Emily Zants writes,
 
>I am always looking for more techniques to teach participatory film
>viewing--as opposed to passive "entertain-me" viewing....
>Does anyone else use
>such an approach to teaching film? and what exercises do you do in and
>out of class?
 
In the film classes I've taught, which contained both film studies students
and first-timers, I've typically taken the following approach. I choose a
scene about which I have a lot to say, usually no more than four or five
minutes of film, and watch it with the class, slowly and carefully, trying
to draw out their responses to what is happening on the screen and over the
speakers. I stop the VCR whenever someone (including me) says anything,
rewind often, freeze frames, etc. I try to avoid simply lecturing on some
closed reading in which I "apply" theory to the scene in question and
instead try to encourage them to bring up the various contradictory and
confusing ways that the text is signifying. As they do that, I try to talk
about what the implicatios of various readings are: what it means to talk
about the "star," or the good/bad performance, or the lighting, or the
frame, or the editing, etc. etc.
 
This seems to allow people to see that they are always participating in the
viewing, that even "entertainment" viewing is active reading and has
implications. It also seems to prevent the sense that there is one correct
way to read a film and encourage the proliferation of close yet differing
readings.
 
 
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