Mike Frank says he finds that students respond mainly to film as
narrative and not as spectacle. Thus, he wonders if there is any point in
getting them into the theater.
 
I too find students tend to discuss film as narrative. The story is a
familiar category of experience, and the aspect most commonly dealt with
in popular writing about film.  Video can provide that narrative, but the
object of getting students into the theater is to open up that other
dimension of the cinematic so that they become conscious of spectacle and find a
language  to articulate its relation to their experience of narrative.
 
Thanks for raising such a provocative issue.  The discussion has been
helpful in thinking about both pedagogical and theoretical concerns.
 
Brooke Jacobson
Portland State University
 
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