Why Use Film?

Most young people like and regularly watch movies!

Film is popular and credible amongst children and their parents

...it is also marketed directly at them even when inappropriate

Survey an average Reception class and you will be amazed at how many 4-year-old boys can describe Spiderman’s cinematic costume, adventures and adversaries even though both Spider-Man 1 and 2 (Note) were released on a 12/PG certificate in the cinema and on DVD/Video.

The popularity of film assists the RE teacher because pupils are enthusiastic about watching film in the classroom

However, they are not necessarily critical readers.

Film is more than a narrative - we have to be sensitive to, and able to explore the whole package:

The leap between passive consumption and critical evaluation can be large but is an essential part in the development of pupils’ critical thinking skills.

Consider why they sympathise with one character and despise another, why they feel tense this moment and amused the next. This involves reflection on more than the narrative and characterisation - it also involves acknowledgment of, and reflection upon, the mechanics of cinematic presentation: the direction, lighting, dialogue, costumes and so on, without which film would remain a screenplay.

Films are about life; the ‘stuff’ of RE

Film is a medium through which humans seek to explore, explain and rationalise their place within the world.

Suggest a topic covered in RE and you can almost certainly identify a film that addresses it (although it may not then be appropriate for use in the classroom!). Mainstream films repeatedly reference, address, and sometimes depend upon religious ideas, language, concepts, figures and narratives. The fact that film does so often usurp the ‘stuff of faith’ makes an exploration of film in RE not just valuable but sometimes essential.

Do we want our pupils to accept uncritically ‘resurrection’ as it is named and presented in The Mummy (Note) or understand prophecy purely in terms of The Matrix (Note)?

The fact that film is so much a part of children’s lives makes it even more important that we enable them to articulate, explore and evaluate the (often implicit) messages they contain.

Spider-Man (2002, 12) Spider-Man 2 (2004, PG)

The Mummy (1999, 12 [cinema], 15 [DVD]) www.themummy.com

The Matrix (1999, 15) www.whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com