James Dean

From All Things Considered (June 3, 2005) comes Bob Mondello's remembrance of James Dean, the actor who became an icon after making only three movies. Also from the same year (the 50th anniversary of Dean's death) comes this second piece by Steve Proffitt.

Musings

• Some, possibly even much, of Dean's appeal seems to be visual--capturing a certain look. Here's just one online gallery, the JamesDeanGallery.com, or, perhaps even more iconic, a collection of art posters. How does these images relate to traditional notions of masculinity, then or now?
  
  
• Dean is forever associated with the phrase "rebel without a cause." What does this phrase mean to you?
  
  
• In the film, Rebel Without a Cause, Dean's character, Jim Stark, occupies a difficult and increasingly dangerous relationship with the real guys, the "tough guys," of his high school. What role did seemingly strong guys play in your high school in deciding who was "cool"?
  

Frank McCourt and Other Teachers

"Long before he was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Frank McCourt was a teacher in the New York City schools. Relationships formed with 12,000 mostly teenaged students over 30 years form the basis for his new memoir, Teacher Man. McCourt tells Jacki Lyden about life in the classroom." Listen here, from All Things Considered (1/14/06 - 8:14)

Musings

1. What do we learn from reading the Prologue from Frank McCourt's book, Teacher Man?
   
   
2. How would you characterize McCourt's attitude towards teaching in his interview? Would such an attitude likely to make him a good or a bad teacher? Or to these teachers: Kimberly Oliver, the 2006 Teacher of the year (NPR interview, 6/5/06 - 6:31), a math teacher, Louis Leithold, or music teacher Johanna Grussner? Compare or contrast any two of these teachers.
   
   
3. Does McCourt or any of these other teachers remind you of any teachers you have ever had?
   

Steven Spielberg

In 1984, the already popular American film director Steven Spielberg sat down for an interview with the BBC's Anthony Holden. Spielberg's dual position as immensely popular entertainer and a serious artist is apparent in how the BBC introduces this discussion: "Steven Spielberg's highly entertaining and suspense-packed films, have been criticized for a tendency towards escapism and sentimentality. However he is probably the most commercially successful film director of all time."

Five segments of the interview are available online:

• his father introducing him to the cosmos (4:43)
• ET and religious symbolism (3:23)
• Indiana Jones - fears and flaws (2:57)
• his sense of responsibility to his audience, Walt Disney and his forthcoming production of Peter Pan (2:45
• Gremlins and commercialisation (3:14)

Musings

• There is a form of film criticism (called auteur theory--the French word for "director") that looks at films as the personal statement of their directors. In these interviews Spielberg discusses a number of personal feelings (regarding wonder, childhood, fears, and so forth) that have clearly helped shape his films. Draw a connection on your own between one or more statements by Spielberg and one or more of his films. You can read more about Spielberg at Wikipedia.
  
  
• Auteur theory also impacts how we view two or more films by any director--that is, two different films as coming from a single creative source (the film's director). AllMovie.com defines directors as "Supervisors par excellence, . . . responsible for everything that goes before the camera including action and dialogue. The director . . . . is responsible for the function of the entire crew bringing about the desired results through technique and interpretation. Lighting, camera positions, sound and movement are all within the purviews of directorial dictums."
  
  Consider any two films by Spielberg as an expression of a single creative source. (Spielberg's filmography here.) Note that this response can involve contrast or difference as well as similarity, even on such a basic point as the movie being a commercial or critical success versus a commercial or critical failure.
  
  
• Consider two films by another director, and how they show something interesting if see see them as part of a single creative output. Here is a list of "great directors," and here a list of the five people nominated for an Oscar as "Best Director."
  

Favorite Films

This is Oscar season, a time when more folks discuss their favorite movies, usually what they consider the best films of the previous year. In this NPR piece, the co-directors of the surprise hit, Little Miss Sunshine, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, join in with a list of their favorite DVDs (2/9/07 - 7:19).

Musings

• Little Miss Sunshine is itself a good example of a little-heralded film that people enjoy discovering for themselves and then recommending it to their friends--as compared to joining in with wide acclaim of well financed blockbuster like Dreamgirls. Discuss a favorite film of yours that you feel most of your friends have not seen or may not even have heard of.
  
  
• Look up reviews on any one of the films recommended by Dayton and Faris, and see how much agreement there is among the critics. The IMDb has long been the major repository of film information, although now there are many emerging hub sites collecting reviews like Metacritic.com.
  
  
• A personal favorite little-known film is Duel, a 1971, made-for-TV movie by then unknown director, Steven Spielberg. Reviews for such older films are much harder to find online, and are generally limited to the re-issue of the film on DVD.
  

Greatest High School Band Ever

David Brown's retrospective piece (All Things Considered, 8/4/06) on the Kashmere High School soul band--dubbed the "greatest high school band ever"--reveals the value of audio files in delivering a wealth of information in compact form (in this case, 8:19 minutes).

Musings

1. Much of the piece here is a touching interview with the now 92-year-old master teacher, Conrad Johnson, someone who dared to break the mold—and that’s exactly what Johnson did with the Kashmere band, producing a full, commercial-sounding funk band when other high school bands were playing tired and timid semi-classical pops standards. Try reminiscing about a favorite teacher, especially an eccentric one like Conrad Johnson.
   
   
2. Besides the audio in the piece, the NPR site has links to three Kashmere classics: “Super Bad,” “Do You Dig It, Man,” and a soul-drenched version of the Paul Desmond ultra-cool jazz classic (with the Dave Brubeck Quartet), “Take Five.” The NPR is a near-limitless well of materials and here is a page devoted to the original “Take Five,” on the Dave Brubeck album, Time Out. One possibility here is to contrast of the two versions--between the broad cultural categories of cool and hot, about which even tone-deaf students might have something interesting to contribute.
   
   
3. A final writing topic might focus on the ongoing debate over the value of music and arts educations generally in the schools, K-12, the subject of the 1995 film, Mr. Holland's Opus. In general the role of arts education in public schools has lessened with the emphasis on testing. How do you feel about this change, about the role of arts in high schools specifically?