No Easy Riding for Film Studies Concentrators

Language typically used to describe Harvard concentrations—stressful, difficult, unpleasant—tend not to be associated with the experience of watching film. So for senior Film Studies concentrator Ian S. Polonsky ’06, student reactions to his academic pursuit often are: “You mean you get to watch movies all day? Sweet.”

Not exactly.

“Many films make us extremely happy,” says Harvard Director of Undergraduate Studies for Film Studies J.D Connor ’92, who is also a Crimson editor. “This is an inherent risk in the subject.” But as Connor point outs, enjoyment and academics are far from mutually exclusive. The enjoyable nature of film leads many outsiders to perceive the concentration as easy. But, as the students will confirm, that’s hardly the case.

“Sure, watching a film for course credit sounds much more appealing than a problem set,” Polonsky says, “but Film Studies requires a totally new way of thinking.”



ACROSS THE NATION



Harvard Film Studies concentrators join a growing number of students casting a critical eye towards one of the century’s most popular media forms. Last year, two seniors graduated in the subject from Harvard; in 2006, 12 seniors will graduate with a Visual and Environmental Studies (VES) degree in film studies.

With over 635 students currently enrolled in film classes, the subject’s popularity speaks for itself and, moreover, hints at a national and international trend sweeping the university circuit: recognition of the cultural, historical, and academic importance of film.

The Film Studies at Harvard program, which has been under construction for several decades, was finally cemented last year. At one point Harvard, like many other established universities, struggled to accept film as a credible academic pursuit. Now, however, the university officially recognizes the value of what Timothy Corrigan, the University of Pennsylvania’s Director of Cinema Studies, calls in an e-mail “a central cultural and intellectual force in society.”

The formerly avant-garde field is evolving into a downright standard presence at major schools, and the departments boast distinguished faculty, modern facilities, and filled-to-capacity courses.

VES Professor in Film Studies David N. Rodowick instructs one such course—the first film class offered in the Core curriculum, Literature & Arts B-11, “The Art of Film.” Despite the red-hot student interest, Rodowick understands he owes much of his popularity to the work of former faculty.

“There’s been a long conversation about the legitimacy of the Film Studies program that’s already taken place,” he explains.

Connor echoes his sentiments: “The hard work was done before I got here—the decades of labor that have gone into convincing Harvard to take film seriously.”



…AND AROUND THE WORLD



Hundreds of newly-formed Film Studies programs at home and abroad verify that the world is taking film seriously as well. Academic institutions of every type and size—Emory, Boston College, The University of Barcelona—recently added cinema-focused majors.

With the help of Harvard’s own Rodowick, King’s College, London, created a Film Studies program for undergraduates, recognizing “cinema as the pre-eminent art form of the twentieth century,” according to their website.

Film is “a force with a long and complex history” UPenn’s Corrigan stresses, one with “a rapidly advancing future that impacts virtually every form of knowledge around us.”

The business world certainly values the writing and analytical skills honed by the Film Studies major. Yale’s Aaron Gerow, the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Film Studies Program, understands that contemporary demands necessitate a strong department.

“With the New York Times calling Film Studies the next MBA,” he says, referencing a March 2005 article, “Film Studies is becoming an important discipline in both academia and the “real world.”

Harvard is hardly the first major American university to welcome Film Studies to its campus. Yale has offered the major since 1985—also founded by Rodowick—though Gerow admits “it took a long time to convince many faculty members and administrators that Film Studies was an established discipline worthy of a place at an Ivy League Institution.” This year, around twenty students will graduate from Yale with a major in Film Studies, and at other Ivies the number are similar. Thirty five Cornell students will graduate with Film Studies majors, forty Penn students with Cinema Studies.

Despite its prevalence and popularity, the concentration remains relatively small to medium-sized at most Arts and Science colleges. Though U.C Berkeley has offered a group major in Film Studies since 1976, only 120 students are majoring this year, a tiny proportion of the nearly 23,000 undergraduates attending. Nonetheless, that number is ten times the size of the first majoring class, and similar trends across the board suggest that the boom will continue in the coming years.



THE STATE AT HOME



The Film Studies program at Harvard is going “swimmingly,” Connor says. To fulfill concentration requirements, students must take three mandatory courses on the history and art of film, as well as a smorgasbord of other advanced and interdisciplinary courses—a set up similar to that of most other university programs. Most, like Harvard, incorporate local resources (archives, theaters, visiting lecturer), ask for a senior thesis or film project, and approach film from historical, analytical, and theoretical perspectives.

Film Studies encourages students to tailor tracks to their specific interests, enlisting faculty from other areas at Harvard.

“There is strong support for the concentration track from colleagues in many departments,” confirms Dean for the Humanities and John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures Maria Tatar, “ranging from Anthropology and East Asian Languages and Civilizations to English and Romance Languages and Literatures.”

Harvard lags behind other universities in its percentage of joint and double majors. Connors expects that Film Studies, like other VES concentrations, will eventually become more accessible to students; currently, Core requirements, coupled with the demands of each concentration, leave room for little else.

Sara Marie Watson ’07, a junior joint English and Film Studies Concentrator, will have fulfilled 19 concentration requirements by the time she graduates. These, along with language requirements, the Core, and Expos, leave room for only three electives. Still, Watson knows her decision is justified. “If I were to write any thesis,” she says, “it would not be a satisfying experience for me if it did not involve film.”

On that note, the proposed changes to the Core curriculum—including general education requirements—look promising for the new concentration. The alterations, which would increase the flexibility of the undergraduate course-load, would allow for students to explore departments outside of their concentration, accommodating more diverse interests. “My prediction,” Rodowick says on the potential GE reform, “would be explosive growth in Film Studies.”

One the other hand, Hand, David G. Evans ’05, one of the two concentrators from last year, enjoyed the freedom Film Studies provided. “It allowed me to take the classes I really wanted to take,” he explains via e-mail, “without having to do the deathly requirements of the English department.” Now pursuing a master’s degree in Australian Studies, Evans appreciates the tools he acquired from his time at Harvard: “Film Studies, like Literature, has taught me to read and interpret culture.”

“Parents tend to wonder about where this major will lead,” mentions UPenn’s Corrigan, an understandable concern given its comparatively short time on campuses. He argues that film “will provide the same intellectual and research skills found in any solid humanities major—and do so in the context of the cultural dominant of our times.”

Indeed, Film Studies concentrators learn a lot more than how to rate film, whether to give two thumbs up or assign three and a half gold stars. Through demanding work—and yes, watching movies—they evaluate our culture from an entirely unique medium, and pick up a thing or two about characters in the process.

As Connor notes, “Part of the justification for liberal arts education is that it makes you a better person than you were when you started.”