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December 1999, Week 4

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Subject:
From:
gloria monti <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 21 Dec 1999 16:00:32 -0500
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        About Kevin Brownlow's take on the DGA's decision to withdraw
the D.W. Griffith award,
Sandy Camargo comments:

I couldn't agree more. It's the same PC stuff that makes students not
want to read Chaucer because he is "sexist."  Despite the obvious
racism of many of his films, D. W. Griffith is the man who invented
Hollywood.  Still.

        Still.  It makes me sad to see a woman who uses biological
insiderism to go against her own sex.  It's not specifically Chaucer
(and friends of The Great Books) I am concerned with, but a certain
attitude.  As for D.W. Griffith: the disclaimer "despite" is what has
allowed the separation between art and politics to thrive --
undisturbed -- in academia.  I have taught *Birth of a Nation* in two
courses: "Representations of Race in American Cinema" and "History of
Film" (this semester).  In both classes, I have used the film to
denounce its racist portrayals, not to praise the invention of the
close-up (whatever that means).  I screened *Birth of a Nation*
immediately followed by *Within Our Gates* and stressed the relation
between the African-American response to the film and the birth of
Race Films.  Then a film like *Birth of a Nation* becomes a useful
teaching tool.  In other words, there are no signifiers without
signifieds here, and I believe it is dangerous to overlook content to
look at technique alone.
        However, when Ms. Camargo says that Griffith invented
Hollywood, she is absolutely right.  Griffith invented a racist
filmmaking practice that is still in place today.

        Gloria Monti

______________________________

gloria monti
special assistant professor
department of audio/video/film
318 dempster hall
111 hofstra university
hempstead, NY
voice mail: 516-463-6463
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~godard/index.html

12/21/1988: a bomb exploded, killing 270 people aboard a Pam Am
Boeing 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland.  I lost one Yale College
classmate and 36 Syracuse students in the crash.

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