Remedial Reading Comprehension
Encyclopedia
Remedial Reading Comprehension is an experimental
short film by Owen Land, produced in 1970
.
. Land combines found colour footage
, a mock television commercial about rice
, text from a speed-reading manual, and footage of the director running, with the superimposed words, "This Is A Film About You... Not Its Maker." The speed-reading text is taken from "Pupils into Students," an essay written by Jacques Barzun
and published in Teacher in America (1945).
Remedial Reading Comprehension forms part of the structural film
movement of the 1960s and 70s, in that it considers "film itself as subject matter, its basic structures rather than its actual physical presence." The film opens with a woman dreaming about an auditorium of people, who are sitting down as though about to watch a movie. In this scene, Land's camera assumes the point-of-view of the movie screen itself.
movement. Scholar Fred Camper wrote that the film “does not try to build up an illusion of reality, to combine the images together with the kind of spatial or rhythmic continuity that would suggest that one is watching “real” people or objects. It works rather toward the opposite end, to make one aware of the unreality, the created and mechanical nature, of film.” Wheeler Dixon wrote that "the film acts upon us, addressing us, viewing us as we view it, until the film itself becomes a gaze, rather than an object to be gazed upon.” J.D. Connor considered Remedial Reading Comprehension to be an "odd intervention" in the structural film movement, in that it retains "the Romantic interest in dreams and personae" away from which avant-garde cinema had been moving.
Experimental film
Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...
short film by Owen Land, produced in 1970
1970 in film
The year 1970 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 9 - Larry Fine, the second member of The Three Stooges, suffers a massive stroke, therefore ending his career....
.
Description
Remedial Reading Comprehension takes the form of an ephemeral or educational filmEducational film
An educational film is a film or movie whose primary purpose is to educate. Educational films have been used in classrooms as an alternative to other teaching methods.-Cultural significance:...
. Land combines found colour footage
Found footage
Found footage is a filmmaking term which describes a method of compiling films partly or entirely of footage which has not been created by the filmmaker, and changing its meaning by placing it in a new context. It should not be mistaken for documentary or compilation films. It is also not to be...
, a mock television commercial about rice
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
, text from a speed-reading manual, and footage of the director running, with the superimposed words, "This Is A Film About You... Not Its Maker." The speed-reading text is taken from "Pupils into Students," an essay written by Jacques Barzun
Jacques Barzun
Jacques Martin Barzun is a French-born American historian of ideas and culture. He has written on a wide range of topics, but is perhaps best known as a philosopher of education, his Teacher in America being a strong influence on post-WWII training of schoolteachers in the United...
and published in Teacher in America (1945).
Remedial Reading Comprehension forms part of the structural film
Structural film
Structural film was an experimental film movement prominent in the US in the 1960s and which developed into the Structural/materialist films in the UK in the 1970s.-Overview:The term was coined by P...
movement of the 1960s and 70s, in that it considers "film itself as subject matter, its basic structures rather than its actual physical presence." The film opens with a woman dreaming about an auditorium of people, who are sitting down as though about to watch a movie. In this scene, Land's camera assumes the point-of-view of the movie screen itself.
Reception
Remedial Reading Comprehension is considered a prominent and important work in the structural filmStructural film
Structural film was an experimental film movement prominent in the US in the 1960s and which developed into the Structural/materialist films in the UK in the 1970s.-Overview:The term was coined by P...
movement. Scholar Fred Camper wrote that the film “does not try to build up an illusion of reality, to combine the images together with the kind of spatial or rhythmic continuity that would suggest that one is watching “real” people or objects. It works rather toward the opposite end, to make one aware of the unreality, the created and mechanical nature, of film.” Wheeler Dixon wrote that "the film acts upon us, addressing us, viewing us as we view it, until the film itself becomes a gaze, rather than an object to be gazed upon.” J.D. Connor considered Remedial Reading Comprehension to be an "odd intervention" in the structural film movement, in that it retains "the Romantic interest in dreams and personae" away from which avant-garde cinema had been moving.