, you know they are very skiddish and any unusual violence or excitement can set them off. Stonewall's horse raring and snorting as it carried home Stonewall's body was exactly how a horse would react to the smell of blood. At the funeral, as they lower the casket into the ground, Stonewall's dog standing at the edge of the grave whines and puts its paw on the coffin as though mourning the loss of its owner. They accomplished that shot with a dog that had not been taking direction very well at all by putting its real owner-trainer into the hole into which the coffin is lowered, so the dog was worried about that owner, not Stonewall. And in the key fight scene between Shane and Joe at the ranch, when the horses tied to the hitching post are whinneying in fright and trying to get free, and the spooked cattle actually burst through the far side of the corral, it looks like they're frightened by the two men fighting and rolling under them. But to get that performance, the director had a guy dressed in a bear suit standing just outside the camera range--the animals were trying to escape from the "bear"!

The best part of the movie is the unspoken love story between Shane and Joe's wife, very much like the one between John Wayne and his sister-in-law in The Searchers. Both are great understated performances.

But to get to your main question about whether Shane lived or not, as I remember it is also left to one's imagination in the book as well as in the movie, just as will Scarlett ever get Rhett back as she vows. But some of that symbolism that you dislike gives some hints, as Shane turns his back on the East with the rising sun, symbol of new birth and hope and rides West, the direction of the setting sun, into the unknown of the still dark mountains. So the symbolism is telling you he dies, like a scene in Crime and Punishment when a man standing under a tree that is dripping rain (another life-death symbol) tells a passer-by, "I'm going West" and then shoots himself. You can see some of the same symbolism in Huck Finn--nothing bad ever happens to Huck and Jim while they are on the river, the symbol of life; they only get into trouble when they go ashore.

Plus Shane's death would be a historic probability giving the size of bullet and the slower muzzle velocity of guns back then, which tended to do a lot of damage, and how little was known about germs and surgery in that day.

Well, I did take Shane to be some sort of heaven sent character who then vanishes up into the mist of the mountains once his work is done. I really liked Palance in that film. What a great villain!

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I think Palance was nominated for best supporting actor for that role. As I recall, it may have been the first Western he ever made, and, although playing the rough tough villain Wilson, he was afraid of horses and had a lot of difficulties in his few scenes on horseback. There is a scene at the ranch after the Fourth of July party when Palance accompanies the other cowboys and does this cool almost slow-motion dismount as he and Shane size each other up. If you have a DVD of the film, there is a comentary on it by the son of the director who as a teenager had some small on-site job on that film, and he says in this that Palance had such difficulty remounting his horse, that they simply re-ran that scene in reverse for the final print. However, my recollection of the film is that the scene showing Palance dismounting is a long shot with other horses and riders in action and thus obviously is not run in revers, while the dismount scene focuses on Palance and his horse with Shane leaning against a wagon watching. So I suspect it's really the dismount scene that was the reversed shot.