Film News

Tuesday, December 28: 9:30 - 11:30 a.m., Mercury Ballroom "Media in University Teaching: Their Uses and Possible Abuses" 2:30 - 4:30 p.m., Sutton Ballroom North "Historians' Work in Sound and Film" 6:00 - through the evening, Mercury Ballroom "The Film and the Depression" See the AHA Convention Program page 108, for a list of the films to be shown. Wednesday, December 29: 9:30 - 11:30 a.m., Mercury Ballroom "Television, Documentary , and Newsreel Films: Their Relation to the Historian" This session is being jointly sponsored by the Historians Film Committee. 2:30 - 4:30 p.m., Sutton Ballroom North "The Film as Social and Intellectual History" 6:00 - through the evening, Mercury Ballroom "Film as an Instrument of Social Control: The Propaganda Film" See the AHA Convention Program page 108, for a list of the films to be shown. 6:30 - 8:30 p.m., Madison Suite Historians Film Committee Annual Business Meeting * * Thursday, December 30: 1:15 - 3:15 p.m., Regent Room "Mass Media and the 'Making' of History" Please make every effort to attend our business meeting on Wednesday evening. We were assigned an unfortunate slot on the program, in the intermission of the AHA Business Meeting and during the Film Festival, both of which will attract our members. We promise not to let the meeting run on unreasonably. FILM NEWS Documentary Symposium The University Film Study Center at Cambridge, Mass. is planning a symposium on "The American Documentary," provisionally scheduled for February at Brandeis University. Invited guests include John Grierson,Leo Hurwitz,Jay Leyda and the Maysles brothers. For information write: UFSC Box 275 Cambridge,Mass . The Pacific Coast Branch of the AHA,meeting at the University of Southern California on August 26th, presented a lecture and film demonstration by Patrick H. Griffin of Loyola University. The session, entitled "The Historian and the Making of Documentary Films," was based on the films made by humanities students at Loyola who participated in the Historians' Film Workshop. The Workshop has been involved in a ten week course concentrating on the techniques of filmmaking, analysis of documentaries and production of films. Each student in the crew was responsible for aspects of the filming process. Professor Griffin showed three finished products from the Workshop. The first, "1900:The Turn of the Century in Archive Film," was an effort to document the variety of American life in 1900. It involved nine students, who spent a total of $600 in making their twenty minute black and white film. The second film was " The Burgers of Calais," which put Rodin's sculpture in a modern perspective. The final film was "The American: Filmed on the Puma Reservation," a study of the American Indian today. The purpose of the Workshop was to involve both faculty and students in the creative production of documentary films. Dr. Griffin is contemplating the expansion of the project and the rental of many of the finished films. For information write to Dr. Griffin at Loyola University, Los Angeles, California. Thanks to Gerald Baydo ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN HISTORIANS, WASHINGTON D. C. APRIL 5-8, 1972 "The Historian's Use of Illustrative Material" is the title of a workshop organized by John J. Appel of Michigan State University, for the OAH meeting in Washington. There will be no formal papers but rather a short aural-visual presentation by each of four panel members. Professor Appel on cartoons; Tom Cripps on TV and early paper films; Sandra Myres on three dimensional objects and Clifford Snyder on the role of the publisher. The session is designed to encourage maximum audience participation and anyone with printed materials is urged to bring them to the meeting for free distribution. The material should concern itself with the use of pictures and illustrative material by the teacher and historian. The Newsletter will make note of the other sessions on film to be held during the OAH meeting in its next issue and, although the Committee will not play a formal role at Washington, representatives will be present to report on the meetings. Television News Documentary: A CBS Retrospective A retrospective showing of documentaries made by CBS over the past decade was held...