You know, I wonder if there are any textbook-like film anthologies. Not anthologies of writing about film, but of actual film. Like, if you take a literature survey class, you usually get a Norton Anthology or a Longman Anthology or some such that has a collection of important poems and short stories and sections of novels. But if you take a film class, either the films are all watched in class from the teacher’s copy, or you’re pretty much on your own to get hold of them to see. Granted, it’s easier in literature because you can build an anthology out of short works, while most of the films you would want to see in a film class are full-length. But in a survey class, you’re probably better off showing clips from films that illustrate what you’re talking about rather than the whole film anyway, so why not anthologize those? Put together a DVD of all the clips.<\/p>\n
Of course, you can’t actually do that, because we don’t have copyright laws that allow for taking clips from films. Virtually all films are still under copyright protection and the fair use laws that are generally well-understood regarding the use of written works in the classroom are completely NOT understood when it comes to film and digital media. And I can’t see the MPAA being too keen on granting permission for films to be edited for anthologies–obviously the book publishers figure out some way to do it though, because not everything in literary anthologies is public domain. Which leads me back to wondering if anyone’s ever tried, or if it’s not seen as valuable to film professors. Seems like if you could package a good text, like Film Art: An Introduction<\/i> or Understanding Movies<\/i> or How to Read a Film<\/i> with a DVD with the relevant film clips to illustrate what’s being talked about in text…that’d be a good thing, and worth paying extra. Like, you can get the paperback How to Read a Film<\/i> for $25. Pay $50 and get the DVD too. It’s a textbook; $50 is not exorbitant. I think I spelled “exorbitant” wrong, but I got Firefox’s spellchecker to stop underlining it, so maybe not.<\/p>\n
I’ll leave this as a fragmentary thought for now. I was just going through a Longman Anthology I got at a conference last year (seriously, publishing companies are DYING to give these things away to people they think might be teachers someday–totally worth going to conferences for), and it hit me how cool it would be to have a DVD that had all the most iconic film scenes on it.<\/p>\n
edit<\/b> – I take this back. Both Film Art<\/i> and another McGraw-Hill text, Film, Form, and Culture<\/i>, come with accompanying CD\/DVD-ROMs in their latest editions. Presumably other companies are doing or will do the same thing. I guess I just missed the digital revolution by a few years when I was taking these classes in college. Although, DVD-ROMs aren’t as helpful as regular DVDs, because you can’t play them on your TV, just your computer. So there’s still room for improvement. And of course, the next step is an authorized web repository. Good luck getting the MPAA to agree to that<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You know, I wonder if there are any textbook-like film anthologies. Not anthologies of writing about film, but of actual film. Like, if you take a literature survey class, you usually get a Norton Anthology or a Longman Anthology or some such that has a collection of important poems and short stories and sections of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,15],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":34459,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/american-movie-critics-hugo-munsterberg\/","url_meta":{"origin":366,"position":0},"title":"American Movie Critics: Hugo Munsterberg","author":"Jandy","date":"August 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Ryan McNeil of The Matinee and I are reading through the American Movie Critics anthology and discussing each chapter as we go, crossposting on each of our blogs. Hugo M\u00fcnsterberg is an interesting case in this anthology - he wasn't a reviewer or newspaper critic like many of the selections\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Movie Critics"","block_context":{"text":"American Movie Critics","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/american-movie-critics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/amc-hugo-munsterberg.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":33408,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/the-story-of-film-on-tcm-chapter-12\/","url_meta":{"origin":366,"position":1},"title":"The Story of Film on TCM: Chapter 12","author":"Jandy","date":"November 26, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In the 1980s, greed is good. Conservative idealogues tell false stories about life and love. Innovative filmmakers spoke back to them - speaking truth to power. This is one of the most politically-charged episodes in The Story of Film, as Cousins positions the innovative filmmaking in the 1980s as political\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/SoF-The_Story_of_Film.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3206,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/featured-video-the-endless-night-a-valentine-to-film-noir\/","url_meta":{"origin":366,"position":2},"title":"Featured Video: The Endless Night – A Valentine to Film Noir","author":"Jandy","date":"January 26, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks to Bob over at Row Three for bringing this little gem of a video to my attention. Film noir is a particular favorite subgenre of mine, and Serena Bramble has done a great job of collecting some of the most definitely noir clips into a single compulsively watchable montage.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":23443,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/50dmc-6-least-favorite-film-from-favorite-director\/","url_meta":{"origin":366,"position":3},"title":"50DMC #6: Least Favorite Film from Favorite Director","author":"Jandy","date":"July 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions. Today's prompt: What is your least favorite film from your favorite director? My overall favorite director is Alfred Hitchcock, perhaps\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/50-Day-Challenge-06.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1777,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2008\/12\/a-month-of-horror\/","url_meta":{"origin":366,"position":4},"title":"A Month of Horror","author":"Jandy","date":"December 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've never been a big fan of horror films and usually try to avoid them, but the horror genre has become such a significant gap in my cinematic experience (\"you've never seen Night of the Living Dead?! OMGWTFBBQ!\") that I decided to make a concerted effort during the month of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34172,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/american-movie-critics-the-introduction-phillip-lopate\/","url_meta":{"origin":366,"position":5},"title":"American Movie Critics: The Introduction (Phillip Lopate)","author":"Jandy","date":"June 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Reading David Bordwell's series of posts on criticism in the 1940s made me want to dive back into reading criticism, so I've pulled my copy of American Movie Critics back out (I'd previously made it into the middle of the Ferguson section) and started over, because I don't remember any\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Movie Critics"","block_context":{"text":"American Movie Critics","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/american-movie-critics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/American-Movie-Critics-feat.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}