The CCAJ and its legacy: the state of film mediation in schools
In view of the 30th anniversary of Le cinéma, cent ans de jeunesse (CCAJ in short), and the news of the recent termination of its funding, the question arises as to how the legacy of this visionary film education initiative can be preserved and benefited from in the future. CCAJ can be considered among the most successful and far-reaching initiatives, one through which Alain Bergala’s film education approaches have found their way into schools in Europe and around the world. Its legacy is being carried forward in variants and by successors such as Cinema en Curs (https://www.cinemaencurs.org/en/node/1) or, more recently, Our Cinema (Chambers, 2022), and is being theoretically reflected upon, conceptually refined and brought to schools in extracurricular initiatives by a fairly small but steady, well-connected and committed staff from the various fields of film studies, filmmaking and film education (see, for example, the recurring authors and practitioners of Film Education Journal or Bremer Schriften zur Filmvermittlung).
The heterogeneous approaches referred to here, which are united by their loose reference to Bergala’s seminal essay Kino als Kunst (‘The cinema hypothesis’) (2006), will be discussed under the umbrella term ‘film mediation’ (FM)1 or ‘film mediation approaches’ (FMAs). They result in a lively exchange between theory and practice (Chambers, 2022, p. 137) and oscillate between different institutions (schools, universities, cinemas, film museums). With CCAJ as a ‘pioneering programme’, positive conclusions can be drawn: thanks to these initiatives, the innovative impulses of FMAs have successfully been carried into European schools in recent decades. Many of the international extracurricular film education initiatives today are strongly influenced by the approaches of Bergala and the legacy of CCAJ.
A very different picture emerges in regular, curricular school education – certainly within German schools, which I will focus on in the following analysis. In German schools, film education is usually carried out by teachers who are not specialised in film. These teachers are trained using film didactical concepts from general pedagogy and subject-specific disciplines, to which ‘film’ naturally remains a somewhat foreign subject. Their approaches differ sharply from those of FMAs. Even though a structurally anchored implementation of ‘film’ at schools in Europe still requires much further strengthening and stronger coordinated efforts (Burn and Reid, 2012), in Germany there has been a structurally unstable but nonetheless noticeable shift towards film education since the mid-2000s – largely owing to personal interest and individual efforts by the staff of schools, academics and independent film education initiatives – resulting in a large number of concepts, especially for German classes. Strikingly though, the integration of FMAs remains rare in both academic research and school practice. This is surprising, since there does not seem to be a general lack of knowledge or appreciation of FMAs (Anders et al., 2019; Merlin, 2014). If FM in general and CCAJ in particular are understood by most of the actors involved as an approach with a ‘recommendatory character’ (Anders et al., 2019, p. 21), then we must ask what the hurdles to achieving better integrations are. It can be stated that, in contrast to independent film education initiatives, in regular school education it remains an urgent task to strengthen the role of FM.
In this article, the first, theoretical part develops hypotheses as to why the diagnosed distance between FMAs and the educational context of school persists. The second, more application-oriented part, reacts with suggestions as to how some of these obstacles can be countered by means of CCAJ’s perhaps most tangible legacy – its enduring website. Aiming towards the model of a film education ‘for all’ (Burn and Reid, 2012, p. 318) in regular school education, reminiscent of the spirit of FMAs, I am particularly addressing here – as part of its ‘workforce’ (Burn and Reid, 2012, p. 317) – film education practitioners from other school subjects and teachers who are looking for inspiration to teach the medium in their classrooms (especially in art, language and literature classes). I believe it is important to better enable and support non-specialist teachers, those ‘at the job’ right now, in implementing film education inspired by FMAs in a way that is accessible and that is feasible within the constraints of school as an institution. Thus, the research subject here is not CCAJ as a project, but rather its online platform as a resource for non-technically trained teachers.
For this purpose, the CCAJ website is examined in terms of its character as a collection of materials, as being based on the method of relating fragments (Bergala, 2006, pp. 81–89; Henzler, 2023, pp. 142–43) and as indicating the task format of material-based writing, which is very popular in German schools. From here, the image of a material-based film education, for which the CCAJ platform serves as a model and central tool, slowly develops. The focus here lies on reception-oriented teaching.
Finally, an example teaching unit demonstrates how the platform can help to develop concrete teaching designs. This rather unusual methodological approach of outlining proposals for future film education practices (Chambers, 2022, p. 137) is, again, motivated by the proposed question of heritage, which inherently points two ways: to the past and the future. In this context this means that if CCAJ in the past has played a central role in bringing FMAs to schools through extracurricular initiatives, the question for the future remains to what extent its legacy can contribute to a stronger institutional, curricular integration of FM. This essay is thus concerned with the underlying question of what role CCAJ can play in the various transformation processes of FM – between theory and practice and between independent initiatives and institutionalisation. I will approach these questions from the perspective of my role as a film scholar and trained teacher, drawing on both theoretical discourses and experiences from everyday school life.
