Savannah College of Art and Design
Editors’ Introduction
In issue 13 of The Cine-Files, we turn our attention once again to teaching. The positive feedback that was generated by issue 9 led us to imagine regularly revisiting the subject of teaching films, and we are delighted to offer here a second iteration. The short essays featured here, while candid and informal, nevertheless convey great depth of understanding and attention to the specific materials of a film (the cinematography, performances, uses of editing, etc.), the ideas those materials embody, and the way those materials and ideas work together to impact and enrich an audience. We asked our contributors to give language to the otherwise ephemeral and less publicly visible experience of teaching, to clarify and share how and why they choose their subjects and frame them accordingly. Too often we take for granted that the assigning of a text with a film might easily yield obvious entry-points for discussion; yet every teacher knows that an enriching class dialogue hardly unfolds on its own, even if we might feel more confident with time. We hope these essays will be valuable not only for teachers but also for students, who we imagine ourselves to be, as we learn from and with these teaching experiences.
— Tracy Cox-Stanton and Kristi McKim, co-editors of issue 13