In this article, the author comments on the articles in this special issue of "Innovations in Education and Teaching International (IETI)." The author recently saw a documentary called "Reel Injun: The Hollywood Indian" about the way American Indians are represented in Hollywood films. Watching this documentary amidst reading…

In a world in which social media, visual images, and instant messaging are the everyday realities of today's young people, films and videos play a crucial role in developing a critical understanding of how social, economic, political, and cultural structures mediate the lives of youth. As teaching tools and cultural media, videos, and films offer…

When students engage with technology to produce media, impetus and inspiration often come from the work of others. In today's new media environment in which students blur the line between school-based technologies and personal devices and engagement, educators find themselves standing on a railroad track facing a speeding high-tech train. If…

Considers the state of the avant-garde film movement. Contends that for those who are convinced of the potential importance of the broadest articulation of cinema, it is necessary to demonstrate the excitement and value of using avant-garde films in a wide range of academic contexts and as one of academic film activity's essential components. (MS)

Examines the classical paradigm in which both temporal and spatial cohesion constitute a popular and desirable characteristic in presentational story-telling. Argues that fragmentation's maneuvers are as effective as a configurating tool and as cohesion because they advance the ideological, psychoanalytic, aesthetic, essentialist, and story…

Proposes a revisionist account of the immediate conditions and consequences of the 1919 Soviet cinema nationalization decree. Argues that nationalization was the least successful of a set of stop-gap measures; that it dispersed and diluted control; and that it actually retarded the growth of the film industry. (KEH)

Offers information about aesthetic films, their study in class as an art form, and the procurement of such works from the Media Center for Children in New York. Compares film to literature and contrasts the language of film with verbal language. Lists some of the best films tested with children and film distributors. Outlines film discussion…

Suggests American screenwriters experiment with the lighting, colors, perspectives, angles, and positioning of images in works of art to generate narrative. Argues that American screenwriters, unlike European counterparts, unnecessarily adhere to the concept that characterization is essential to generate narrative. (KEH)

Examines similarities and differences between writing short, live-action narrative films and writing feature films. Examines market influence, budget, structure, and story factors. Describes useful procedures for inclusion in a scriptwriting class. (KEH)

Traces the lethal seductress through Hollywood's "noir" history from "Double Indemnity" (1944) to "The Last Seduction" (1996). Examines how this figure largely abjures traditional romance and passive domesticity, choosing instead to apply her sexuality to homicidal plots toward greed. Argues that her narrative…

Reviews science fiction films used in a science fiction class. Discusses feature films, short science fiction films, short story adaptations, original science fiction pieces and factual science films that enrich literature. (EL)

Three conceptual frameworks for examining the cognitive response to film are reviewed. It is suggested that a phenomenological rather than atomistic conception of the film-viewer interaction will be most useful for the generation of further studies in this area. (Author/RM)

This iconographic study of Resnais' classic film reconstructs the narrative structure of the film; identifies the various icons, images, sounds, and acts that constitute "marks" in time; and examines these marks to show how they function rhetorically to help interpret the central message or intrinsic meaning of the film. (PD)

Explores reasons for the continued widespread resistance among academics to avant-garde film. Argues that reviewers, critics, and teachers involved with film history and film accomplishments should not neglect the various areas of the avant-garde film. (PD)

Discusses Chaplin's use of satire in his films "Modern Times,""City Lights," and "Limelight" and how these were perceived and misunderstood by his audiences. (JMF)