High School by Frederick Wiseman
Bordwell and Thompson use High School as an example of cinema veritesince the film is made up of seemingly innocuous moments inhigh schoolââ¬âa day in the lifeââ¬âhowever, there is no way that all the eventsthat occur could have happened in a single dayââ¬âlogistically speaking, allthe activities portrayed in HighSchool's 37 segments could not have occurred in one school day. Assuch, the film consists of a composite of events that Wiseman wantsto show and the choices are quite deliberate. They note that when thePhiladelphia Board of Education viewed HighSchool, many officials praised it as a testament to the efficacy of publiceducation, while critics saw the film as an indictment of this school inparticular and secondary education in general (414). Bordwell and Thompsonspeculate that these mixed reactions are due to the film's ambiguity and thefact that there are several meanings within. Their analysis, they say, can beused as support for the critics' negative response.
They note that the segments never include students talking withother students, nor do they show students at home or with their parents.There are parents present, but only in the context of their concerns with theschool, and these concerns are consistently shown being neutralized at thehands of authoritarian administrators. Nearly everyscene concentrates on the regimented nature of the situation, whether in aphysical education or a literature class. Drill style education ispictured. For example, one scene shows a teacher reading a poem but thestudent discussion that ostensibly follows, is cut. Teachers areshown diffusing confrontation by flattering or cajoling students in abenevolent yet dictatorial way; rules are rules after all.
Bordwell and Thompson use reproductions of shot break downs to show how the formal elements serve their analysis. Using thesestills as evidence, they note that teachers, when not shown in full body-length shots, are shown as heads, faces or hands. These close shots featuringtheir heads or hands makes clear that they are the ones who think, speak,and act in the world of the film and, by extension, in the world of theschool. Their authority is secure. If teachers are shown as"heady," students are shown as legs and torsosââ¬âcompliant bodies. They then add stills which they call the typical view of students. They are anonymousand disconnected body parts; one student stands for any and allstudents (410-413).
It is not so much theanalysis that concerns me here, as the way the analysis is actualized. As Bordwell and Thompson note, members of the Board of Education changed their view of the film from flattering the school district to damning it, after they saw film critic's analyses. This indicates that laypeople were not adept at such analysis; the ability to critically engage this film was confined to experts. The stills included in Film Art, grainy though they are, were not easily integrated into an argument and, as such, this type of analysis was confined to film scholars and their publishers.
Digital affordances disrupt authoritative 'readings' as they increasingly allow individuals to launch an argument using the segments of the film itself. So for instance, I can use this image ofa teacher shown as a disconnected body part to counter Bordwell and Thompson'sargument about the formal depictions of teachers as heady while students aremere fragmented bodies. Moreover I can add this clip from the film which I've ripped and 'cited' in this space, using screen capture applications, the Internet Archive to host the video, and the affordances of this platform, Scalar, in which my argument is created. In this way, the possibilities for more sustained and nuanced scholarship are upon us. For it is not enough to 'read' filmic texts in order to be fluent or literate in the language of images, any more than understanding a second language renders one fluent. One must be able to both read and write with the registers of text, image and sound that combine to form the language of film. And fluency with filmic texts is an increasingly urgent concern, as footage is remixed and recontextualized, rendering an increasingly complex visual and aural syntax, one that is difficult to grasp without sustained inquiry and engagement, as my next example demonstrates.
They note that the segments never include students talking withother students, nor do they show students at home or with their parents.There are parents present, but only in the context of their concerns with theschool, and these concerns are consistently shown being neutralized at thehands of authoritarian administrators. Nearly everyscene concentrates on the regimented nature of the situation, whether in aphysical education or a literature class. Drill style education ispictured. For example, one scene shows a teacher reading a poem but thestudent discussion that ostensibly follows, is cut. Teachers areshown diffusing confrontation by flattering or cajoling students in abenevolent yet dictatorial way; rules are rules after all.
Bordwell and Thompson use reproductions of shot break downs to show how the formal elements serve their analysis. Using thesestills as evidence, they note that teachers, when not shown in full body-length shots, are shown as heads, faces or hands. These close shots featuringtheir heads or hands makes clear that they are the ones who think, speak,and act in the world of the film and, by extension, in the world of theschool. Their authority is secure. If teachers are shown as"heady," students are shown as legs and torsosââ¬âcompliant bodies. They then add stills which they call the typical view of students. They are anonymousand disconnected body parts; one student stands for any and allstudents (410-413).
It is not so much theanalysis that concerns me here, as the way the analysis is actualized. As Bordwell and Thompson note, members of the Board of Education changed their view of the film from flattering the school district to damning it, after they saw film critic's analyses. This indicates that laypeople were not adept at such analysis; the ability to critically engage this film was confined to experts. The stills included in Film Art, grainy though they are, were not easily integrated into an argument and, as such, this type of analysis was confined to film scholars and their publishers.
Digital affordances disrupt authoritative 'readings' as they increasingly allow individuals to launch an argument using the segments of the film itself. So for instance, I can use this image ofa teacher shown as a disconnected body part to counter Bordwell and Thompson'sargument about the formal depictions of teachers as heady while students aremere fragmented bodies. Moreover I can add this clip from the film which I've ripped and 'cited' in this space, using screen capture applications, the Internet Archive to host the video, and the affordances of this platform, Scalar, in which my argument is created. In this way, the possibilities for more sustained and nuanced scholarship are upon us. For it is not enough to 'read' filmic texts in order to be fluent or literate in the language of images, any more than understanding a second language renders one fluent. One must be able to both read and write with the registers of text, image and sound that combine to form the language of film. And fluency with filmic texts is an increasingly urgent concern, as footage is remixed and recontextualized, rendering an increasingly complex visual and aural syntax, one that is difficult to grasp without sustained inquiry and engagement, as my next example demonstrates.
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