Teach Our Children, 1972
NYU Cinema Studies professor Jonathan Kahana acted as moderator and introduced this afternoon's panel, Camera News, Inc. and the Newsreel Collectives. Eric Breitbart, who was drafted in the fall of 1964, would later find his way to the New York Newsreel- an alternative film news source that would later sprout many branches throughout the country. Newsreel was anti-institution, going against the grain of homogenized television and paper news and acknowledging the fabrication of objective reporting. Through the work of the Pacific Film Archive and Orphans, the audience was able to view The Army Film from 1969 which documented thoughtful dissension and conscience protest in the Army during the Vietnam War. Weaving training footage with protest footage and interviews with AWOL soldiers, The Army Film seemed to speak to our spoke to our contemporary audience and our contemporary war.
Orphans audience during the Newsreel panel
Jonathan Kahana and Pamela Jean Smith of the Pacific Film Archive next introduced Teach Our Children, an American prison documentary from 1972. (The Pacific Film Archive has an extensive collection of both Newsreel and California Newsreel films.) The prison films of the 1960s reflected the narrative of the time, the introspection and splintering of the Left, and the need to address the function of police. A new collective life and spirit was evolving in American prisons. Teach Our Children documented this new spirit at Attica prison and the subsequent riot. Smith elaborated on the provenance of the film, as it has been interpreted both as the last of the New York Newsreel and the first of the new Third World Newsreel.
After the screening of this powerful incendiary document, a flurry of questions followed. Many saw Teach Our Children as extremely relevant to today and were anxious to see it accessible to the general public. Breitbart agreed but stated that he would encourage contemporary audiences to make their own films, taking the good aspects of the Newsreel organization and leaving the bad. Kahana elaborated on the film, acknowledging its playful mood, which is absent in much contemporary protest film. In the end, the audience was left in awe of the film's retention of raw visceral power.
Eric Breitbart, Pamela Jean Smith, and Jonathan Kahana field questions