Movies as Text

Shannon said...

We evolved our human communication from hand-signs to speaking to drawn pictures to writing to still photographs and finally to moving film. We do not yet have holographs or virtual reality in the mainstream but they are coming. It is important that a teacher is able to view diverse media as text because increasingly our world is made of the more complex medias, including movies. After so much reading and study of the printed word, it was great that we got to see clips from so many classic films. It was worth the time. Movies are another form of communication that do not get examined in a scholarly light as much as writing, but still have all the same elements. They have setting, characters, and plot just like books. Movies are more easily accessed, in that you don't need to be able to read and they also use less time to tell the same story. But, they can still be dated by the clothes characters wear, by the quality and method of the filming and special effects, and by the film's treatment of certain subjects, even by the actors themselves.

The movies we saw portrayed teachers in front of a classroom. But teaching can happen anywhere. Anyone or anything, when examined in the proper way, can yeild wisdom. I only hope that I am able to collect this wisdom more often than pass it by.