I have to disagree with Murray, somewhat, on this one, much as I appreciate, as always, his passion and enthusiasm for his topics. I agree, on one hand, that ideological sound bites are too often substituted for either a knowledge of history or for a situated critique. But I also think that given that film IS an historical act, as Murray points out, the process of rejecting the film, as fetish object which has the power to reify (over and over again) some of our culture's most distasteful institutions, can be an extremely empowering act to an individual viewer. The power to say, "I have seen this version of history before, and I refute it thusly" (Johnson scholars insert petulant pebble-kicking here) can, in itself, be liberating. This act, it seems to me, does NOT indicate an individual who lives in a vacuum but, rather, an individual who is--perhaps--aware of a level of interpretation which was *not* available to the auteur who, consciously or unconsciously, chose to drown the waiflike, raven-haired beauty just one more time (apologies to Altman fans but I just finished being irritated by the inclusion of this imagery in SHORT CUTS), as if that tired cliche of beautiful dead woman had not been overworked ad nauseaum by Poe et al. (interested parties check out Elisabeth Bronfen's take on the subject in OVER MY DEAD BODY). I think this sort of rejecting of history by our students, who we suspect don't know enough history to be qualified to reject it, may seem dubious to us because it values ideology over other qualities--how the auteur is manipulating film and narrative techniques, perhaps...how the auteur is working to produce art. But I'm not sure that the alternative is any better--fetishing technique or originality over what the film has to say and to whom. Or to put it another way, it seems equally irresponsible, to me, to gloss over the misrepresentation of African-Americans and the lionizing of the KKK, because foregrounding them might somehow snatch something away from the technical or artistic merit of Griffith, as it is to ignore the ways in which Griffith was able to make use of devices (cross-cutting, the close-up, you all know this routine) and focus on the issues of representation to the exclusion of understanding film as an art. I don't think it is helpful to separate issues of content and art. I think the appropriate response to a student whose thesis is "this is sexist tripe" is to ask that student to observe what it is about the form that might support this assertion. What is the auteur *doing* to evoke these sensations, and how might mise en scene, sound, shot composition, camerawork, etc be complicit? And suddenly, before you know it, you're talking film history and calling for a situated critique. But I think to dismiss the sound bite because it sounds like an ideological shortcut does a disservice to the individual viewer. Sometimes turning the channel can feel really satisfying and can be, in itself, a meaningful act that says, "I know that this is history, I have seen it before, but I don't have to submit to this imagery anymore than I already have." I think that part of my job, as a scholar, is to help others reason through the underpinnings of these sorts of feelings. Apologies for long-windedness, Meryem Ersoz University of Oregon ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]