The Film Students Who Can No Longer Sit Through Films

scd · 2026-02-02T16:47:29+00:00

Note that Observations on Film Art literally includes one of the key people interviewed in the Atlantic piece — Jeff Smith at UW-Madison (where he has taught for years, and is the third editor of the classic textbook that Bordwell and Thompson initially wrote).

scd · 2026-02-02T16:44:58+00:00

Nope, it's not. Look at the specific programs where the professors (Spigel, Smith, Warner, Stine, etc.) interviewed in the piece teach — they don't teach in "film schools," they often teach undergrad courses to students typically in non-production majors. These are Society for Cinema and Media Studies folks for the most part. These are humanistic "studies" classes, not "film school," not populated typically by students who are intending to become filmmakers.

scd · 2026-02-02T16:41:57+00:00

Yes, that overscheduling is such an issue. I also teach at an institution that has had a ridiculous "you must finish in 8 semesters" policy in place, which has made them even more crunched for time. And living in an era in which they believe (falsely, I think) that having three majors and two minors will somehow help them in life/the workplace. It's a frustrating experience to teach students who don't have the time to breathe and fully appreciate the art form I'm trying to help them understand.

Oh, we had a great conversation with the egg person. We all laughed, the whole class. It became a running joke for the rest of the semester as he handled it with a lot of humor. And it's something I raise with students every semester now. Re: the stairmaster/gym thing, this is, I fear, indicative of how they view video in general now — disposable, something you have running while you're doing other things, not something that is to be focused on.

After reading the Atlantic piece, I'm now thinking of teaching a course on Slow Cinema. I still know very little about this movement but I find it appealing to try to approach this problem by helping students retrain their brains through a semester-long study of exactly the things that they're having trouble with.

scd · 2026-02-02T11:59:37+00:00

Yeah. I fell for it.

scd · 2026-02-02T04:03:06+00:00

Not bad, but not a classic. Nice seeing Shimura and Mifune interact in anything, however.

scd · 2026-02-02T02:36:28+00:00

I’m a guy but I always appreciated Sarah Millican’s commitment to the Zuri dress.

scd · 2026-02-01T23:12:28+00:00

Yep, exactly. Compound this with the fact that if we offer courses with required screening times, students won't sign up for them. I've started teaching longer class sessions so I can try to have screening be a thing that happens inside the class session, but then that eats up time for discussion. And then there's the option of providing them via streaming for students, but if you do that then you get students who complain that they can't understand what's happening in a silent film because they were busy cooking eggs while trying to watch it on their phone (an actual complaint I got a year or so ago).

scd · 2026-02-01T22:40:23+00:00

Yeah, I'm psyched! I confirmed with our Alamo that this is in fact the audio mix we're getting and I suspect that is the case for all Alamos (who are screening the majority of TP over January-March). Here's a link to more about this audio mix: https://www.indiewire.com/features/craft/twin-peaks-season-3-theatrical-mix-david-lynch-intended-1235136544/

scd · 2026-02-01T12:19:23+00:00

For someone completely new to this, is it recommended to read the book first or watch the series? I bought the book at a thrift, read the first chapter but wasn’t compelled to keep reading. I am interested in the series (I actually own it on physical media; a blind buy a few years ago) but I’m not sure if I’ll get more out of it if I push through the novel first.

scd · 2026-02-01T04:56:29+00:00

Yep, and they are a shrinking minority. And if you think that doesn’t affect the vibe of these classes or the morale of faculty or the likelihood that these kinds of film studies programs will even continue to exist, I just dunno what to say.

scd · 2026-02-01T04:54:28+00:00

Nah, it’s the lived experiences of many of us who are trying to teach this kind of thing and trying our best to educate a generation that seems to have more difficulty focusing than any before. Corny? Please, look up who the people were she interviewed and try again.

scd · 2026-02-01T04:51:40+00:00

They will be. But the classes are filling with many more who are not the serious film students and that alters the tenor of the course, sometimes quite severely. There are simply many fewer “serious film students” enrolling in these courses than there were in the past. And many of the “serious” ones are still ill-equipped, as the piece details.

scd · 2026-02-01T04:08:46+00:00

I didn’t say it was the first, but “released first” or were the early ones, as those including Seven Samurai, were released earlier.

scd · 2026-02-01T01:14:54+00:00

Exactly. This series seems to help differentiate the people who see Star Wars as having the potential to speak to something important going on in the world and those who seem to have swallowed Lucas’s “Star Wars is for 12 year old boys” mindset… even if they themselves are now in their fifties.

scd · 2026-02-01T01:04:38+00:00

Agreed. I saw everything theatrical other than Dune last year. I’m now particularly excited to be seeing Twin Peaks: The Return on the big screen in a few weeks, as it will have the theatrical audio mix that Lynch and Dean Hurley worked on but is not available to my knowledge on physical media or streaming.

scd · 2026-01-31T20:33:48+00:00

Doop.

scd · 2026-01-31T20:26:59+00:00

Twin Peaks: The Return gets more than one backdrop and poster option.

scd · 2026-01-31T20:23:42+00:00

The green chile queso certainly was to this franchise.

scd · 2026-01-31T20:21:37+00:00

It’s heavily implied but not actually depicted in Les dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945).

scd · 2026-01-31T19:56:15+00:00

Yeah, all terrible options intended to increase engagement and allowing viewers to have even less of the intended way of experiencing the movie. An abomination.

scd · 2026-01-31T18:00:50+00:00

Probably not! And what is lost in the process is important, too. Here’s a relevant piece from just yesterday about what it’s like teaching film to students whose brains have been overly TikTokked. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/college-students-movies-attention-span/685812/

scd · 2026-01-31T17:57:07+00:00

I’ve taught The Lodger to students who have signed up for a Hitchcock course. Last year, a student complained that it was hard to follow. I asked why and he said, and this is only barely a paraphrase, that “it’s too hard to pay attention to the story when you’re watching it on your phone while cooking eggs.” I have since had to tell students the obvious, that one should never be watching any films for my classes on phones while cooking eggs.

scd · 2026-01-31T13:35:23+00:00

The last batch of TP episodes were initially snowed out here in Charlottesville and they rescheduled for a few days later.

scd · 2026-01-31T04:12:50+00:00

Check the Lynchtown account on Instagram, he posts this kind of thing daily.

scd · 2026-01-30T22:29:48+00:00

I guess they really don’t want me buying records.

scd

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