Film Festival Reflections—The First Year
Here are some reflections from the first of what we hope will be many more Fordham Law Film Festivals:
When I was a graduate student a number of years ago, New York City movie theaters, in the days before multiplexes, routinely featured film festivals built around either a particular director, film genre, or cinematic theme. Aside from other diminished experiences that movie lovers have been forced to endure–from bad films to high prices to cardboard pop corn to the utter failure of the major Hollywood studios to produce smart, serious films–the loss of the film festival is a particularly troubling tiny tragedy.
The Fordham Law Film Festival reminded me what it’s like to showcase a number of films, over a number of days, centered around a particular theme, with an audience interested in a certain subject matter, followed by post-screening discussions led by an eclectic group of speakers in an orchestrated setting where the film transcends the pure visual experience and instead becomes a communal, cerebral form of entertainment.
On each night I stood in the back of the theater and watched the audience respond to these films in ways that I’m sure could not have happened had each film been rented on DVD and viewed in the privacy of one’s home entertainment center. There is something about watching a film together, in the dark, popcorn in hand, with a proclaimed purpose not just to get out of the house, but also to learn something, to deploy the medium of cinema to enlarge the mind, to engage the senses, to remind us that ideas still matter and that we have much to learn from each other in discussing something of interest that we have all witnessed together. The film festival is the modern day equivalent of the camp fire tale.
In this way, the Forum on Law, Culture, and Society, with its avowed purpose of stimulating and provoking conversations about the legal system’s influence on the popular and broader culture, serves a true civic function where the life of the mind still matters and the possibility for true spiritual engagement is, indeed, possible, and desired by a public hungry for tastes that surpass the dumb-downed middle brow that passes for cultural consumption in the modern world.
November 29th, 2006 at 1:34 am
Says:
I agree with Mr. Rosenbaum’s statement. The John Jay / Fordham film festival was a success. It made me think about these films in a whole new light. Never before had I asked myself the questions that revolved around the movies. Each movie had a strong theme and it certainly left an impact on me. Watching a movie with such depth has become a new experience.
November 29th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
Says:
I also agree with Mr. Rosenbaum’s statement. I feel that the film festival was indeed a new way of enhancing one’s perspective on a given issue.
For me it was a new experience, because like most people we look at movies and often times dont give it a second thought. This was different though because we got to focus the particular events of the film which later lead into the fourms discussion which i enjoyed the most!
December 5th, 2006 at 10:54 pm
Says:
i agree with sid about the film festival being a success. i learned a lot about the movies i’ve already seen, especially the 12 agry men. i’ve seen that movie before but watching it in the festival made me think in different ways and pespectives i didn’t do before.
December 12th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
Says:
the film festival was terrific. there are many ways to view films and art in general, and the festival put new perpsectives on every movie that was shown. it would have been better to make the discussions less formal and more conversational. the guests seemed a bit inhibited sometimes.
December 18th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
Says:
i totally agree with all the commnets above!! i enjoyed the movies and at the same time i learned so many things about them. I believe that the movies that were presented were very helpful for me to understand about law. I totally liked Time to kill and the discucion after that helped me understood more the movie.