North of Hollywood: Canadian Films in the Classroom

III. Using Film with Literature

        Because there aren't enough Canadian films suitable for my classes, I have found another approach, combining class viewing of these films with reading and studying scenes from the films in a one-semester media course. A further reason for my approach is my students' expectations of a film, that it be fast, and spectacular in its special effects. Hollywood screenwriter William Goldman attributes our shorter attention spans to the increase in special effects movies, and the frequency of cross-cuts, and jump cuts in MTV. In Which Lie Did I Tell this Time (2001), Goldman describes the famous crop-dusting scene in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959) where the hero is chased across a cornfield by a murderous pilot in a crop-duster, an eight-minute long scene, an impossible length in movies today. He compares the scene with an MTV video of Elton John playing the piano where cross-cutting to "his glasses, his face mouthing the words, and his feet on the pedals" contrives to make the video more interesting (p. 176). Goldman's observations explain why my students are often impatient with long scenes and low-budget films, in other words, the characteristics of your typical Canadian film.

        Viewing short scenes from films overcomes both student prejudices against low budget films, and other limitations of some Canadian films. And almost any film has at least one good scene with enough action, conflict, and dialogue for a classroom discussion. At the start of the course, I ask each student to choose several films. They are supposed to view them in their entirety and to lead a small group discussion of a scene from each film. In the first class, I distribute a photo-copied booklet of the scenes we are going to discuss in class. (Most of these are available on the internet, from Canadian film script libraries, or can be pieced together using software that reads closed-captioning). All the students in the course read a scene for homework each week to prepare for our class discussions.

        In class, I ask the students to read over the script in their groups, Then we view the scenes and I provide a short commentary. For the discussions, I ask the student discussion leaders to help their groups find each scene's setting, conflict, climax, and to outline the remainder of the film to the other students in their group. Afterward, they are supposed to write a short report on the scene.

        In addition to this film course, I teach another one-semester course structured around Canadian short stories, supplemented with scenes from Canadian films. There are a huge number of potential stories to draw upon, but I try to choose material that is relatively short and easier for my students to read. As well, I try to choose subjects that may interest them. I've begun using Alice Munro's Thanks for the Ride which describes two boys picking up two local girls. Margaret Atwood's Giving Birth offers a perspective on that experience. Short comic stories by Stephen Leacock like My Financial Career or The Awful Fate of Melpomenus Jones describe Canadian reticence as well as the social conventions of the turn-of-the century. W.P. Kinsella's Dance Me Outside portraying contemporary Canadian Indians is an effective counter-point to our earlier study of Indian legends in the era of pre-European contact. From novels such as Anne of Green Gables, or Joy Kogawa's Obasan about the Japanese-Canadian internment, I have drawn an early chapter.

        The length of the stories has meant that all the students in the class can read a story each week and prepare for class discussions about it. I show parts of videos with similar stories, or scenes from the actual filmed version of the story that my students have read.

        For both courses, I organize the films by chronology and theme: aboriginal cultures, early settlement, French Canada, conflict between the sexes, social unrest, and multi-culturalism. Besides excerpts from features films such as Anne of Green Gables, and Black Robe, much of my material in the short story course is drawn from two excellent NFB short story compilations. I also use the filmed version of Earle Birney's famous narrative poem, David (anthologized in most collections of Canadian poetry) to help me to teach poetic devices such as metaphor, alliteration, rhyme, and allusion.

        Students seem to really enjoy the courses. Their reactions on the anonymous questionnaires I distribute at the end of the course indicate that after watching scenes from some movies, they were interested enough to watch the entire film. As well, they felt they had learned more about the Canadian environment and its culture.

A Sample Course List of Films and Short Films
Aboriginal Cultures Black Robe (described earlier)
Summer Legend, an animated version of an Ojibway legend about the creation of the seasons
Dance Me Outside, based on the W. Kinsella short story of tribal revenge when the murderer of an Indian girl is set free
Early Settlement Anne of Green Gables, the story of this famous red-haired waif is Canada's best Canadian novel in Japan My Financial Career, an NFB animation based on the comic Stephen Leacock tale of a nervous bank depositor
French Canada The Hockey Sweater, Roch Carrier's masterpiece about childhood heroes and French-English rivalry, in a short animated film
Conflict Between the Sexes Thanks for the Ride, Alice Munro's story is a commentary on how the two sexes exploit one another
Nature David, probably Canada's best known poem, Earle Birney's epic narrative describes a fatal climb in the Rockies
Social Problems Cages, a short film derived from Guy Vanderhage's short story about two warring brothers and their father, a no-account coal miner


        Besides the attraction of watching contemporary films, these stories and the scripts can provide a basis for pair interviews, role play, and decision making. They can offer an excellent resource for students learning about authentic speech, as well as certain spoken features of English such as assonance, rhyme, alliteration, and natural dialogue.

        Such resource books as Role Play by Gillian Ladousse (1987), Video by Richard Cooper (1991), Video in Second Language teaching: Using, Selecting, and Producing Videos for the Classroom by Susan Stempelski, and Paul Arcadio (1992) offer many suggestions for classroom activities. Many of these are role plays that can be used to supplement readings in the course, and to broaden student understanding of a film or story. Besides teaching my students about Canada and cross-cultural values, the popular media of films is an excellent way to teach English through content.

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