Learning the lessons from reel life

Film is now regarded by many people as the storytelling medium of our time. It's certainly the most popular, and the chance to study film in school must be among the most exciting opportunities on offer to Irish students.

Film studies is gradually evolving as an important subject in the second-level curriculum. It's a component of Junior Cert media studies and is a whole course in its own right in some schools at Transition Year. In addition, by 1999 there will be six films on the Leaving Cert English course.

Giving film intellectual credibility is usually seen as the remit of art or film college. In society at large, film is generally viewed as something between meaningless entertainment and a dark, manipulative power, so it may strike some people as an odd choice for serious study at school.

According to Tony Tracy, education officer with the Film Institute of Ireland, "film studies as a discipline began in the Sixties, and it has been on the British school curriculum since 1974 in one form or another. Even here, teachers have been using it as a springboard for exploring issues for a long time.

"It seems that now that we are making so many of our own films in Ireland, a new understanding is emerging. Film is no longer just seen as a Hollywood extravaganza, but something which is part of our culture."

The films to feature on the Leaving Cert course will appear as part of a new area called "comparative texts." Comparisons will be drawn between certain themes and how they are treated in a novel or play, compared with a particular film.

How this subject develops is of some concern to educators such as Tracy. "It would be a disaster if we did to film what has been done to poetry - started telling students what it is about. Everyone has an opinion of a film they go to see, we don't need an expert to tell us what it's about.

"The students who come in here aren't at all intimidated by the films they see. If anything I find their knowledge of current releases intimidating." In Transition Year the scope for studying film is much broader than at Leaving Cert, and a new publication, Reel 2 Real by Gerry Jeffers - a member of the official Transition Year Support Team - offers teachers plenty of material to explore the subject.

"The book is the only publication on film for schools," Jeffers says. "It arose out of my experience teaching Transition Year for several years, and it's based on a course I developed for my own students. I've devised the book so there are plenty of questions at the end of each chapter, to really stretch the kids and get them thinking."

The films looked at in the book include My Left Foot, Rear Window, Cinema Paradiso and Some Like it Hot. Areas such as film form, scriptwriting, the cinematic tricks used to tell a story, historical developments and how themes are treated are all examined.

In fact, looking at film in terms of theme is quite a common approach. "Education is about understanding our own experience," says Jeffers, "and in a wider sense we are trying to promote certain values. The first chapter in the book looks at My Left Foot, an ideal film for looking at a subject such as prejudice. In this context, students could discuss how we relate to disability and how it is portrayed by the media."

UNESCO has also recently published a booklet, Tolerance in Films, Keys to the Language of Motion Pictures in Schools. This is a directory of 60 films from all over the world which could help teachers promote tolerance and respect for human rights among their students.

Among the Irish titles suggested for further study are December Bride, directed by Thaddeus O'Sullivan, and Attracta, directed by Kieran Hickey.

"It is also possible to look at `prejudice' with regard to film itself," says Jeffers. "Most of my students would have balked at the idea of watching a black-and-white film, and a film with subtitles was just about as low as you could stoop. But when I showed them something like Cinema Paradiso, they were invariably captivated, and we could get a lot of discussion going on cinema form."

Tony Tracy says it is vitally important that the development of film studies in Irish schools doesn't get bogged down in looking solely at thematic issues, but makes a concerted effort to look at film as an art form in its own right.

"In France, in particular, film as an art form is taken very seriously, and this is quite evident in their film course for the Baccalaureate" - the French equivalent of the Leaving Cert.

"Film, like literature, has an author," Tracy argues, "and he or she tells the story using certain conventions - just as a writer adopts conventions in a novel. It's important to look at film with regard to these conventions, and what the director does with them.

"Film also has a rich heritage, it's an art form with a history. It was initially very avant-garde and it didn't have to end up as mass entertainment - it might have become an art form on the periphery.

"It's important to see how film has developed and to understand that just because films are pretty flashy today doesn't mean earlier stuff is inferior or primitive. If anything, the impact of a lot of earlier film is much longer-lasting, certain scenes linger in our minds. What's considered more sophisticated is really all about instant gratification."