“Not to know is bad,” goes an African proverb. “Not to wish to know,” it continues, “is worse.”
My sentiments exactly.
When we have real information and not fake news, we often find motivation to act in keeping with conscience. Over the many years, I have found that film (now often called video) makes a wonderful catalyst for providing information and stimulating discussion.
Whether sponsored by Northampton Committee to Stop the Wars, Sut Jhally’s Media Education Foundation, or American Friends Service Committee, film moves people to act.
Almost fifty years ago, as our government continually misled people about what really went on in Vietnam, I decided to show “The Quiet Mutiny,” the first of sixty documentary films by the prolific Australian documentarian, John Pilger.
During the Vietnam war years, he won British press association awards for excellence in journalism as he drove out the truth about the Vietnam war.
People in our area didn’t know much about what was really going on in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. As part of my AFSC activities, I showed “The Quiet Mutiny” to a full house in my basement and then orchestrated a discussion. We all found it enlightening and shocking, and many people grew committed to ending the war. Over time, I showed many documentary films.
In those days before YouTube and Netflix, I had to operate a 16-millimeter sound projector after driving a considerable distance to pick up the film roll in a heavy metal 20x20x2-inch can. Sometimes during a showing, a film broke, and I’d have to repair it with tape.
Eventually, always to illuminate people’s understanding — and often in cooperation with Forbes Library, the resistance community or Mount Toby Society of Friends — I showed movies about apartheid in South Africa, injustices in the Middle East, lack of ethics and greed of weapons manufacturers, potential horrors of impending wars in Central America, Iraq, Afghanistan and more.
Encouraging discussion after showing films always brought light to issues and issues to light as the film and conversation moved us to resistance action.
Slowly, technology evolved from film cannisters through VHS tapes and DVDs to current possibilities of streaming movies directly through a laptop to a computerized projector.
For different causes, I’ve found especially effective films. We showed “Gods of Metal” to question the use of nuclear weapons, “When the Mountains Tremble”about El Salvador and Guatemala and ”Controlling Interest, the World of the Global Corporations.” David Goodman’s “Witness to War” provides a clear ethical message.
In 1991, Sut Jhally, professor of communication at University of Massachusetts Amherst, founded Media Education Foundation, located for a long time on Masonic Street in Northampton. We showed films every week there for fourteen years in cooperation with MEF until Woodstar Café expanded into the space. We always had a good discussion.
Since 2004, Northampton Committee to Stop the Wars has sponsored frequent films about peace and justice for discussion, often showing as many as one a week. Find a list of all films shown at northamptoncommittee.org/films/. Carolyn Toll Oppenheim often coordinates Northampton Committee showings.
One of my favorite stories about a film dates back to when I had to drive somewhere to pick up a film canister. My friend Johnnetta Cole, who later served as president of Spelman College and director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of African Art, taught with the UMass anthropology faculty. She played a key role in founding the UMass department of African-American Studies.
Johnetta called me one day after she left UMass to suggest I show “Last Grave at Dimbaza” and orchestrate a discussion to encourage universities and individuals to stop investing in South African companies because of apartheid.
I arranged to get the movie, scheduled to arrive in time to show it to UMass trustees at lunch during one of their meetings. After a hair-raising runaround, I picked up the film cannister and arrived at UMass just in time to show the movie to the trustees. Riveted, they watched it during lunch and barely touched their chicken salad.
Trustees eventually voted to divest from South Africa in the late 1980s.
I am still using film for change, through The Resistance Film Series I help organize with Carolyn Oppenheim. Films are screened free of charge the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month at Forbes Library’s community room from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. and will continue until justice prevails. On Feb. 13th, we are showing “Boys Like Us.” Made by a Northampton High School senior, the film interviews local men like Bill Dwight about their views of “toxic” masculinity. Find the full list of films on the Northampton Committee to Stop the Wars’s website northamptoncommittee.org.
A 1977 Gazette article described Frances Crowe as “a long-time anti-war activist.” The founder of the American Friends Service Committee of Western Massachusetts, Crowe continues her pioneering peace work today.