High and Low
Tonight I am screening Kurosawa's
High and Low for my class tonight, but "high and low" seems to be the theme of the day, at least in the clash of high and low culture goes. For the past two weeks I basically heard criticisms against Hollywood, "too fluffy, too silly, too unrealistic..." so I thought the move to foreign cinema would hush the crowds. Now, I have a bunch of new students and all of sudden, the reverse seems to be the complaint "too heavy, too confusing, too much." I should have expected that much, showing Resnais' very graphic documentary about the Holocaust,
Night and Fog to a group of Jewish senior citizens, but you can't please everyone. For what it's worth, many people found value in the film for what it is, appreciating it as a moving and poetic document on the horrors of reality and a probe into the nature of memory.
In preparation for my lecture on Left Bank cinema for today I watched Agnes Varda's
Cleo from 5 to 7 which I enjoyed. Perhaps I would have been better off sticking to some of the lighter things? But I don't regret my decision to show Resnais... we watched a clip from
Hiroshima and I was pleased that many people had already seen it and were moved / effected by it. It's actually very hard to please people with syllabus design, especially when it comes to movies and things that are so closely tied to personal preference and taste. It seems particularly difficult to sell or teach culture - either senior citizens paying to attend a program, undergrads with gigantic tuition payments or people buying tickets at a theatre. And it is such a balancing act to give people what they want and yet feel the need to give them something that is "good for them." This is also a hard crowd to please because they aren't afraid to give you an earful when something doesn't tickle them.
I am thrilled to be getting out of town tomorrow. I guess it's that mid-July slump that working stiffs feel, but even though it requires a long meditation with me and the highway, I am just exciting to break up the routine and do something new. We'll be in St. Louis from tomorrow to Saturday and it's probably what I need to shake things up, for the better. Not that it's any kind of Eden, but even St. Louis is sounding pretty good to me right now.
posted by lmjasinski at 12:20 PM