FM and school education: differences and barriers to integration
It does not seem easy to find a common language between the discourses of FM and the discourses of didactics – a language that has a significance for school education but does not compromise FM’s educational intentions.2 In general, the tension between FMAs and school education shouldn’t be surprising, as Bergala previously noted this indissoluble tension between the institution of school and aesthetic education (Bergala, 2006, pp. 75–76; Henzler, 2013). This latent antagonism is substantiated in the German discourse in the competence debate: if competence orientation is the unassailable paradigm of every didactic concept and teaching practice, then authors of FM criticise such a reduction of aesthetic education to operationalisable learning goals and strongly advocate alternative notions of knowledge, education and educational subjects (Henzler, 2013; Walberg, 2014; Zahn, 2012). However, also in concepts that are occasionally put forward as an alternative to the concept of competence, for example the concept of literacy (Spinner, 2019), there is still little exchange between the two fields of discourse. Fundamental differences remain, for example, concerning the balance between student orientation and film orientation: didactics seems to develop their conceptions comparatively, with a stronger focus on the students and their to-be-advanced abilities, which in turn are differentiated, systematised and justified in great detail (Spinner, 2019; for a detailed study see Schönleber, 2012). In contrast, FMAs seem to develop their approaches based rather on film itself and its associated methods and teaching scenarios.3 In these approaches, film itself is accorded a great deal of trust and significance, and its own mediating qualities, arising from the material itself, are often the starting point for the educational process. In both, a further and more consequential difference can be identified: while didactics, due to the special requirements of the institution, rely on detailing, systematising and operationalising concepts, FMAs do not do so. Their concepts tend to derive from more intuitive approaches to film, in which their methodological approaches and educational intent are developed inductively and often anew, and in ways that fit only a very rough general framework.
Another important objection of FMAs to ‘mainstream’ film education in school didactics is that it pursues a philologically oriented and understanding-based film education, instead of starting with the central qualities of film, its imagery and movement, its affective dimensions and the peculiarities of aesthetic experience (Beiler, 2018; Bergala, 2006, p. 32; Zahn, 2012, pp. 54–58). Particularly in language and literature didactics, the crucial subject reference is often established through such philological conceptualisations. Although this may now less frequently be done explicitly and semiotically via film as text or sign system, film is instead examined more generally as an (audiovisual) story-telling medium (Paefgen, 2009) or as requiring an audiovisual ‘literacy’ through the learning of camera angles and editing rules.
The scepticism towards such philological orientations is certainly shared by some German didacticians, and other approaches exist (Anders, 2019). Often, alternative classifications are suggested, such as audiovisual genres (Anders et al., 2019). In all of these cases, we see a great effort to understand the foreign matter of film in a systematic manner and to ascribe a unified theoretical foundation or conceptual inventory to it. However, none of these efforts are in line with FM: instead of working with entire films and their narrations, in FMAs film fragments are used. Instead of providing a conceptual inventory for the analysis of films, FMAs advocate an inductive and flexible analytical approach (Henzler, 2023, pp. 141–42); categorical classifications are of little interest here, and the rules of genre cinema are hardly meaningful reference systems, considering that the favoured films in FM are of auteur cinema or experimental films. Although obviously those working with approaches in FM formulate their approaches strongly based on theoretical insights, these almost always remain implicit and inaccessible to staff from the educational context of schools who are less familiar with the subject.4 It must be stated that, even more than the rejection of philological models, FMAs move beyond any explicit and unified theoretical or conceptual framework.
While this deliberate flexibility and intuitiveness of the approach may not pose any problems for film-educated staff, it is likely to leave those with less expertise in the field feeling disorientated or frustrated. This is not least because the approach ignores central institutional requirements such as the following: teaching should be explicitly science-based and requires academic analysis in each individual case; its contents should be structured in a meaningful way, which should also be transparent to the students; teachers should understand their subject beyond the topic of the individual lesson or teaching unit; and, last but not least, teaching content must be verifiable in learning controls. Teachers of reception-oriented film teaching particularly must ask themselves how they can check and evaluate learning processes when a conceptual frame of reference is missing. Thus, with FMAs being relatively unconcerned with certain fundamental requirements of everyday school practice, the disintegration of FMAs in regular school education seems somewhat expected. The general sentiment towards FMAs is that their broader ideas and approaches are simply ‘not feasible’ in regular classes.
While the overarching strands of FM are quite at odds with the educational context of school, it seems far less comprehensible why some of FMAs’ individual methods, a deep and valuable reservoir of often very concrete teaching suggestions, aren’t more often adopted or even discussed in school didactics. Particularly because of FM’s focus on short forms, such as working with film excerpts or practical exercises like the Lumière Minutes (https://www.cinemacentansdejeunesse.org/en/lumiere-minutes.html), they lend themselves to school teaching, since they can be implemented with comparatively little effort.
Further hurdles potentially block access to these more ‘school-friendly’ parts of FMAs. Such rather pragmatic obstacles can be identified through a general lack of accessibility, rooted in the heterogeneity of the approaches: FMAs are loosely connected attitudes and approaches that are scattered over collections of essays, online dossiers and independent mediation work, which makes their adoption more difficult. Their affinity to less common film genres could be another obstacle for staff less familiar with film. Another major problem may be the accessibility of the films these approaches discuss. While regular subjects have developed common methods and structures (such as affordable school editions for literature classes), similar practices do not exist for the subject of film. Additionally, untrained teachers may have less personal familiarity with relevant materials. These problems now are significantly magnified in the case of FMAs: not only do they work with lesser-known and less-distributed films, they also work with a multitude of excerpts from different films in each teaching segment, rather than with one single film over an entire unit. So there are significantly higher demands in terms of implementing the already rather unfamiliar-seeming approaches of FM. Especially since FMAs place such a strong conceptual focus on the film material itself, this problem of accessibility seems a significant one.
The differences and hurdles are considerable. If FMAs are to fulfil their explicit goal of reaching the regular school system (Henzler, 2013), but at the same time maintain the heterogeneity and flexibility of their approaches, then alternatives must be explored. One suggestion would be to not primarily look for points of contact in pedagogical and didactic discourses, but rather to address the application-related level of developing teaching designs. The integration of film into regular classes is then established via pre-existing curricula of individual subjects or media curricula.5 A goal here would be to address some of the more pragmatic hurdles, to make the methodological diversity of FMAs more accessible for school education and thus, hopefully, also to unfold some of their more fundamental educational intentions in class. This, I want to demonstrate, can be done with the help of the CCAJ website.
