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In a million years I could never have imagined anything this crazy. At UC Santa Barbara, the Professors are teaching the students to be Communists. It’s being done in the Film Theory Department.
[Professor] Branigan has tangled brown-gray hair, a shaggy beard, large glasses coated with flecks of dandruff and fingerprints, and wears an oversized gray sweater and corduroy pants. As he speaks, his hands grasp at the air, shaping it as he shapes his thoughts. He punches certain words out with an odd, inflectionless emphasis. “The nature of the photography: Benjamin says the camera strips people who are in front of the camera lenslike actorsand alienaaaates them from their labor! Alienaaaation! False coooonsciousness! ... Benjamin says the camera does not show the equipment that’s used to make the film. It obscures or hides or masks THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION! Now in Marxism if you hide the process of production, you are obscuring and further alienating the labor that goes into that, the BOOODILY labor that yoooou are contributing to that manufacture. OK? Which is a bad, bad fact. . . .”
Well, surely that was just one lecture. That’s not really what they’re teaching. That would be absurd. Even Russia has abandoned Communism, for gosh sakes. Let’s see how a UC Santa Barbara student sums up what he’s being taught:
“I love film theory,” says Chris Scotten. ... “We learn how film psychologically manipulates us, and the power inherent in the language of cinema. It can be two things, a useful propaganda tool in a communist revolution, or part of the capitalist superstructure, a way of lulling the working class into a haze to subdue them and give them an escape from the pressures of reality. The old communists writing about film theory in Russia and Germany really had something to say, and it’s still relevant today. You’ve got about six companies that own the biggest, most awesome propaganda machine in the history of the whole wretched world. What are the consequences of that?”
Did you see that? “A useful propaganda tool in a communist revolution”?
From Kevin Brownlow, the world’s leading silent movie historian, author of “The Parade’s Gone By . . .,” and co-producer, with David Gill, of acclaimed documentaries: “You would think, from this closed-circuit attitude to teaching, that such academics would be politically right wing. .... But they are not right wing. They are, regrettably, usually left wingquite aggressively Marxistwhich makes the whole situation even more alarming.”
These ultra-leftwing professors are actually advocating Communism. The author of this article, David Weddle, was shocked to find out he’d spent thousands of dollars to have his daughter taught that she ought to be a Marxist.
This is just too ridiculous.
#1hey man -- it's all good. i don't think any of us who graduated from ucsb in the film studies department read you as a "commie pinko" -- i read that article and came away with the distinct gross taste in my mouth for this david weddle character and a deep deep pity that his daughter is a raging moron.
#3I saw said article in the Los Angeles Times Magazine and was just surprised that my cuz actually was quoted in it. I will have you all know that he has been disowned by the whole family for being a stinkin communist. We deported him to Cuba last month where he will probably be doing more commie propaganda films... Peace.
#4In addition to "Communist Film Theory," UCSB 's film department also offers courses in "Cinema as a Means to Make Contact With Extra-Terrestrial Lifeforms," and "Queers in German Expressionism." You should check it out.
David Weddle's article on UCSB's film department is nothing but deliberate slander, as far from the truth as anything gets.
Chris Scotten, the student Weddle misrepresents as a fanatical Communist, has this to say about the article's many half-truths and lies:
"I am Chris Scotten and I am not nor have ever been a member of the Communist Party, and yet like the rest of our film theory faculty I come off in David Weedle's article as a rabid and fanatical Marxist. My quote in the LA Times Magazine is the result of the cutting and pasting of statements spanning our entire one hour conversation. I was asked why I like Film Theory, of what value this class has been to me, my career aspirations, how I think film theory applies to today, ect. ect. Concerning the last question I ran the gamut of theorists (Eisenstein, Munsterberg, Arnheim, Bazin, ect) from the first half of the course. In the portion of my quote that reads "it can be two things, a useful propaganda tool in a communist revolution, or part of the capitalist superstructure, a way of lulling the working class into a haze to subdue them and give them an escape from the pressures of reality" I am merely paraphrasing Walter Benjamin. It is also pertinent to note that the lecture that Edward Branigan is quoted from, in which Edward is also paraphrasing Benjamin, was not the lecture that Janet Walker and Mr. Weedle attended. He visited a later lecture which featured Walter Benjamin (for the obvious reasons). These ideas do not in any way represent the political stance of either myself or Edward. My purpose for paraphrasing Benjamin was to talk about the negative effects of media conglomeration in today's society (a stance that has gained a lot of momentum since the recent FCC decision).
However, Mr. Weedle was only interested in, and went well out of his way to, portray me as a commie-pinko student brainwashed by eccentric mad-scientist Marxist professors.
It is a horrible feeling to be used as ammunition against my own beloved department. I deeply regret, as I believe the faculty does as well, that the article came out the way it did. However terrible this experience has been for me I am determined to make something constructive of it. I would like for this to be a warning to anyone else who will come in contact with journalists in the future. Not only must we carefully monitior the direction of our conversations with them, but also be very clear as to the intentions of the writer for the piece. Journalists and writers have free-range to paint their subjects in any way that they choose. This is point is painfully obvious considering the malicious physical descriptions of Constance Penley and Edward. Your words can be manipulated and bent against you. This kind of conniving and underhanded behavior actually does pass for journalism. I am sorry to have been implicated in this hatchet job of an article. I would like to thank everyone for allowing me to take this opportunity to explain my involvement with this filthy piece of trash of an article."