The Colby Echo

Issue date: 4/29/09 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Beth Cole

AM 378 is more than just a series of numbers and letters. It is more than just a course, for that matter. For those students who have taken or are taking Professor of English Phyllis Mannocchi's American Studies class American Dreams: The Documentary Film Perspective, it has been a source of inspiration and an eye-opening experience.

The College's only production-based class-which has, according to Mannocchi, existed "in some form since 1978" when she came to the College-is in its last year.

At the start of the semester, the class, which is capped at 30 and limited to seniors, watches all sorts of documentaries with a critical eye. "Documentaries are often viewed as objective, but they're not," Whitney Lynn '09, a current student, said. "Anything you see is edited. Her classmate, Tarini Manchanda '09, echoed her sentiments: "I don't really think that there is really any objectivity in film…[you are] looking at the world through the eyes of the film-maker."

The course description points to the "reality or art, truth-telling or fiction-making, propaganda or objective presentation, responsibility of the filmmaker" at the heart of these discussions.

After engaging in the work of others, the course moves on to the hands-on part: making documentaries. Split into five groups of six, the students come up with a topic for a 12-15 minute piece concerning an aspect of life in Maine. This year, students are researching and trying to capture the stories of Waterville's own Hathaway mill, the economic role of maple sugaring, coming out as a gay teen in Maine, the National Guard and railfans, who are a rare and dedicated breed of railroad enthusiasts.

Lynn's group is creating the documentary on the National Guard. Currently in the final stages of production, the film focuses "mainly on the young people…how being in the National Guard has shifted the course of their lives and how they view deployment." She discussed the stigma that has surrounded the National Guard, especially after the John Kerry/George W. Bush presidential race in 2004. "People are excited to know that we're interested in it…it's so far removed from what we usually do."

"It's teach-as-you-go. It gets you off the Hill and gets you involved in the community in [unusual and deep ways]," she said. Maine has a rich military history that Lynn says she is just learning about and experiencing for the first time in her four years in Waterville.

Continued...

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