Material and nexus: the CCAJ website for the advancement of film education in schools
Professional substantiation and teaching materials: The website as a collection of materials
The CCAJ’s continued online presence consists of two websites: an official site that has been updated until recently (https://www.cinemacentansdejeunesse.org/en/) and which, among other things, lists the eight topics of its annual programme cycles; and a blog page (http://blogcinemacentansdejeunesse.org/), which acts as an archive in which the remaining cycles, with their topics, are listed. The official website exists in three languages (French, English and Spanish), while the blog is only in French. This article will focus on the official website, in its English version.
In the drop-down menu of the main website, the ‘Resources’ option allows for topics to be selected under the menu item ‘Cinema Questions’. Most of these topics show a relationship with at least one school subject and could therefore be used in those respective classes: topics such as ‘The Situation’, ‘Places and Stories’ or ‘Reality in Fiction’ might be linked to language and literature classes, while topics such as ‘Sensation’, ‘Colour’ or ‘Hidden/Shown’ might be more relevant to art lessons. A topic like ‘Climate’ could be fertile for combined teaching units, for example geography and one of the artistic subjects. As one investigates each topic in more detail, more subject correspondences become apparent. For the occasional general ‘film class’ (in project weeks, working groups or, in very isolated cases, even the school subject ‘film’, as rarely implemented in Berlin or Potsdam), all topics are of equal relevance.
If you click on one of the topics, individual sub-pages appear with a recurring template: divided into two tabs, ‘Watching’ and ‘Making’, which anticipate the basic methodological approaches to film teaching. The following can be found in different sections: a general discussion of the topic, a large number of thematically structured and analytically discussed film excerpts, a document with relevant text excerpts from film theorists and film directors, further reading suggestions, the ‘rules of the game’ for practical film assignments and the student films from that year. All film excerpts can be played directly within the website.
Under the second item of the drop-down menu for ‘Resources’, CCAJ’s production-oriented method, Lumière Minutes, is explained, illustrated, placed in a film-historical context and presented in a way that makes it suitable for practical teaching work. Thus, all material from each of the eight years is freely available – an incredible resource for both independent and curricular education, not least relevant because the accessibility of the relevant films was identified as a crucial hurdle to integration. Here, a wealth of film excerpts is available to everyone. This also results in greater flexibility in choosing the methodology and social form: from home, in individual or in group work, the excerpts can be viewed again and again in a more intimate manner. Film excerpts are not the only valuable resource: quotations and text excerpts illustrating significant positions throughout the history of film theory can prove to be just as valuable for teaching designs. These can be found on the website in the bibliography provided for each annual topic (https://www.cinemacentansdejeunesse.org/en/resources/all-the-questions/reality-in-fiction/ressources.html#extraitsFilms).
The platform therefore also offers teachers an opportunity for playful self-education. By exploring the contents of the individual topics, they themselves first undergo an educational experience in terms of FM. This increases an implicit understanding of FM’s educational workings, helps to reduce inhibitions about their approach and fosters individual familiarity with the films and the perspectives on the topic. The structure of the website also encourages the creation of links with one’s own cinégraphy, which in turn creates better conditions for the teacher to become a passeur in the educational process (Bergala, 2006; Henzler, 2013). The website thus also contains the resources necessary for teachers’ own academic analysis of the subject: the text excerpts, the film-analytical comments and the extensive bibliography, which provides further text excerpts and reading suggestions for more in-depth study.
Methodology: creating relations between fragments
The collection on the CCAJ website is not merely a thematic accumulation of film excerpts; rather, it is based on meticulous curation. The arrangement of the materials implies a specific methodological approach that is a pillar of FM: the method of ‘placing fragments in relations’ (Henzler, 2023, p. 142). According to Bergala (2006, pp. 81–89), fragment relations (FRs) are about mediating film via individual film excerpts that have a common visual motif (e.g. playing billiards), are viewed in plenary and are discussed comparatively in ‘film talks’ inspired by the passeur. By simply comparing excerpts with shared motifs (concerning staging devices, the atmosphere, a specific question, etc.), a great pedagogic potential arises, automatically stimulating reflections on the medium with a ‘strong analytical quality’6 (Henzler, 2009a, p. 28). This method is connected to iconology, the art historical method of linking images, as practised by Aby Warburg (Henzler, 2023, p. 146: Pantenburg and Schlüter, 2017). It is an educational process that takes the concrete material as its starting point and is intended to work towards some of FM’s central concerns.
In addition to the inductive mediation of a fluid, non-linear aesthetic knowledge of film, this method endorses a specific relationship between teacher and student, the hierarchy between whom is called into question by the presence of an object that allows for constant verification of any claims about it (Henzler, 2023, pp. 142–43). For Bergala (2006), FRs are ultimately about creating a certain kind of relationship between subjects and films. This should, in Bergala’s perspective, resemble neither the arbitrary, detached nature of the current media socialisation of young people, nor classical knowledge about art works based on stylistic epochs and characteristics.
He describes this relationship as one that is more reminiscent of cinephilia or amateurism: ‘A major function of (…) schools (…) consists in tracing certain common themes between artworks of the present and of the past, forging connections, sketching out genealogies (…). Cultural knowledge is nothing more than this ability to relate the painting or the film that one is presently seeing, or the book that one is reading, to other paintings, other films, other books. And in the case of true cultural knowledge, this ability opens up the pleasure of finding one’s way in the fraught network of artworks as they appear before us, most often in disarray, and of understanding how every work of art is inhabited by what preceeded it, and by its contemporaries, in the art from which it emerged, and in the neighbouring arts, even when its author knew nothing of them or rejected them outright. (…) To experience one’s own humanity through an artwork is to relate oneself to the chain of which the work is part.’ (Bergala, 2006, p. 40 – 41). This kind of relationship between students and film is intended to be promoted by the method of FRs.
