Film & History News

FILM & HISTORY NEWS ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN HISTORIANS ANNUAL MEETING The OAH held their annual meeting in Washington, D.C. on April 5th - 8th. The program included several sessions on film & history. The first and in some ways the most interesting was entitled "Ecological Tom Foolery: The Dustbowl of the Thirties." Introduced by Vernon Carstensen, Pare Lorenz' The Plow That Broke the Plains was shown as evidence for and dramatization of the dustbowl experience. Carstensen's comments on the production ofthe film and its subsequent history (it was kept from public view for two decades) were most valuable and we hope to be able to share them with Film & History readers in the near future. Also in this session John Opie analyzed the contributions of Woodie Guthrie to our understanding ofthe human dislocations the dustbowl caused, and James B. Rhoads, The Archivist ofthe United States, commented on the sources (motion picture, audio, still picture, cartographic, etc.) available at the National Archives for the study environmental history. A workshop in "The Historian's Use of Illustrative Material" was organized and chaired by John J. Appel. Professor Appel, trying to open the session as much as possible discussed some ofhis own experience in the study of cartoons and their value as historical evidence and illustration. Portions ofa TV tape produced by Cripps and others were shown and commented upon. Sandra Myres spoke ofthe possibilities and rewards ofusing three-dimensional objects in the classroom, some ofwhich may be available through museum loan programs. The "publisher's angle" was presented by Clifford Snyder of Holt Rinehart and Winston, who stressed the tremendous hesitancy still evident within the profession as far as seeing the value ofaudiovisual material is concerned. In an informal poll he had taken, almost every scholar questioned complained ofthe shortage of good film and the problem ofoperating equipment and concluded that using films in the classroomjust wasn't worth the trouble. Among those present at the workshop who spoke from the floor were John O'Connor who spoke ofthe plans and purposes ofthe HFC and John Grenville, probably the most qualified scholar in film and history in Great Britain, who stressed the need for schools and departments to impress upon the people who prepare their budgets the need to purchase film. As long as schools rely on film rentals quality films will not be produced for the classroom, he said. In another session Daniel Leab ofColumbia University presented a paper on the "Negro in Early American Film" illustrated with film clips from the period. Professor Leab has completed a book on the subject ofthe Negro in American film in which this paper will be included. 39 SUMMER INSTITUTE ON FILM The University Film Study Center will hold its Second Annual Summer Institute on Film and Photography from June 1 1 to July 1 on the campus ofthe University ofNew Hampshire in Durham. Classes will be offered in film production, screenwriting, photography and video equipment. For information write to: Terry Kemper, Summer Institute Coordinator, University Film Study Center, Box 275 Cambridge, Mass. 02138. LATIN AMERICAN FILM AT UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS On April 15th a conference was held at Amherst, Massachusetts under the joint sponsorship ofthe University ofMassachusetts History Department and the New England Council on Latin American Studies. The theme ofthe meeting was "What Can We Learn About Latin America Through Film?: A Case Study of Chile." Several films were shown (among them: I Am Pablo Neruda. Aspects of Land Tenure in Chile, and Chile Puts On Long Pants) and their relative merits for use in the classroom were discussed. Among the participants were Jane Loy and Lewis Hanke who ran the program as a part oftheir project on films for Latin American History described in the last Film & History. Also participating were Robert Bancroft ofthe University ofMassachusetts, James N. Goodsell, Latin American expert for the Christian Science Monitor and Jackson and O'Connor from the Film Committee. Discussions centered on the respective informational value ofthe films in question and the affect ofa films "point of view" on its value for the classroom. The luncheon speaker was William Hughes ofEssex Community College (Baltimore) who spoke ofthe reasons why historians have been so slow to...