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14 - David Copperfield (1935) and the US curriculum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

Steve J. Wurtzler
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor in the English department Georgetown University
John Glavin
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary

This chapter revisits the moment of David Copperfield's release (MGM 1935) to show how US educators attempted to incorporate this particular film, and films in general, into school curricula. Examination of the rhetoric surrounding David Copperfield also illustrates the ways in which educators approached, or indeed selectively avoided, issues surrounding cinema's cultural value and its relationship to literature. Popular film's entrance into the US school curriculum involved both motion-picture appreciation and the cultivation of conventional notions of taste and discrimination. Advocates of film education were consistent in suggesting that properly educated children, that is those who had obtained some experience studying cinema in their schools, could and would make the “right” choices in selecting their screen entertainment. English teacher Clifford Bragdon, of the Hawken School in Cleveland, Ohio, argued that “The school, public or private, can help children to overcome the habit of indiscriminate movie attendance by supplying information, arousing attitudes, and thus helping to establish habits which will enable children to find more sources of interest in the movies than they found before” (Bragdon 1937: 378). By one account, more than a hundred thousand students of at least a thousand different teachers were, in 1934, studying motion-picture appreciation, and at least seven state departments of education had officially sanctioned teaching film appreciation in their schools (Dale 1936: 113). Not surprisingly, pedagogical efforts surrounding the popular US film most often focused on adaptations of the generally agreed-upon canon of great literary works, like Copperfield.

Type
Chapter
Information
Dickens on Screen , pp. 155 - 170
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

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References

,Anon. 22 Feb. 1935. “Filming the Classics.” Commonweal 21: 470Google Scholar
Abbott, Mary Allen. 1935. A Study Guide to the Critical Appreciation of the Photoplay Version of Charles Dickens' Novel David Copperfield. Chicago: National Council of Teachers of English
Bragdon, Clifford. 1937. “The Movies in High School.” English Journal 26: 374–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charters, W. W. 1935. “The Motion Picture in Education.” Educational Record 16: 312–20Google Scholar
Dale, Edgar. 1936. “Teaching Motion Picture Appreciation.” English Journal 25: 113–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eldridge, Donald A. 1937. “Motion-Picture Appreciation in the New Haven Schools.” Sociology of Education 11 (Nov.): 175–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forman, Henry James. 1933. Our Movie Made Children. New York: Macmillan
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Katz, Elias. 1936. “Making Movies in the Classroom.” Clearing House 11: 153–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Selby, Stuart Alan. 1978. The Study of Film as an Art Form in American Secondary Schools (1964). New York: Arno
Smith, Kerry and Lemon, Irene. 1937. “Learning Through Film-making.” Teachers College Record 39: 207–17Google Scholar
Vernon, Grenville. 1935. “The Play and Screen.” Commonweal 21: 403Google Scholar

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