While for Bergala these relations are primarily established through visual motifs, in CCAJ they are established through ‘questions de cinéma’ – that is, certain topics that often subvert clear distinctions between form and content. Additionally, in CCAJ, these fragments are supplemented by excerpts from texts, putting forth an education that is largely material-based. If this platform now serves as the starting point for teaching designs, it can be assumed that it induces one of its central methods and carries some of FM’s essential educational concerns into the classroom.
Task format and form of learning: material-based writing
Concerning the aspects of material and nexus, the relating-fragments method shows interesting similarities to one of the most fundamental task formats in German higher-school education: material-based writing (MBW).7 Here again a multitude of materials are at the centre of a complex educational process, which is merely guided by a careful curation of materials (4 to 11 materials: text excerpts of different genres, graphics, paintings, caricatures, tables, etc.) and a heading theme. In one MBW assignment, for example, students have to contemplate the leading topic of ‘Why do we read?’ by referring to a pool of materials, including, among literary and theoretical texts, a diagram, a surrealist painting and Kafka’s aphorism ‘A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us’ (Zabka, 2017, p. 28). Generally, the format aims towards a rather extensive writing task, an informative or explanatory-argumentative text. It resembles ‘discourse synthesis’, ‘reading-to-write’ or ‘writing from source’, which has been discussed in (English-language) pedagogical theory since the 1980s (Philipp, 2017, p. 11), and in this form it has been part of the educational standards for the subject of German, the most important national policy instrument, since 2012. So, with its deep, thematically curated reservoir of materials, the CCAJ platform also serves as a highly valued task format for current school education.
MBW is used in many subject didactics. In language and literature didactics, it addresses the competence area of ‘writing’. The format has been taken up to address a slightly different type of knowledge and writing competence than usual. It is not the classical analysis and interpretation of individual literary texts, where students, as Becker-Mrotzek critically remarks in his contribution on MBW, tend to work through a set of fixed criteria, resulting in texts that generally present these results in a list-like manner, lacking internal consistency and an individual structure of argumentation. Rather, it addresses the ability to produce texts more autonomously and in a more self-directed manner, with one’s own argument structure (Becker-Mrotzek, 2017). Similar to FRs, it is of dialogical character (Zabka, 2017, p. 26), seeking out a relatively open, non-linear educational process of low structurality, based on pupils and them forming their own perspectives on the materials (Philipp, 2017, p. 11). The challenge lies in the meaningful nexus of the materials – not the in the but the between the – whereby these ‘reception processes […] gain a new and unique quality’ (Schüler, 2017, p. 14). Nevertheless, there are also differences: While one takes place during class discussion and aims primarily at comparison (of individual film scenes in order to learn something about the medium), MBW takes place during text production and ultimately aims at a synthesis (to reach one’s own explanations and argumentation). Nevertheless, as Köster and Pabst (2017, p. 16) emphasise, MBW is always initially concerned with an implicit analysis of the individual materials, both in terms of extracting information and of its formal properties, which is comparative in nature.
Here, structural similarities between two basic types of learning from FM and school education can be identified. This in itself, considering the great distance between the two, can be seen as promising. What further makes this task format interesting is its characteristic of addressing two skills at once: not only process-related writing skills, but also, significantly, content-related learning (Becker-Mrotzek, 2017, p. 9; Köster and Pabst, 2017, pp. 13–15; Schüler, 2017, p. 14). This dual-skill approach makes it a particularly appealing way to integrate film via MBW in language and literature classes: addressing subject-specific writing skills at the same time as content-based learning about diverse topics related to film.8 Since MBW is at its core intermedial, it strongly invites the inclusion of film excerpts for such a task. Meanwhile, the learning evoked is not based on predefined analysis criteria or interpretation steps but promotes an individual approach to the respective topic around film, basing on a more intuitive and flexible analysis of the (film) material (Köster and Pabst, 2017, p. 16). Finally – a particular achievement for breaking down barriers to integration – through this task format the sensitive topic of learning control can be addressed in a way that seems somewhat compatible with FM, through a material-based writing task about a topic concerning film.
In light of this, the production-oriented aspects of CCAJ could be interpreted as material-based filmmaking, producing not texts but films, with both practices being characterised by an ‘overlapping of reception and production’ (Köster and Pabst, 2017, p. 14). The CCAJ platform could be used as a resource for this type of production-oriented film education in various subjects. However, this essay focuses on reception-oriented teaching strategies. For that, the outlined task format of MBW about film is another central component, for which the platform provides an orientation and material resource.
But this approach can be even further broadened, since in the debate around MBW, there is another interesting constant: MBW is repeatedly criticised for focusing too much on writing skills and not paying enough attention to the highly complex processes of reception and appropriation of the material (Schüler, 2017). Zabka (2017, p. 27) therefore advocates better support for the reception process by introducing tools for structuring the task in smaller steps. Feilke (2017, p. 8) expands on this, saying that MBS should be broadened as a more general, unique form of learning, not only concerning the writing tasks itself, but also practised throughout teaching units in smaller, repeated and varied learning tasks. He also advocates the routine integration of these practices from the beginning of secondary school, so that they become one of the basic forms of teaching and working in German lessons themselves (2017, p. 9). This claim is also supported by empirical evidence, as Philipp’s evaluation of several studies on MBW suggests that it should be consolidated as an integral part of subject teaching and established as social practice (2017, p. 17). These ideas could be termed more generally as material-based learning or material-based education.
