To the Best of Our Knowledge: Arts Education

Arts Education
To the Best of Our Knowledge (Wisconsin Public Radio)

SEGMENT 1:



Eric Booth is one of America's leading teaching artists and trainer of teaching artists. He's also the author of "The Music Teaching Artist's Bible: Becoming a Virtuoso Educator." He talks to Steve Paulson about the current state of arts education in American schools and shares his thoughts on how to engage children through arts education.

SEGMENT 2:



Michael Doucet is the founder of the pioneering, Grammy Award-winning Cajun band, BeauSoleil. The band recently released its 29th album, "Alligator Purse." Doucet also has an extensive background in arts education. He talks to Steve Paulson about educating people about Cajun culture through Cajun music. We also hear some music from BeauSoleil's "Alligator Purse" album.

Katie Salen is a game designer, interactive designer, animator and design educator. She's also the editor of "The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning." Salen talks to Anne Strainchamps about what children can learn from designing and playing games.

SEGMENT 3:



David Gilmour is a Canadian film critic and novelist. He's also the author of a memoir called "The Film Club." In the book, Gilmour writes about his decision to let his son, Jesse, drop out of school, provided that he agrees to watch three movies a week with his father. Gilmour talks to Jim Fleming about the experience. We also hear clips from a few of the films that Gilmour watched with his son

To Listen to the Episode

Harry M. Benshoff: Brokering Brokeback Mountain -- A Local Reception Study

Brokering Brokeback Mountain — a local reception study
by Harry M. Benshoff
Jump Cut



By almost anyone’s calculations, Brokeback Mountain was the movie event of 2005/2006. Based on a story by Annie Proulx, this “gay cowboy movie” (a misnomer, as I shall argue below) generated considerable box office revenue, multiple interpretations, and a fair amount of controversy, as pundits of every ideological stripe weighed in on its cultural significance. As one of the few popular movies dealing with issues surrounding male homosexual desire and identity, the reception of Brokeback Mountain makes for an interesting case study. Not only does its reception support various concepts of contemporary cultural theory (such as the necessarily negotiated decoding of polysemous, heteroglossic media texts), it also underscores the many interpretive meanings of (male) homosexuality that exist within contemporary culture-at-large. As will be shown, by challenging the ideological foundations of heteronormative patriarchy, Brokeback Mountain generated a large amount of fear, anger, delight, disappointment, and/or moral outrage among diverse groups of filmgoers.

The following analysis also draws upon queer theory, an array of ideas about human sexuality that critiques “normalising ways of knowing and of being.”[2] Queer theory is informed by many of the same poststructuralist and postmodern ideas that shape third wave feminism, postcolonial theory, and other contemporary ways of thinking about the politics, practice, and production of social identities. Like much of that thinking, queer theory postulates that human sexuality is not an essentialized or biological given, but is rather a fluid construct that is shaped by the various discourses within which it is spoken. In its broadest terms, queer theory insists that there is a general overlap between all forms of human sexuality — that there are multifarious human sexualities situated between the essentialist poles of homosexuality and heterosexuality. As such, one of queer theory’s central goals is to deconstruct and complicate Western culture’s illusory straight-gay binary. Other aspects of queer theory investigate the multiple meanings of male homosocial desire and explore its relationship to masculinity, (homo)sexuality, patriarchy, and the so-called “closet” within which homosexual desire has been said to hide.

To Read the Rest of the Essay

Bold Native (USA: Dennis Hennelly, 2010)

Robin Wood: Only (Dis)Connect; and Never Relaxez-Vous; or, I Can’t Sleep

Only (Dis)Connect; and Never Relaxez-Vous; or, ‘I Can’t Sleep’
by Robin Wood
Film International



...

