1. Read the Eisner handout on Artists vs. Scientists on reserve in the Library. This course will ask you to look at how the concerns of social scientists and artists (in this case film makers) differ.

2. Read the book, Past Imperfect, during the term (and notify me by e-mail when you have finished).

3. See eleven of the films reviewed in that book, then, AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK, notify me via e-mail when and where you saw the film, and include a short paragraph in which you identify the most serious point in the review about any "artistic license" the film took. It is usually helpful if you quote the text at least twice and then explain very specifically why that quotation applies to your understanding of the film. If you do more than one film a week, submit it separately. Your reviews are kept individual "folders" so this is particularly important.

4. By the end of the course turn in at least five type written pages on the following assignment(s).

    First, reread the summary sheets on the Eisner article (on Reserve) about "the differences between scientists and artists" and the "questions to be raised about each movie."

    This assignment expects you to check whether Eisner's generalizations about the differences between (social) scientists and artists hold true about the reviews you have read about selected movies. (That is, you would expect the UCLA Law Professors who wrote Reel Justice, or the Historians who wrote Past Imperfect to have the concerns of the social scientists, while the film maker was practicing her/his art.) To what extent do the movie reviews in your text reflect a "scientific" critique of the "artistic" movie? Answer each of the following questions in that regard (not all questions will be equally important). ( You may answer these questions about one specific movie and review, or about the reviews and movies as a whole. Do be specific in examples from the movies and reviews that support your answers.) Remember, the movies do reflect an "artistic" view of the world, and your job is to use your text to contrast it with the more objective 'scientific' way of looking at the same issues.

1. Is the review written in more formal, impersonal, standard precise, literal, objective language (for example, more than you would expect to find in a newspaper review)? How does the review treat the more creative, personal, metaphoric, subjective, imaginative content of the film?
2. Did this film move you? Did it "work"? Did you like it? What about these questions for the reviewer? Was the reviewer critical of any of the film's "facts"? Did the review criticize any of the film's "conclusions"?
3. Hopefully the film led you to "imaginatively participate in the experiences of another." Was the reviewer critical that this might have been misleading about how things "really are"? How?
4. What can be "generalized" about the movie? (In what ways is the movie, perhaps, misleading about any groups depicted? On the other hand, in what way is there something about the individuals or situation that is common to most all people?)
5. What does the review say, or what can be said, about how the film is "creative" in its form (in contrast to social science research).
6. What "license" was taken with the "truth"? Did this license somehow help with the story line, or was it harmful to the quality of the movie?
7. What aspect of the movie is most heightened, distorted, altered for dramatic effect?
8. How does the view of the film seem particular, even peculiar, to the artist (instead of a more balanced, general view of how things are thought to be)?
9.What was the role of emotion in how you understand the film? Does the reviewer criticize this in anyway? What is the balance between reason and emotion in terms of how you are influenced by the film?
10.To what extent is the reviewer more concerned about "truth," but the film maker more concerned about "meaning"?
11. To what extent have these distinctions clarified the problems between the "truth" that social scientists seeks versus the "meaning" artists intend to convey?

    IF, your answers to the above questions don't result in a five page paper, or IF you'd like to comment on this anyway, consider the following quotation (also from Elliot Eisner):

Expressive outcomes... are esentially what one ends up with, intended or not, after some form of engagement. Expressive outcomes are the consequences of curriculum activities that are intentionally planned to provide a fertile field for personal purposing and experience.