If one combines these thoughts with the similarly material-based approaches of FM and CCAJ, then together they align for a material-based film education at school that can potentially bring together FMAs and school didactics in a meaningful way. Meanwhile, the many methods of FM and CCAJ, such as FRs and many other variants, could inform some of these preparatory task formats throughout a teaching unit, the inclusion of which Feilke (2017) insists on. A picture is slowly emerging of material-based film education in schools, equipped with several components for successful teaching designs which combine insight from both FM and school didactics, and for which the CCAJ platform functions as an essential resource.
Example teaching unit: ‘how much reality is there in the fiction of film?’
You can’t invent anything in the cinema: I didn’t invent the water of the lake and the blue of the sky. You can only put things in relation to each other, steer them in a certain direction.
(Jean-Luc Godard, Bibliography CCAJ La part de réel dans la fiction: 6. Translated by J.T.)
In this section, I would like to show how the CCAJ website can be a valuable tool for planning a material-based film teaching unit: for academic analysis, choosing topics, selecting teaching materials, developing the guiding question, structuring the content development phases, choosing material-based methods and task formats and implementing a concluding learning assessment. With this I aim to demonstrate how the special educational potential of FMAs could be brought into regular school lessons, combining some FMA methods with common practices and methods at school. The draft plan presented here largely dispenses with competence arguments and is explicitly an outline. If implemented, more time would probably have to be planned for repetition, consolidation and back-up phases, as well as comparing homework and other pragmatic considerations.
The teaching unit is based on the materials of the question de cinéma ‘Reality in Fiction’. Those film excerpts, commentaries and text excerpts reflect upon the different aspects of reality that are part of film fiction and how directors can deal with these elements in their work. It is a relatively abstract topic, but the methods of CCAJ can make it accessible. Connections to language and literature classes can be established, for example, by discussing text types (among them: fictional texts). The teaching unit is presented in two variants: a shorter one of 11 periods (four double, one single and a subsequent performance review in a double period) and a longer one of 15 periods. In the subject of German, long teaching units are not unusual, and this length was chosen for demonstration purposes. Equally, the platform can be used for a few individual lessons or only a short intermediary excursion into topics such as ‘fictional texts’ or ‘language and writing’. The strength of the platform as a tool for film education lies precisely in its flexibility in use for one’s own teaching purposes. The design outlined here is aimed at grades 10 or 11 in German schools, with approximate ages between 15 and 17 years.
It should be noted that a difficulty one faces in such an application of the platform is the matter of language and translation: while the text excerpts can be translated using digital tools, the selection of film excerpts would have to be limited to either silent films or films with little or no dialogue. There are several excerpts that can also be watched and discussed without a (precise) understanding of the dialogue, or it can be explained to the students what the characters are talking about. In isolated cases, however, teachers would have to obtain the film excerpts from other sources. In this case, the platform still has the decisive advantage that the teacher can view the excerpts beforehand and select them in an informed manner, instead of having to obtain numerous films blindly.
Content to be covered
Over the course of 11 periods, various aspects of reality in film fiction are gradually developed. Based on the structure of the film excerpts provided on the website, these can be broken down into the following scheme, which will be successively recorded in bullet points on a learning results sheet.
(A) Fictional vs real phenomena
In film, there is often a varying mix and coexistence of real and fictional elements in the film image: (1) Character and environment: In corresponding film excerpts, it is worked out that the fictional character often encounters elements of our empirical world. In this way, film recordings frequently become historical documents, such as of the streets of Paris in the 1930s, or they provide access to formerly unknown places, such as a large city in West Africa as the sequences of film in this segment. Furthermore, film fictions occasionally include (2) real activities and experiences, such as the cultural techniques of local fishermen in Stromboli (Rossellini, 1950).
(B) Coincidence and the uncontrollable
Using film excerpts related to (1) weather, (2) animals and (3) elements, it is shown that a moment of chance and the uncontrollable often plays a role in filmmaking and can influence the film’s atmosphere and aesthetics. It is up to the directors to deal with these elements and to decide how much they allow or exclude chance or attempt to control it.
(C) Actors and acting
In a final block, the role of (1) improvisation is to be developed. Finally, in a test in the form of MBS, the topic of (2) real bodies, real skills is expanded upon.
In the longer version of the teaching unit, two double periods are added before block (C); these combine a practical film exercise with a media-comparative teaching unit. Here, some differences between fictionality in literature and film are worked out and the characteristics of the modes of representation ‘writing’ and ‘photographic image’ are named. In addition, several sentences are to be completed on the learning results sheet, such as ‘Fiction and Reality exist in film by means of …’, ‘Elements of reality are included in film fiction because …’ or ‘Fiction in film and literature differ because …’.
How systematically or intuitively the unit approaches aesthetic analysis and its terminology is deliberately left open and up to the individual teacher. The main requirement is that the students are sufficiently prepared for dealing with the film excerpts in the performance assessment, which takes the form of MBW. As has been shown, an explicit aesthetic analysis is not required for this task format, yet it implicitly calls for a general analytical understanding of the materials. If the film discussions aim to systematically develop a vocabulary around cinematic techniques, these can be noted down in a designated column associated with the blocks on the learning results sheet or be taught and stored on separate worksheets and back-up sheets.
First lesson: developing the guiding question and elaborating the aspect character-environment (FRs)
In the introductory phase of the first lesson, the guiding question of the unit is developed in plenary with the help of Godard’s quote (see epigraph at the beginning of this section), which can be found in the bibliography on the website, and a film still. Godard’s lines could be used to point out several relevant characteristics of film. However, the exaggeration inherent in the statement is intended to arouse students’ curiosity and throw up productive questions (‘Is that true? Is it really impossible to invent something in film?’).
