Film in the classrooms

Film media in classrooms is always a great idea for those who can't picture exactly what Mercrutio is doing with Tybalt at one time or another. Unfortunately there are some drawbacks to the variety of selections being taught in classrooms.

I am not a teacher yet, so I can only speculate as to how I would run a classroom. (Or if I could even walk it, I hear teaching gets pretty hard sometimes) Hypothetically speaking, if I were a teacher, I would want to integrate film into the class for portions of literature that are difficult to grasp, or major key points. I'd also like to show texts to their full extent in a feature length movie, but I would keep the adaptation of said film as close to the original as possible.

We talked about the different adaptations of Hamlet in class and I found myself on the conservative end of the classroom due to my belief that author's work shouldn't be changed. If a modern version of Hamlet is the only visual representation a student gets in a shakespeare class, they will forever think of Romeo as Leo Dicaprio. The setting and time period are paramount pieces used by the author to convey a general atmosphere of their work. That setting is deliberate. Of course, Shakespeare couldn't have thought of putting his "To be or not to be" monologue in a video store, but newer adaptations should be looked upon as supplemental entertainment to the text rather than visual representations of concrete texts. Students should learn that the precise things the writer has written are what they are learning. Any unnecessary filters and biases such as a director's viewpoint should be considered only as an afterthought, like an end of the semester kind of thing. Those adaptations are thought provoking and provide hundreds of more questions, but I think that if there is a text being taught in the classroom, it has enough thought provokation and insight to be found without a director telling the class what to believe.

I would be more prone to films like Mel Gibson's Hamlet because it is set in time period and, although the entire play is not included (it is a long play) the kind of presentation and imagery is what one would get in one's head if they saw the play in typreface (like in the theater of the mind as Shakespeare would put it). I think of swords and poofy trousers and skulls and crowns when I think of Hamlet because that is what Shakespeare wanted me to think. I don't see buisness suits, 9mm berettas and news reporters. I'd be very picky about what kinds of film I'd allow my students to watch.