IT IS the question asked by desperate teachers in classrooms all over the world: how do you interest teenagers in high culture and global affairs when all they can think about is romance, rebellion and sex?
In France, they think they may have found the answer: make romance, rebellion and sex part of the average school day.
As part of the government’s bid to reconnect the younger generation with the cherished “seventh art”, minister for education Luc Chatel unveiled plans for a nationwide film club that will see 200 cinematic classics made available on an online database.
When the country's secondary schools go back after the summer holiday this year, all will have access to the catalogue of world films including François Truffaut's Les Quatre Cents Coupsand Orson Welles's Citizen Kane.
It is hoped that viewing Brigitte Bardot cavorting in Le Méprisand John Wayne gun-toting in Rio Bravowill encourage adolescents to further their knowledge of global culture.
“We teach literature, music and theatre at school, and we believe it is essential that cinema be taught as well. It is absolutely vital, even more so because images play such a role in our society and it very important that young people learn to detect and decode images,” said Costa Gavras, president of Paris’s Cinémathèque.
Last year, while outlining wider reforms of the secondary school, system, Nicolas Sarkozy mooted the idea of a modern equivalent to the cineclub, saying that France’s film heritage was being neglected by young people. “It is vital that we give them the major works of the seventh art as key reference points,” he said.
Today, as the first details of the chosen films emerged, minister for culture Frédéric Mitterrand said that, in immersing themselves in fictional masterpieces, pupils would be getting to grips with reality. "Works of art are wonderful tools for understanding the world in which we live," he said. " Citizen Kane. . . is a remarkable film for understanding the machinations of power, the machinations of ambition. You can compare it with contemporary figures who are ambitious, who want to achieve something and you have an absolutely extraordinary means of understanding them," he said.
The club will be run from the website cinelycee.fr. Mr Chatel said it could be used either in conjunction with the core curriculum, such as literature or history lessons, or outside of regular school hours. – (Guardian service)