Language-related popular films?

Tue Aug 15 19:13:06 UTC 2006

Another "classic" (I guess) is "Santa Fe Trail" (1940), which is riddled
with racism, but also has a scene I show my students, where a Native
American woman tells the future. She speaks her own language (we're in
Kansas somewhere), and Olivia de Havilland translates expertly.

I use this to illustrate the "noble savage" idea, as well as the
feminization of language learning (women learn languages; men stand around
and wait for the women to translate, etc. (cf. with The Mummy)) as in
"What's she saying, Kit? You speak the lingo."

Here's some details from the Internet Movie data base:

"The tenor of the times is surely well represented, with moral confusion
and conflict between friends. The most effective scene in the film is the
one where the fortune teller, by the light of a campfire, tells all the
young officers that they will someday fight one another. Their faces
lighted by the flames, they react with nervous astonishment. Hollywood
overlaid this confusion with their own ambivalence, stemming form the fact
that white southerners were viewed as a more significant market than black
audiences. Thus pro slavers are viewed with more sympathy than fanatical
abolitionists and blacks are depicted in an absurd, bug-eyed, "feet don't
desert me now!" fashion that is unwatchable to modern audiences and should
have been to 1940 audiences but apparently wasn't. On top of that, the
1940 nervousness over the coming war is clearly reflected in these
character's attitudes toward the coming war of 1861. I agree that the film
is not pro slavery so much as it's against fanaticism and the John
Brown/bin-Laden comparison some have made seems accurate."

Errol Flynn ....  Jeb Stuart; Olivia de Havilland ....  Kit Carson
Holliday; Raymond Massey ....  John Brown; Ronald Reagan ....  George
Armstrong Custer"

Hal Schiffman

On Tue, 15 Aug 2006 samuels at anthro.umass.edu wrote:

> If you're interested in classics, there's Ball of Fire (1941) starring Gary
> Coopoer and Barbara Stanwyck. And of course My Fair Lady, if your students are
> of a musical bent....
>
> David
>
> Quoting Ken Ehrensal <ehrensal at kutztown.edu>:
>
> > Kerim,
> >
> > If you can get episodes from "Star Trek: The Next Generation"  there is one
> > titled "Darmock" in which the Enterprise encounter an 'enigmatic' people
> > with whom others have not been able to establish communication.  The aliens
> > speak a language that has as its logic that it refers to metaphor and the
> > imagery of myths; not S-O-V like Picard and his crew.
> >
> > Ken
> >
> >
> > *************************************************
> > It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends
> >
> > upon his not understanding it. -- Upton Sinclair
> >
> > *************************************************
> > Ken Ehrensal
> > Associate Professor, Management Department
> > Kutztown Univ. of PA
> > ehrensal at kutztown.edu
> > http://faculty.kutztown.edu/ehrensal/
> > **************************************************
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Kerim Friedman" <oxusnet at gmail.com>
> > To: <linganth at cc.rochester.edu>
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 2:19 AM
> > Subject: [Linganth] Language-related popular films?
> >
> >
> > > Teaching in Taiwan, I find my students do not have the English ability
> > > necessary to follow films like "American Tongues" and "Cross Talk" -
> > > but many Hollywood films, and some documentaries from the Discovery
> > > Channel and National Geographic, etc. are available here with Chinese
> > > subtitles at the night market. Which brings me to my question: Can
> > > anyone think of popular films (contemporary or classics, US or
> > > foreign) with language related themes that might be suitable for
> > > teaching? I've thought of a few, but I'm not too happy with the list
> > > so far:
> > >
> > > Windtalkers (2002)
> > > Pygmalion (1938)
> > > The Unconquered (1954)
> > > Enfant sauvage, L' (1970) (many more such films about feral children
> > > are listed at http://www.feralchildren.com )
> > > Children of a Lesser God (1986)
> > > Ishi: The Last Yahi (1992)
> > > Lost in Translation (2003)
> > > The Conversation (1974)
> > >
> > > I almost added Blazing Saddles for the Yiddish-speaking Indian chief,
> > > but then thought better of it...
> > >
> > > Obviously some of these films are better than others (as far as
> > > teaching is concerned) - but I just wanted to put something out to jog
> > > people's minds. Send your suggestions to me at this address (off
> > > list): oxusnet [at] gmail [dot] com.
> > >
> > > I'm traveling for a while, but I'll edit together all the suggestions
> > > and mail it back to the list  (and on the web) when I get back.  When
> > > you send your suggestions please state how I should list your name and
> > > affiliation if I post this list publicly on the web.
> > >
> > > Thanks!
> > >
> > > Kerim
> > >
> > > --
> > > ____________________________________
> > > P. Kerim Friedman
> > > Department of Indigenous Cultures
> > > College of Indigenous Studies
> > > National DongHwa University, TAIWAN
> > > http://kerim.oxus.net/
> > > ______________________________
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>