Film Culture
in Indiana:
The Legacy and Future of Film Media
As a fifteen year old I was struck by the lateral movement of a camera deserting De Niro’s character in Taxi Driver and Mike Nichols slow revelation of a racking focus in The Graduate, enthralled with the technical aspects of film making that inspire emotion and determine storytelling. These technical aspects and their transcendence of the film form are known as “pure cinema”. In exploring aspects of film media such as screenplays, editing techniques, and film criticism, I found the main source of information to be online. I became familiar with communities of film writers and enthusiasts online as well as art house film platforms such as FilmStruck, owned by The Criterion Collection, a company “dedicated to publishing important classic and contemporary films from around the world… with special features designed to... deepen the viewer’s appreciation of the art of film.” In 2018, Filmstruck, part of Turner Classic Movies, was forced to end operations, with Turner and Warner Brothers justifying the discontinuance, “While FilmStruck has a very loyal fan base, it remains largely a niche service" (Sharf 1). Thousands of hours of film and television exist online, yet few people I have encountered, youths and elders alike, have a deeper appreciation for film as an art other than (sometimes thoughtless, automatic) entertainment. With a dwindling landscape for varied film exhibiting, I was drawn to the concept of students exposure to the art form as well as exploring the physical remnants of film media in a region seemingly void of it. In researching, I found a wealth of film history in the form of archival collections found at Indiana University in Bloomingtion, Indiana. Historical archives are a valuable resource to curators, historians, and the upcoming University students.
Directing students to study deeper meaning or aesthetic and technical theory can mold their perspective of film. I asked high school English and film teacher Tony Armstrong if I could observe one of the film classes he teaches. Coincidentally, Armstrong focused the first half of the semester on the auteur director Alfred Hitchcock as I simultaneously attend an authorship course on Hitchcock through the English department at IUPUI. In correspondence with Armstrong I found the course structures run parallel to each other, he teaches as I learn. The walls of Armstrong's classroom are mostly unseen, covered by a collage of hundreds of small movie posters. A more grand poster for the film The Matrix caught my eye not because of the neon green accents, but because I have read portions of Mr. Armstrong's Master's degree thesis on conceptual metaphors in the film. Art work from past students take up other spaces, most notably a series of beautifully rendered Dalí-like eyes positioned behind Armstrong's desk.
In an era when teacher strikes spark consistently throughout the country, with the most recent Oakland teachers strike protesting the average class size of thirty two, Armstrong finds his film class size dwindling (Strauss 2). "Max's class has fourteen," said Armstrong, and his "largest is twenty two." Max is Armstrong's son who attends his film class. While I discuss Armstrong's children, I should clarify I have dated his daughter, Lucy, for two and a half years. My reason for having Mr. Armstrong's acquaintance made for a class-wide smirk. After the passing period bell, Armstrong first engaged the class with a voice I have only heard used when Max fails to prioritize his homework, a loud fatherly, professorial tone, "Alright I want a full one sentence original theme by 11:22." I listened to a pair of students discuss and synthesize themes of corruption, obsession, and destructive parenting in the latest Hitchcock film they viewed, Strangers on a Train. The two high school seniors chuckled about a character's Oedipal complex and amiably argued on the merits of their thematic choice. Mr. Armstrong engaged each group, legitimizing each of their points and prodding them to more deeply examine and synthesize the sentence structure and abstract cinematic themes. Armstrong then introduced the next two films in the course through a slide presentation wherein he discussed important details and the cultural impact of North by Northwest and Vertigo. As the lecture continued I began to question my sanity, turning around every few seconds to the noise of a phone's ring or buzz with no students seated behind me. Not until the lights were switched back on did I notice the classroom's hanging plastic slots each storing a cell phone. In his lecture Mr. Armstrong demonstrates a now common camera movement made iconic by Hitchcock.
Recognizing and partaking in film as an art to be studied was a seemingly bleak notion before discovering the vast accessibility of film and film related content online. In discussing the accessibility of film in Indiana, Armstrong agreed with my initial assessment, "It seems like the only place to see anything different is Keystone." "Keystone" refers to the independent "Cinema Art Lounge" tucked away atop the Keystone Fashion Mall on the north side of the city. I frequent the establishment not only because I recently reached the age of twenty one and the prominently featured bar is enticing for a sloppier viewing, but because it is a mecca for new independent feature releases in Indiana. The theater is owned by Landmark, a theater chain dedicated to exhibiting foreign and independent films and is the largest of its kind in America. There are two Landmark theater locations in Indiana, with the Keystone location the only to showcase independent and foreign films. The Mark Cuban-owned chain has been put on the market several times throughout the years due to the discombobulated independent film industry and executive acquisitiveness. The independent cinema chain may be in better hands now that, in December 2018, Cuban sold Landmark to Cohen Media Group which specializes in classic film restoration (Fang 1). Because the top five film exhibitors, which monopolize the market, rarely, if ever show foreign films or films with budgets less than ten million dollars, the necessity of a Landmark theater in Indiana is significant.
Black Film Center/Archive director Phyllis Klotman with students exploring Indiana University’s collection in 1985.
http://www.indiana.edu/~bfca/home/
Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana houses the region's most precious film artifacts, including The Black Film Center Archives. The collection is the first archival center dedicated to African American filmmakers and subjects. The cultural importance of the archives is compounded by the lack of general African American cinematic opportunity and historic erasure, making it a vital film resource. The Indiana University Moving Image Archive, a member of the International Federation of Film Archives, is one one of the largest educational film collections in the country. 86,000 items are stored in the temperature and humidity controlled “state-of-the-art” Ruth Lilly Auxiliary Library Facility. The screening room is situated among the vaguely timeworn smell of Wells library basement. This contrasted with the seemingly modern interior of the actual screening rooms. Reminiscent of a classroom with rows of chairs and long desks, the screening room itself was minimal and modern, fitting about fifty occupants. I did not have time to set up a screening at the library, but groups and individuals are able to reserve the screening room and are even provided a projectionist (IULMIA).
In a short question and answer session with the film class made up of mostly high school seniors, they asked questions regarding the level of rigor in college courses and film preferences. I in turn asked the students about their viewing preferences, asking who would, by their own choosing, watch a film in a foreign language. This prompted four hands to rise, with a few more hesitantly following. Out of fourteen students, six or seven electing to watch a foreign film comforted my fears that non-American films were banished from the common experience. I followed asking how many students would watch a black and white film on their own accord, with only two students responding positively. Studying alongside the students of Mr. Armstrong's class lead me to the conclusion that exposure to studying film or accessing film artifacts will at least create a deeper understanding or curiosity in students. In various interviews and observations of film culture in Indiana, I have found the conceptual key to growth and understanding is the constant introduction and exploration of new experiences. Without the context and knowledge of a film expert, students such as myself who may never have perceived movies as an art form, now have an active eye for cinema.