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Graduation 2012:
Thoughts for our film graduates
Professor Elsie Walker offers some thoughts for our recent graduates as well as
our current and prospective students.
June 27, 2012
Left to Right: Dr. Walker, Matt
Dietz, Dr. Johnson
The other day I picked up a
prescription for my daughter and smiled at the “with us, it’s
personal” slogan on the Rite-Aid bag. While I appreciate the
sentiment, it just doesn’t square with my experiences of picking
up routine prescriptions. It’s also difficult for me to avoid
being cynical about a company claiming to be truly or
“personally” interested in the consumers of its products.
Later on, it occurred to me that
another person might easily observe that everything at
university is just another kind of product. Every student and/or
every student’s family does pay for the college experience. Yet
I’m a shameless idealist when it comes to teaching and learning.
I recently attended the spring
2012 Salisbury University graduation ceremony at which many of
our strongest film students claimed their degrees. I hope that
all these graduates will apply the concrete skills Dave Johnson
and I have fostered in our classes: skills of research, writing,
visual literacy, creativity, collaboration, leadership, problem
solving, and critical thinking. All these skills are surely
applicable to infinite vocations. But our aims are even bigger
than such measures of achievement, just as what our students
have paid for should be more than countable hours and graded
assignments. I hope that, at the very least, every one of our
students leaves with a new, life-long love of cinema—a passion
that will always enable them to potentially understand art,
humanity, and even themselves that much better. Films are among
the most potentially powerful ways of telling stories that
endure: so understanding the stories of cinema can help us
understand all the stories of our lives better.
Left to Right: Dr. Walker, Rachel
Holtzman, Dr. Johnson
Everything I have learned as a
film professor enables me to derive more inspiration from each
cinematic experience. All our students feed into this
pattern—especially because Dave and I routinely teach certain
landmark films annually but the conversations we have change
from year to year. Ironically, people often ask us whether
analyzing films takes away from our enjoyment of them: quite the
contrary is true. Studying how films are made, who they are made
for, and who speaks through them most powerfully allows us to
more fully enjoy what they say, reflect, reveal, and open up for
us.
Our Film Concentration students
typically take six foundational courses: Introduction to Film,
Film Genre, Film History, Major Film Directors, Film Theory, and
International Cinema. These courses are routinely supplemented
with other more specialist courses about more specific aspects
of cinema (such as documentaries, or soundtracks). But, at the
very least, every Film Concentration student takes six of our
film courses and within every course we study at least fifteen
films in depth. For every film we study, either Dave or I offer
a full lecture to provide cultural, artistic, historical, and
technological contexts for understanding it and then we run a
discussion-based class after the screening. Since each course
contains fifteen films, and each film student takes at least six
film courses, each student thus studies at least ninety films
overall. The films come from all over the world and date back to
the origins of cinema leading up to the present day. In
addition, we never double-up on films across our courses, but
the films we choose often complement each other. So, all our
students benefit from a coherent program that allows them to
apply their skills to ninety different processes of
understanding the reality, truth, art, perspective, and vision
of a film.
Left to Right: Dr. Walker, Chris
Johnson, Dr. Johnson
Each semester, we “live” each film
with the students who encounter them for the first time. We
consider it a responsibility and a privilege to present
Citizen Kane
to first-time viewers, for instance, just as we consider it a
responsibility and privilege to introduce students to marginal
or international forms of cinema they might not otherwise see.
The four-year undergraduate degree is a four-year conversation
about movies. The conversation keeps changing direction, but our
ultimate faith in the power of cinema remains constant.
Our film program is modest in size, though it grows every year.
We currently have a core group of about thirty majors and minors
in the program each year. So, our students get to know us, and
each other, quite well. By the time we reach the end of our
four-year conversations about more than ninety films, we feel
great attachments to our film graduates. This year, we were
delighted to honor the successes of several film graduates who
have distinguished themselves with some exceptional work—whether
we think of Mollie Palmer’s strong comparative study of the
subversive female protagonists of
Whale Rider
and
Heavenly Creatures,
or of Rachel Holtzman’s savvy analysis of
Double Indemnity
as enduring and classical film noir, or of Chris Johnson’s
original essay on the deeply affecting editing patterns within
Christopher Nolan’s work, or of Matt Dietz’s stand-out
presentation on the influence of Zen culture on
Tokyo Story,
we take great pride in what each of our students has already
done. We will chart their future careers with just as much keen
interest.
So, please allow me to say that “with us, it’s [truly]
personal.” And film graduates, please accept out heartfelt
congratulations. In the words of Ben Okri, “may a wonderful
light always guide you on the unfolding road.”
Left to Right: Dr. Walker, Mollie
Palmer, Dr. Johnson
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