Seeing Through Film: Cinema as Inquiry and Pedagogy

An undergraduate course at the University of South Florida called "Relationships on Film" treats movies as relationship texts to be "read" by active viewers. Through the semester, students engage film in two ways. First, they interpret films as response papers. Each week, students watch the assigned film outside of class. Then they select the relational issues they want to address, and write about what they find most evocative, interesting, or questionable. Second, students turn a reflexive eye onto themselves and ask what values arid assumptions they use to interpret relationship experience. In other words, after students write about issues they select, they examine their analyses and consider such questions as, "How am I positioned as a viewer of this film?" or "What does my selection of these issues say about me?" These questions call students to examine critically their own structures of interpretation--their memories, their family traditions, their cultural Cairo," two films that affirm that people today live in what N. Denzin Cairo," 2 films that affirm that people today live in what N. Denzin calls "a cinematic society." These "movies about movies" suggest that film mediates identity and relationships in several ways. Ingmar Bergman's "Persona" and Woody Allen's "Zelig" engage students in questions of identity. "The Virginian," "Shane," and "Red River" raise questions about what Westerns value. And "Annie Hall" and "When Harry Met Sally" help students to look at romantic relationships. (TB)