FMU’s English Film Series held two showings of Jordan Peele’s film “Nope” in the Lowrimore Auditorium in the Cauthen Education Media Center on Oct. 17 in honor of the Halloween season and as a way to facilitate interpretative conversation between students.
“This was actually my first time going to the English Film Series, and I had a lot of fun,” Artie Cunningham, sophomore graphic design major, said. “I think it’s a great way to like understand movies in a way because movies are a piece of art but they’re also a piece of writing kind of turned into a visual media, so to have an English professor be like, ‘hey this is kind of what this means from a literary standpoint’ was really interesting.”
The English Film Series takes place around two to three times a semester. The series shows a movie and usually has an optional discussion take place afterwards. These discussions tend to led by the head of the English Film Series and professor of English, Shawn Smolen-Morton.
“Sometimes there’s no discussion and sometimes it’s free and open and informal and we can talk about any aspect of the film that students want to — or staff and faculty,” Smolen-Morton said. “After the first screening at 3:30 no one stayed for discussion, but after the second screening there were about 25 students in there and almost all of them stayed.”
Topics such as symbolism, race and the overarching theme of the film were discussed at the second screening, which was held later that evening. Hosting these discussions often leads to students having a better understanding of the film they have just seen.
“This was my first time watching the movie, so being able to watch it and then have that discussion afterwards I think was really insightful because you could kind of see what you missed when you’re watching it in a group setting like that,” Cunningham said.
While the film is usually chosen due to its connection to what students learn in a classroom setting, some of them are chosen to be fun breaks for students. This typically comes in the form of a thematic film, such as “Nope” being a horror movie and it being shown during the Halloween season.
“It was coming upon Halloween and I thought it would be fun — I always try to pick some kind of horror movie to go along with Halloween,” Smolen-Morton said. “So Halloween was coming and also I’m teaching African American film history and also lots of people have seen the film, so I was hoping lots of people have seen the film once so they’ll come back and see it again and then we could have a much more rich discussion about the film.”
Smolen-Morton tries to pick as broad a range of topics for films as possible. On Oct. 3 the English Film Series showed “Hidden Rivers of Southern Appalachia” — the only other film shown for the fall semester.
“FMU puts on a lot of events for students and it’s really important to a student’s development to do some of those,” Smolen-Morton said. “It’s just important to get out there for your mental health or to learn how to socialize and to have friends and develop friendships.”
“Nope” was the last film shown by the English Film Series for this semester but plans are already being made for next semester’s showings, of which there will be at least two. Snacks are sometimes served for the showings although this specific showing did not have any. There are always two showings — one in the afternoon and one in the evening.