Confessions of an Incompetent Film Critic

For people of my generation, who grew up in the 1940s/50s on an exclusive diet of classical Hollywood cinema (with the occasional British movie), the European ‘arthouse’ cinema always presented problems which linger on even today, a simple basic one being that of following the plot. This is not because the plot is necessarily complex or obscure, but, frequently, because of the way in which the characters are introduced and the action presented. When I grew up there was remarkably little serious criticism available (not much beyond the weekly reviews), and film studies courses in schools or universities were not even thought of. I was seventeen when I saw my first foreign language film (Torment/Frenzy [Hets, 1944], by Alf Sjöberg, from an early but already characteristic screenplay by Ingmar Bergman). I knew from the reviews that it would carry me far beyond anything I had seen previously, both in style and subject-matter, and my hand was trembling when I bought my ticket. I believe I had great difficulty following it (my first subtitles, not to mention extreme psychological disturbance). Fifty-five years later I still have the same problem when confronted with the films of Claire Denis (or Michael Haneke, or Hou Hsiao-Hsien…). The habits acquired during one’s formative years are never quite cast off; when I showed I Can’t Sleep to a graduate film group last year, my students corrected me over a number of details and pointed out many things I hadn’t noticed, although this was their first viewing of the film and I had already watched it three times. A classical Hollywood film – however intelligent and complex – is dependent on its surface level upon ‘popular’ appeal and its action must be fully comprehensible to a general audience at one viewing, covering all levels of educatedness from the illiterate to the university professor. (The same was of course true of the Elizabethan theatre – see, for example, the conventions of the soliloquy and the aside, wherein a character explains his/her motivation, reactions or thoughts to the audience). One of the cardinal rules was that every plot point must be doubly articulated, in both the action and the dialogue; another was the use of the cut to close-up that tells us ‘This character is important’; yet another, the presence of instantly recognizable stars or character actors. All of these Denis systematically denies us. It is a part of her great distinction that her films (and especially I Can’t Sleep, arguably her masterpiece to date) demand intense and continuous mental activity from the spectator: we are not to miss a single detail or to pass over a gesture or facial expression, even if it is shown in long shot within an ensemble, with no ‘helpful’ underlining and no ‘spelling out’ in dialogue.

It is the particular distinction of Denis’ cinema that sets it apart from – almost, indeed, in opposition to – the work of many of our most celebrated ‘arthouse’ directors: Bergman, for example, or Fellini or Antonioni. Their films are rooted in autobiography – not necessarily in any literal sense, but in terms of personal introspection – whereas Denis left autobiography behind with Chocolat, and even that film is notable for its poise and critical distance, its objectivity. Where Bergman or Fellini seems to be saying to us ‘Come with me and I’ll tell you my secrets, share my experiences – how I feel about things, my thoughts about existence’, Denis issues a very different invitation to the spectator: ‘Come with me and we’ll play a game, albeit a serious one. Let’s see how much you can notice in what I decide to show you, how you interpret what you see and hear, what connections you can make, how much can be explained and how much remains mysterious and uncertain, as so much in our lives remains unclear. I’ll allow you a certain leeway of interpretation, because I don’t always understand everything myself, not even my own creations, though I’ll be as precise as possible…’ A few examples from the film’s first ten minutes will illustrate various aspects of this.

To Read the Rest of the Essay

Zadie Smith: Generation Why?

Generation Why?
by Zadie Smith
The New York Review of Books



How long is a generation these days? I must be in Mark Zuckerberg’s generation—there are only nine years between us—but somehow it doesn’t feel that way. This despite the fact that I can say (like everyone else on Harvard’s campus in the fall of 2003) that “I was there” at Facebook’s inception, and remember Facemash and the fuss it caused; also that tiny, exquisite movie star trailed by fan-boys through the snow wherever she went, and the awful snow itself, turning your toes gray, destroying your spirit, bringing a bloodless end to a squirrel on my block: frozen, inanimate, perfect—like the Blaschka glass flowers. Doubtless years from now I will misremember my closeness to Zuckerberg, in the same spirit that everyone in ’60s Liverpool met John Lennon.

At the time, though, I felt distant from Zuckerberg and all the kids at Harvard. I still feel distant from them now, ever more so, as I increasingly opt out (by choice, by default) of the things they have embraced. We have different ideas about things. Specifically we have different ideas about what a person is, or should be. I often worry that my idea of personhood is nostalgic, irrational, inaccurate. Perhaps Generation Facebook have built their virtual mansions in good faith, in order to house the People 2.0 they genuinely are, and if I feel uncomfortable within them it is because I am stuck at Person 1.0. Then again, the more time I spend with the tail end of Generation Facebook (in the shape of my students) the more convinced I become that some of the software currently shaping their generation is unworthy of them. They are more interesting than it is. They deserve better.

In The Social Network Generation Facebook gets a movie almost worthy of them, and this fact, being so unexpected, makes the film feel more delightful than it probably, objectively, is. From the opening scene it’s clear that this is a movie about 2.0 people made by 1.0 people (Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher, forty-nine and forty-eight respectively). It’s a talkie, for goodness’ sake, with as many words per minute as His Girl Friday. A boy, Mark, and his girl, Erica, sit at a little table in a Harvard bar, zinging each other, in that relentless Sorkin style made famous by The West Wing (though at no point does either party say “Walk with me”—for this we should be grateful).

