Here’s the entire article text (speaking of people not having attention spans):
For years, audiences have groused that films are too long, and now, a number of film professors say their students are having trouble finishing films they are assigned to watch for class.
The Atlantic writer Rose Horowitch published a piece Friday based on surveying 20 film-studies professors who shared stories of students struggling to sit through films in class without checking their phones or answering basic questions about said films after watching them.
In an anecdote that gained attention on X, the University of Wisconsin Madison professor Jeff Smith recalled asking his students about the ending of the 1962 François Truffaut film Jules and Jim. Horowitch writes: “More than half of the class picked one of the wrong options, saying that characters hide from the Nazis (the film takes place during World War I) or get drunk with Ernest Hemingway (who does not appear in the movie).”
Professors report they have even resorted to asking students just to watch portions of films. It’s a phenomenon mirroring what is happening in high school English classes around the country, where students might just be assigned portions of books.
Though these are discouraging stories for cinephiles to hear, there’s evidence that members of Gen Z are embracing movie theaters and film culture. Some in Hollywood have dubbed them the Letterboxd generation, and they were credited with helping fuel unexpected hits last year.
As Northwestern professor Lynn Spigel told The Atlantic, “the ones who are really dedicated to learning film always were into it, and they still are.”
Precisely the sort of hot take I’d expect from The Atlantic, swirling the drain of stewardship by hiring David Brooks^.
But look, I get it. I’m a genuine film nerd today, and I kinda always have been. When I was little, I’d watch old movies and everything about them set my mind wandering. They were black and white, the pacing was stilted, shot compositions and lightning were static, the audio quality was equally too drab and too sharp at the same time. All the characters were old, boring adults who wore suits and were busy with… adult things to do. It felt like eating crusty week-old bologna. Everything about “contemporary” movies was great! Crisp colors, dynamic lightning, hyper-focused Robert McKee screenwriting that made sure your brain knew precisely what to be thinking at what moment and give you a right happy dopamine hit at the end. What’s not to love?
Bless my dad. I once told him that I thought all black and white movies were boring. I had to be something like 10 years old at the time. He told me to go to the video store up the street and rent an old black and white movie called ‘Fail Safe’ and watch that. I did. That movie left me absolutely floored. Shook. I didn’t know, couldn’t even imagine, that old movies could go so hard. That was where my interest in the medium really started.
It took a lot of time, discovery, honing of taste and learning the technical limitations of the decades to develop a palette that could appreciate classics.
I don’t fault younger people for having the same aversions I did. If I were developing film studies cirricula, I’d ensure that foundational education about expectations of the various cinematic eras was already complete before throwing students into Truffaut.
I love movies and watch them constantly, but I’d probably check out if you asked me to watch a WWI movie with pacing and conventions typical of the 60s too. Classics are important for a film class, but there’s plenty that can be learned from films made after 1970 too and they tend to be a lot more palatable.
This is honestly a terrible example to use as a general lack of interest. They’re film students, obviously something drew them there, it just wasn’t war dramas from the middle of last century.
Omg don’t get me started on Fail Safe! How hardly anyone knows about it is beyond me. Sidney Lumet, Henry Fonda, still considered obscure instead of a well known classic
Here’s the entire article text (speaking of people not having attention spans):
Precisely the sort of hot take I’d expect from The Atlantic, swirling the drain of stewardship by hiring David Brooks^.
But look, I get it. I’m a genuine film nerd today, and I kinda always have been. When I was little, I’d watch old movies and everything about them set my mind wandering. They were black and white, the pacing was stilted, shot compositions and lightning were static, the audio quality was equally too drab and too sharp at the same time. All the characters were old, boring adults who wore suits and were busy with… adult things to do. It felt like eating crusty week-old bologna. Everything about “contemporary” movies was great! Crisp colors, dynamic lightning, hyper-focused Robert McKee screenwriting that made sure your brain knew precisely what to be thinking at what moment and give you a right happy dopamine hit at the end. What’s not to love?
Bless my dad. I once told him that I thought all black and white movies were boring. I had to be something like 10 years old at the time. He told me to go to the video store up the street and rent an old black and white movie called ‘Fail Safe’ and watch that. I did. That movie left me absolutely floored. Shook. I didn’t know, couldn’t even imagine, that old movies could go so hard. That was where my interest in the medium really started.
It took a lot of time, discovery, honing of taste and learning the technical limitations of the decades to develop a palette that could appreciate classics.
I don’t fault younger people for having the same aversions I did. If I were developing film studies cirricula, I’d ensure that foundational education about expectations of the various cinematic eras was already complete before throwing students into Truffaut.
^ Who is David Brooks? This is David Brooks.
I love movies and watch them constantly, but I’d probably check out if you asked me to watch a WWI movie with pacing and conventions typical of the 60s too. Classics are important for a film class, but there’s plenty that can be learned from films made after 1970 too and they tend to be a lot more palatable.
This is honestly a terrible example to use as a general lack of interest. They’re film students, obviously something drew them there, it just wasn’t war dramas from the middle of last century.
Omg don’t get me started on Fail Safe! How hardly anyone knows about it is beyond me. Sidney Lumet, Henry Fonda, still considered obscure instead of a well known classic
It’s so obscure that producers keep trying to pass off remakes of it as original movies.