The discussion of a film still, such as one showing the Shire from the Lord of the Rings series,9 in which the landscapes of New Zealand were famously interspersed with small architectural structures based on Tolkien’s fictional model, can provide an opportunity to verify Godard’s statement and make initial deductions. It becomes apparent that Godard’s assertion is not simply true – rather, the question must be asked: ‘How much reality is there in the fiction of film?’ It would be good to activate the students’ prior knowledge of literary genres in this initial phase.
For the first phase of development, the method of FRs (linked by theme, as done by CCAJ) is chosen: in viewing the film excerpts The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun (Diop, 1998), Boudu Saved from Drowning (Renoir, 1932) and Germany, Year Zero (Rossellini, 1948), the first aspect – character and environment – is worked out in plenary film discussions. I chose Germany, Year Zero from a different section on the website, so that I could use A Summer’s Tale (Rohmer, 1996) for another teaching unit. In this way, the content of the website can be used at the teacher’s discretion. The first results of the first double period are noted in the learning results sheet at the end of the hour.
Second lesson: consolidating character-environment (FRs)
Here the previous content is repeated and consolidated, again by using FRs, but now in Bergala’s classic version, by asking about the different ways to stage a single visual motif: in this case, an encounter. Two further excerpts, to be categorised under ‘-environment’ – People on Sunday (Siodmak and Ulmer, 1929) and A Summer’s Tale (Rohmer, 1996), have in common the motif of a (romantic) encounter between two strangers in a public space. Thus, they could be explored through the question ‘How do I stage …?’ – in this case, ‘How do I stage an encounter?’ This addresses some filmmakers’ decisions in the creative process and induces an aesthetic film education in the sense of FM. At the same time, the topics of the previous lesson can be repeated and deepened, which is particularly useful at the beginning of the unit.
As homework, the students rewatch one of the excerpts at home and describe it by using provided sentence starters: ‘First, we see …’, ‘The camera focuses on/follows …’, ‘In another shot …’, ‘The character appears/moves …’, ‘The camera pans …’, ‘Suddenly …’, ‘Slowly …’, and so forth. Only the term ‘shot’ needs to be explained in advance. This encourages close observation and a more intuitive exploration and shows how we can communicate about film without necessarily needing a detailed analytical vocabulary.
Third lesson: developing further aspects (material-based group work and presentation)
In the third lesson, the thoroughly explored first aspect is now accompanied by four further aspects, developed in material-based group work:
Real activities and experiences: The 400 Blows (Truffaut, 1959), Stromboli (Rossellini, 1950)
Weather: Near Orouet (Rozier, 1973), Little Fugitive (Engel et al., 1953)
Animals: The Wind Will Carry Us (Kiarostami, 1999), The Great Adventure (Sücksdorff, 1953)
Elements: Sacrifice (Tarkowsky, 1986), Paisà (Rossellini, 1946).
Four groups each work on one of the aspects. They do so with the help of the film excerpts, the short analyses of the films on the website and a worksheet with supporting work assignments. The groups then present their results in short presentations, including illustrative film stills. Finally, the results can be assigned to segments (A) and (B) on the back-up sheet.
While the film excerpts for (2) and (3) can be found in the corresponding sections on the website, I developed (1) from the available material in other sections. No. (4), in turn, was added by myself and concerns the Greek elements, from which fire, water and air can be considered forces of the real that can become part of a film as something beyond direct human control, as an element of chance. The excerpts were added from my personal cinégraphy: in one of the last scenes of Sacrifice (Tarkowsky, 1986) and the first sequence of the last internal narrative in Paisà (Rossellini, 1946), the coincidence induced by the elements plays a central role. In Sacrifice, during the filming of a burning house, the film camera used by Tarkovsky’s team failed; the house was thus rebuilt and burnt down again. Some of the shots in Paisà are taken by a camera placed on a boat, meaning that the camera movements themselves are exposed to the elements – the movement of the water.
Both excerpts are currently available online (YouTube). The links and timestamps would be provided to the class, and a short analysis would have to be prepared: for Sacrifice, a direct quote from Tarkowskij’s (1984) Die versiegelte Zeit (Sculpting in time) about the shooting of the scene could be used. For Paisà a text would have to be prepared by the teacher, possibly with some references to the film history of the mobile camera.
Optional extra lesson: practical film exercise
Optionally, a practical film exercise could be carried out, based on the first règle du jeu on the website, which reads as follows: ‘Film twice a character waiting for another character, in two very different places, engaging interaction between reality and fiction. This exercice [sic!] allows [one] to understand how an actor, immersed in the heart of a public place, becomes a character.’ As homework, the students are then asked to retell the plot of their short film in a short story.
Optional extra lesson: representations in film images and writing
This media transfer in two production-oriented processes can be made to be educational for students. First, some of the films and stories, as well as the students’ experiences during production, are discussed in plenary. Differences between fictional films and fictional texts can be identified. This can then be (critically) deepened based on an excerpt from André Bazin’s The Ontology of the Photographic Image, which is available on the website in the bibliography (https://www.cinemacentansdejeunesse.org/en/resources/all-the-questions/reality-in-fiction.html): characteristics of the cinematic image are named and (further) differences between the modes of representation of ‘written language’ and ‘cinematic image’ are worked out and, potentially, compared in tabular form.
Fourth lesson: exploring improvisation (material-based individual task)
Now would follow the final segment in which the topic of ‘acting’ is set in the introductory phase and linked to the teaching topic, with an excerpt from a video essay, for example from the episode ‘American Actors in French Films’ of the Arte programme Blow Up (currently available on YouTube). Here, the connection between the topic of the teaching unit and acting is established via the national language of the actors. By this, I mildly modify the structure of the website, suggesting to first discuss acting in general and saving the provided clips on improvisation (as a specific form of acting) for a later assignment, the first material-based writing task of the teaching unit.