But something is not right with this young man: his eye contact is patchy; he doesn’t seem to understand common turns of phrase or ambiguities of language; he is literal to the point of offense, pedantic to the point of aggression. (“Final clubs,” says Mark, correcting Erica, as they discuss those exclusive Harvard entities, “Not Finals clubs.”) He doesn’t understand what’s happening as she tries to break up with him. (“Wait, wait, this is real?”) Nor does he understand why. He doesn’t get that what he may consider a statement of fact might yet have, for this other person, some personal, painful import:

ERICA: I have to go study.

MARK: You don’t have to study.

ERICA: How do you know I don’t have to study?!

MARK: Because you go to B.U.!

Simply put, he is a computer nerd, a social “autistic”: a type as recognizable to Fincher’s audience as the cynical newshound was to Howard Hawks’s. To create this Zuckerberg, Sorkin barely need brush his pen against the page. We came to the cinema expecting to meet this guy and it’s a pleasure to watch Sorkin color in what we had already confidently sketched in our minds. For sometimes the culture surmises an individual personality, collectively. Or thinks it does. Don’t we all know why nerds do what they do? To get money, which leads to popularity, which leads to girls. Sorkin, confident of his foundation myth, spins an exhilarating tale of double rejection—spurned by Erica and the Porcellian, the Finaliest of the Final Clubs, Zuckerberg begins his spite-fueled rise to the top. Cue a lot of betrayal. A lot of scenes of lawyers’ offices and miserable, character-damning depositions. (“Your best friend is suing you!”) Sorkin has swapped the military types of A Few Good Men for a different kind of all-male community in a different uniform: GAP hoodies, North Face sweats.

To Read the Rest of the Essay

MUBI: Film Poster of the Week -- Chris Ware's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

To read about the poster:

Orwell Rolls in His Grave (USA: Robert Kane Pappas, 2003: 84 mins)

Director Robert Kane Pappas’ ORWELL ROLLS IN HIS GRAVE is the consummate critical examination of the Fourth Estate, once the bastion of American democracy. Asking whether America has entered an Orwellian world of doublespeak where outright lies can pass for the truth, Pappas explores what the media doesn’t like to talk about: itself. Meticulously tracing the process by which media has distorted and often dismissed actual news events, Pappas presents a riveting and eloquent mix of media professionals and leading intellectual voices on the media. Among the cast of characters in ORWELL ROLLS IN HIS GRAVE are Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity, Vincent Bugliosi, former L.A. prosecutor and legal scholar, film director and author Michael Moore, Rep. Bernie Sanders, Danny Schecter, author and former producer for ABC and CNN, and Tony Benn, former member of the British Parliament. ORWELL ROLLS IN HIS GRAVE provides a vital forum for ideas that will never be heard in mainstream media. From Globalvision’s Danny Schecter: “We falsely think of our country as a democracy when it has evolved into a mediacracy – where a media that is supposed to check political abuse is part of the political abuse.” New York University media professor Mark Crispin Miller says, “These commercial entities now vie with the government for control over our lives. They are not a healthy counterweight to government. Goebbels said that what you want in a media system – he meant the Nazi media system - is to present the ostensible diversity that conceals an actual uniformity.” From the very size of the media monopolies and how they got that way to who decides what gets on the air and what doesn’t, ORWELL ROLLS IN HIS GRAVE moves through a troubling list of questions and news stories that go unanswered and unreported in the mainstream media. Are Americans being given the information a democracy needs to survive or have they been electronically lobotomized? Has the frenzy for media consolidation led to a dangerous irony where in an era of more news sources the majority of the population has actually become less informed? ORWELL ROLLS IN HIS GRAVE reminds us that 1984 is no longer a date in the future.

Empire: Hollywood and the War Machine

Hollywood and the war machine: Empire examines the symbiotic relationship between the movie industry and the military-industrial complex.
Empire (Al Jazeera)

War is hell, but for Hollywood it has been a Godsend, providing the perfect dramatic setting against which courageous heroes win the hearts and minds of the movie going public.

The Pentagon recognises the power of these celluloid dreams and encourages Hollywood to create heroic myths; to rewrite history to suit its own strategy and as a recruiting tool to provide a steady flow of willing young patriots for its wars.

