University of Virginia Library

Projected Image Language
Necessary In Education

By Charley Sands

It has been estimated that the average high
school graduate today has watched more than
500 films and more than 15,000 hours of
television as contrasted with only 10,000 hours
spent in the classroom. Anthony Schillaci, a
film scholar at Rosary College, estimates a
seven to one ratio between student use of film
and books. This points out the increasingly
recognized fact that the projected image is the
dominant communications medium and one of
the most influential for this student generation.

This constant bombardment by images of all
types has resulted in the development of a
generation that is "visually oriented". In other
words, the current student generation orders
incoming information in terms of visual patterns,
not in item-by-item sequences. Yet the
curriculum of most universities still clings stubbornly
to the increasingly obsolete print of the
book as its major teaching medium.

This has resulted in a serious loss of communication
between students and teachers.
Students are bored to death having to read
book after dull book. Teachers are puzzled and
dismayed by the lack of response to their
courses. One instructor remarked with some
discouragement; "...here I am trying to teach
English to 20 people who don't care."

Students perceive in terms of patterns but at
the university they find a totally different
situation. Marshall McLuhan, author of "Understanding
Media" has noted that; "The student
can find no possible means of involvement for
himself, nor can he discover how the educational
scene relates to the world that he takes
for granted."

Why have the universities not changed with
the technology and made use of the film, the
most popular of the new communications, as a
teaching medium and as a field of study in its
own right?

One of the answers to this question is that
movies are so familiar. They have been a
pervading presence all of our lives. This casual
acquaintance has led us to divorce the movie
from anything we consider as "true art".
"Fine" art (sculpture, painting, and "serious"
literature) has been categorized as something
treated with respect, if not awe. As Frank
Getlein says in "The Art of the Movie", "we
'drop in' to a movie and would never think of
dropping in to a concert or play. Partly, of
course, this is a matter of expense but the art
gallery is less expensive than the movie and by
and large we do not drop in there either."

In "Film Study in Higher Education" David
C. Stewart explains this contempt for the
familiar in another way. He says, "Listening to
the disquieted discussions of motion picture
study among academicians firmly committed to
the printed page..., one often recalls the line...in
Shaw's 'Saint Joan'; 'There is nothing better
than a bonny book with well placed columns of
rich black writing in beautiful borders, and
illuminated pictures cunningly inset. But nowadays
instead of looking at books, people .'
It is disconcerting to some that nowadays
instead of simply looking at movies, students
want to examine them."

Along with this awe of the "fine" arts, there
is a vague uneasiness about the film as a
worthwhile art because it makes money for its
creators. As Mr. Getlein says, there exists "the
popular myth of the starving artist and the
widespread feeling that the natural habitat of
the poet or painter is the garret, preferably a
cold one."

A quick look at the history of the arts
completely contradicts this idea. Shakespeare
wrote for the commercial theatre; Charles
Dickens for very profitable periodicals. The
painter Titian sold his work only to the highest
bidder and mass-produced his art after he
became popular. In Dr. Johnson's opinion, "No
one but a blockhead, sir, ever wrote a line
except for pay."

However, this suspicion of the materialism
of the movies does not die easily. It is always
pointed out that, especially today, for every
artist who is able to make a living in his field,
many do not. Perhaps we have reason to be
suspicious of the movie's money ties. Dedication
to box-office success has created literally
thousands of ridiculous westerns, implausible
dramas, and terrible comedies. But the requirement
for "success" in art has applied
before. During the Baroque period, the Catholic
Church was trying to win back deserters to
Calvinism. Artists, of whom a large number
were employed by the Church, were told to
create works that would sell-sell-sell the Catholic
faith. The result was incredibly bad sculpture,
painting, and architecture. However, as
Mr. Getlein points out; "Bernini and El Greco,
working within these impossible limitations,
produced...masterworks. If human creativity
can surmount..insistent religiosity to produce
great religious art, (it) can certainly surmount a
money culture to produce great fictional art...
In the movies this has happened time and time
again."

As part of their responsibility toward the
arts, the universities should incorporate film
study into all English courses and make advanced
levels available with credit toward majors
in English, Philosophy, and the other
Liberal Arts. The Research Committee for the
National Association of Independent Schools
has said that "The motion picture at its best is
widely regarded as an art form of pervasive
influence around the world; one which merits
intelligent study. The best in motion pictures
provides a source of experience different in
nature and comparable in quality to the offerings
schools have traditionally devoted themselves
to in the art of the printed word."

One of the fundamental purposes of education
is to enable men to contend effectively
with their environment, but if the educational
system does not change with the surroundings
it truly becomes an "ivory tower" and therefore
useless. If higher education is to adequately
prepare its men for the modern age, it
must join that age and speak its language-the
language of the film.