Through the discussion of the video clip mentioned above, I aim to provide sufficient support (Zabka, 2017) for the later MBW task, by students having already discussed acting from a different angle. A variation in methodology (here through a variation of genre) is also didactically advantageous and the genre of video essays, which can be categorised as film-mediating films, is in turn a genre valued by FM, as demonstrated, for example, by the FM-associated project Kunst der Vermittlung (https://www.kunst-der-vermittlung.de/). The series Blow Up proceeds in a similar way to Bergala’s methodology, through the visual exploration of and commenting on cinematic motifs, and can in turn foster in students a cinematic interest characterised by experiencing ‘one’s own humanity through an artwork’ (Bergala, 2006, p. 41) ‘by means of forging connections and tracing common themes’.
The aspect of improvisation is then explored in an individual material-based writing task, focusing on a single excerpt, the second available one from The 400 Blows (Truffaut, 1959). Here, the character Antoine is invited to a fictional psychologist, whose questions the 14-year-old actor Jean Pierre Léaud must answer, partly improvising from his role. Further material is provided: the commentary on the website and one or two texts about acting and improvisation (such as the ones by Jean Renoir in the bibliography on the CCAJ website). Using this material, the students complete individual assignments that describe the excerpt, explain the term ‘improvisation’ and maybe prepare a diary entry written by Jean Pierre Léaud. This, finally, leads to an argumentative text assignment, exploring the scene according to the leading question and analysing the excerpt in terms of some of Truffaut’s staging decisions. Previously formed writing competencies are expected for this task. The text may be completed as homework if necessary.
Fifth lesson: revision of argumentative texts (discussion of results) and consolidation of improvisation (FRs)
First, the previous results are discussed. The argumentative texts are reflected upon in terms of the approach to these types of texts and the characteristics of well-written argumentative texts, revising previous knowledge.
Then, the topic of improvisation is consolidated. Two final excerpts are discussed using the classic variant of FRs, led by the question ‘How do I stage …?’ – in this case, ‘How do I stage a table scene?’ In the two excerpts from Loulou (Pialat, 1980) and A Woman Under the Influence (Cassavetes, 1974), the cinematically complicated motif of a meal with an ensemble of actors is staged, but very diverse dynamics are unfolding. Their comparison points to several previously discussed aspects: the improvisation of acting and interactions, real-life activities (eating) and the integration of chance (the dog chasing the chicken, an actor choking while eating). By comparing the lively atmosphere in Loulou to Cassavetes’ sequence – more strongly composed, characterised by silent communication and a tense atmosphere – the overarching topic ‘Reality in Fiction’ is deepened and certain staging decisions to achieve these different aesthetic impressions are brought to light. As homework, the students are led to explore their personal tastes (Bergala, 2006, pp. 49–64; Henzler, 2013, pp. 78–114) by being asked to describe and justify which style of the two scenes they prefer. This can perhaps also contribute towards the formation of aesthetic judgement, which is a central competency for literary education.
Sixth lesson: performance assessment (material-based writing)
Lastly, the class work is carried out via the format of MBW. Thematically, materials are compiled around the aspect of ‘real bodies, real skills’: excerpts and commentaries are taken from Little Fugitive (Engel et al., 1953) (group 2), Seven Chances (Keaton, 1925), The 400 Blows (Truffaut, 1959) (group 3), Modern Times (Chaplin, 1936) and Rosetta (Dardenne and Dardenne, 1999) – from which the students should select at least two for their text. Further texts are also used, such as memories of actors about selected shoots, reviews of films that demand particular physical skills and one or two theoretical texts. From these, the students are to write an explanatory-argumentative article titled ‘Fictional Character, Real Body’ for their school magazine, also drawing on the insights they have gained from the teaching unit. In this way, an assessment of the film education progress is carried out, which at the same time assesses their competency in argumentative writing.
Summary: teaching material-based film lessons
This unit is intended to demonstrate how a teaching design in the spirit of FM and based on the CCAJ website might look. It is just one of many examples of how a material-based film education could be realised using this resource. I hereby hope to motivate interested teachers to use the platform in their classes and more generally to endorse the feasibility of FM in school education. In this sense, the platform can empower teachers to develop their very own film units, lessons or tasks in line with their own film preferences and expertise, connecting them with their subject requirements and yet facilitating education in the spirit of FM.
The CCAJ website as a model: digital structures for teaching film
This essay does not allow for a more detailed discussion of a highly relevant and deeply connected topic when talking about material and nexus: certain technologies that can structurally realise the practices of iconology and therefore carry enormous educational potential. Many scholars and practitioners associated with FM, first of all Bergala, recognised this potential early on in DVD technology and used it for their own purposes (Bergala, 2006, pp. 76–80; Henzler, 2009b). The CCAJ platform demonstrates that both today and in the future similar and possibly greater advantages can be realised using digital technology. Additionally, it has been shown that the digital tool in question – the CCAJ’s website – is promising to address some of the central integration hurdles of FM in regular school education, making materials more accessible and FM techniques seem more feasible.
In this sense, the legacy of CCAJ potentially extends beyond the existing platform: the website could serve as a model for expanding digital structures for national or international film education in schools. Websites created based on this model could even more directly address the concerns of integrating FM in regular school practices. For example, more subject-specific topics or subject materials (paintings, literature, music compositions) could be added to strengthen the curricular connection. The individual topics could be presented in a more systematic manner on the website for greater transparency and interlinkage of educational content. Similarly to Lumière Minutes on the CCAJ platform, additional teaching guidelines could be provided – for example, as modelled here and/or as by Chambers (2022) and others. Such a platform could grow steadily and be enriched with more and more materials over time.
