editor’s introduction

I am delighted to share in issue 9 a number of accomplished film professors’ candid and open-ended reflections on teaching a single film that has proven to be particularly compelling for them.  Their essays illuminate abiding questions about cinema, provide fodder and inspiration for fellow teachers, and invite conversation.

My inspiration for Issue 9 came from two sources:  the wonderful anthology Teaching Film (MLA, 2012) edited by Lucy Fischer and Patrice Petro, and my own witnessing of fellow professors’ social media conversations about teaching that were both delightfully blunt and full of practical suggestions.  I imagined a hybrid composition that remained grounded in an awareness of pedagogical debates, but took on an informal, first-person, narrative approach to the teaching of one particular film.  I am grateful to the contributors for brazenly rising to the challenge I presented, and I am so pleased with the wide range of approaches and films that are represented.  Despite that range, one constant thread runs through each essay: a passionate, pleasurable engagement with teaching and learning about the cinema.

This is the only issue of The Cine-Files to date that has enabled the comments option—a choice that reflects the informal, first-person nature of these writings.  I hope that readers take the opportunity to contribute to this dialogue, using the comments section to ask questions and contribute ideas and experiences that may be helpful for others.

— Tracy Cox-Stanton