What does Hollywood get out of this 'deal with the devil'? Access to billions of dollars worth of military kit, from helicopters to aircraft carriers, enabling filmmakers to make bigger and more spectacular battle scenes, which in turn generate more box office revenue. Providing they accept the Pentagon's advice, even toe the party line and show the US military in a positive light.

So is it a case of art imitating life, or a sinister force using art to influence life and death - and the public perception of both?

Empire will examine Hollywood, the Pentagon, and war.

Joining us as guests: Oliver Stone, the eight times Academy Award-winning filmmaker; Michael Moore, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker; and Christopher Hedges, an author and the former Middle East bureau chief of the New York Times.

Our interviewees this week are: Phil Strub, US Department of Defense Film Liaison Unit; Julian Barnes, Pentagon correspondent, LA Times; David Robb, the author of Operation Hollywood; Prof Klaus Dodds, the author of Screening Terror; Matthew Alford, the author of Reel Power; Prof Melani McAlister, the author of Culture, Media, and US Interests in the Middle East.

To Watch the Documentary

Me Facing Life: Cyntoia's Story

(Extra credit opportunity for my students -- go watch it and write a two page, typed, response)

Join KET for monthly screenings of Independent Lens films in Lexington as part of the Independent Television Service's (ITVS) nationwide Community Cinema program. All Screenings are FREE and open to the public!

February's film is Me Facing Life: Cyntoia's Story. In 2004, sixteen year old Cyntoia Brown was arrested for murder. There was no question that a 43-year-old man is dead and that she killed him. What mystified filmmaker Daniel Birman was just how common violence among youth is, and just how rarely we stop to question our assumptions about it. He wondered in this case what led a girl—who grew-up in a reasonable home environment—to this tragic end?

February 17, 2010
6:00 PM
Lexington Public Library, Central Branch
140 East Main Street
Lexington, KY 40507

Tura Satana: 1938 - 2011

Link below has a collection of critics remembering Cult Film star Tura Satana:

MUBI: Tura Satana 1938 - 2011

Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe Receives Death Threat

Daniel Radcliffe is currently filming the final installment of the boy wizard series, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince. The 18-year-old star received a death threat from a stalker on Saturday night while filming the movie. Daniel Radcliffe now is being protected by four former SAS bodyguards. Link

Brad Pitt's New Hairdo For Movie Tree of Life

Brad Pitt shaved a new hairdo for his next movie Tree of Life, directed by Terrence Malick. In the film, Pitt co-stars with Sean Penn. Source: ABC

2008 Academy Award Winners

Performance by an actor in a leading role
Daniel Day-Lewis in "There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Javier Bardem in "No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Marion Cotillard in "La Vie en Rose" (Picturehouse)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Tilda Swinton in "Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.)

Best animated feature film of the year
"Ratatouille" (Walt Disney): Brad Bird

Achievement in art direction
"Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (DreamWorks and Warner Bros., Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount): Art Direction: Dante Ferretti; Set Decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo

Achievement in cinematography
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax): Robert Elswit

Achievement in costume design
"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (Universal) Alexandra Byrne

Achievement in directing
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage), Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

Best documentary feature
"Taxi to the Dark Side" (THINKFilm) An X-Ray Production: Alex Gibney and Eva Orner

Best documentary short subject
"Freeheld" A Lieutenant Films Production: Cynthia Wade and Vanessa Roth

Achievement in film editing
"The Bourne Ultimatum" (Universal): Christopher Rouse

Best foreign language film of the year
"The Counterfeiters" Austria

Achievement in makeup
"La Vie en Rose" (Picturehouse) Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
"Atonement" (Focus Features) Dario Marianelli

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
"Falling Slowly" from "Once" (Fox Searchlight) Music and Lyric by Glen Hansard and: Marketa Irglova

Best motion picture of the year
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage) A Scott Rudin/Mike Zoss Production: Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers

Best animated short film
"Peter & the Wolf" (BreakThru Films) A BreakThru Films/Se-ma-for Studios Production Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman

Best live action short film
"Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)" (Premium Films) A Karé Production: Philippe Pollet-Villard

Achievement in sound editing
"The Bourne Ultimatum" (Universal): Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg

Achievement in sound mixing
"The Bourne Ultimatum" (Universal) Scott Millan, David Parker and Kirk Francis

Achievement in visual effects
"The Golden Compass" (New Line in association with Ingenious Film Partners): Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood

Adapted screenplay
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage), Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

Original screenplay
"Juno" (A Mandate Pictures/Mr. Mudd Production), Written by Diablo Cody

Source: Perezhilton.com