Of course, such an endeavour would face problems, such as copyright or translation issues. However, particularly in view of the persistently sparse policy-driven structural support for film education, such a platform could be a promising tool, with a potentially wide reach into schools. A digital platform with thematically curated and carefully processed resources, accessible to all, carrying some of CCAJ’s heritage into regular school education, might speak to the ‘utopian ambition’ mentioned by Chambers (2022, p. 139) and the stated aim of ‘film education for all’, making this a little more tangible.
Notes
- The term ‘film mediation’ was created through a double translation, originally coming from the subtitle of Bergala’s essay, which talks about transmission du cinéma. In the German publication, this was translated to Filmvermittlung. This became the umbrella term for all German film educational approaches that in some way derive from Bergala’s ideas (see Henzler and Pauleit, 2009). Here I have translated it as ‘film mediation’, with which I want to identify the international educational efforts deriving from Bergala. This conceptual (self-)designation furthermore already marks a clear difference from alternative descriptions such as education, pedagogy or didactics.⮭
- For a detailed discussion of possible reasons for the distance between FM and the educational context of schools, different national pedagogies and educational systems would have to be included and examined in detail. In the following outline, I refer primarily to German school didactics and also focus on the German-language texts of FM, since only these can realistically be received and integrated by German school didactics. ⮭
- For example in the diverse reflections on working with so-called film-mediating films (Baute, 2009; Henzler, 2009b; Pantenburg, 2009), with experimental films (Pantenburg and Schlüter, 2011; Rüffert, 2009; Zahn, 2014), with film fragments (Bergala, 2006; Henzler, 2013; Henzler, 2023), with analytical and practical methods of the Schaffensprozess of a film (Bergala, 2006; Henzler, 2013), etc. Furthermore, FMAs often analyse the learning situation as a triangular relationship in which the teacher also plays a particular role as a passeur (Bergala, 2006; Henzler, 2013). From the viewpoint of regular didactics, dealing with specific teaching scenarios in such detail is likely to appear unproductive or out of context if the learning objectives to be achieved with them have not been explicitly defined beforehand. For didactics, the ambitious student-oriented goals of FMAs, such as the formation of taste, aesthetic judgement or identity (Henzler, 2013), are too rough a goal orientation to be able to didactically justify concrete decisions about teaching designs.⮭
- The highly presuppositional character of many of these approaches is evidenced by the fact that the film theoretical and cultural theoretical foundations of Alain Bergala’s (2006) seminal essay first had to be carved out by an individually designated dissertation project (Henzler, 2013).⮭
- In German schools, film is now part of the domain of the subjects of German, foreign languages, art and, very minimally, music. It is also part of an interdisciplinary media curriculum, to be carried out by teachers of all subjects.⮭
- General disclaimer: All quotes from German language texts or the French language bibliography on the website have been translated by the author.⮭
- For an explanation of the task format, see Kultusministerkonferenz (2012, pp. 24–26). For a demonstration of its fundamental significance for German didactics, as one of just five possible task formats for the German Abitur examination, see Kultusministerkonferenz (2012: 28–118).⮭
- It is one of the requirements of the task format that the materials should always be domain-specific to the respective subject. As mentioned before, in German schools, film is now part of the domain of the subjects German, foreign languages, art and, very minimally, music.⮭
- For the start of the lesson I chose a film example not from the website. This is, first, to link the abstract topic more closely to the students’ lives (here the teacher needs to find a suitable example), but mainly because I wanted to avoid predetermining one of the aspects of the development phases by choosing a film excerpt from the website.⮭
Declarations and conflicts of interest
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Not applicable to this article.
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Conflicts of interest statement
The author declares no conflicts of interest with this work. All efforts to sufficiently anonymise the author during peer review of this article have been made. The author declares no further conflicts with this article.
Filmography
Cassavetes, J. (Director) (1974) A Woman Under the Influence. Faces International Films.
Chaplin, C. (Director) (1936) Modern Times. Charles Chaplin Productions.
Dardenne, L. and Dardenne, J.P. (Directors) (1999) Rosetta. Les Films du Fleuve; RTBF; ARP Sélection.
Diop, D. M. (Director) (1998) The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun. Waka Films; Maag Daan.
Engel, M., Ashley, R., and Orkin, R. (Directors) (1953) Little Fugitive. Little Fugitive Production Company.
Keaton, B. (Director) (1925) Seven Chances. Buster Keaton Productions.
Kiarostami, A. (Director) (1999) The Wind Will Carry Us. MK2 Films; Kiarostami Foundation.
Pialat, M. (Director) (1980) Loulou. Gaumont; Action Films.
Renoir, J. (Director) (1932) Boudu Saved from Drowning. Les Établissements Jacques Haïk; Les Productions Michel Simon; Crédit Cinématographique Français.
Rohmer, E. (Director) (1996) A Summer’s Tale. Sofilmka; Les Films du Losange; La Sept Cinéma.
Rossellini, R. (Director) (1946) Paisà. Organizzazione Film Internazionali; Foreign Film Productions.
Rossellini, R. (Director) (1948) Germany, Year Zero. Produzione Salvo D’Angelo; Tevere Film; DEFA; SAFDI; UGC Films.
Rossellini, R. (Director) (1950) Stromboli. RKO Radio Pictures; Berit Film.
Rozier, J. (Director) (1973) Near Orouet. V. M. Productions; Antinea.
Siodmak, R. and Ulmer, E. (Directors) (1929) People on Sunday. Filmstudio 1929; Filmstudio Berlin.
Sücksdorff, A. (Director) (1953) The Great Adventure. Arne Sucksdorff Filmproduktion.
Tarkowsky, A. (Director) (1986) Sacrifice. Faragó Film; Svenska Filminstitutet.
Truffaut, F. (Director) (1959) The 400 Blows. Les Films du Carrosse; Les Films du Carrosse.
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