One Wednesday evening in October, I took a scenic 50-minute ride to Auburn. By the time I got there, it was dark and I stumbled around the Cayuga Museum to a small, barn-like building in the back with a sign reading “Theater Mack.”
The theater looked surprisingly modern inside, and as I was admiring my surroundings I was greeted by IHS English teacher Mr. Reiff. Several people were already sitting down, facing the movie screen, where Doctor Strangelove was cued up and waiting to play. Mr. Reiff seemed to be in his element, talking about films he had seen recently, upcoming movies, and his plans for the class that evening.
At 7:00, we settled down to watch the movie. Mr. Reiff briefly shared some of his extensive knowledge of different aspects of the film, ranging from the unique typeface used in the opening credits to the set choices and other decisions of the director.
As I watched, I appreciated that Mr. Reiff had addressed specific noteworthy elements. The movie, which was very complex, became a lot easier to understand when I thought about what he had said. I really was able to see it as a work of art.
Every other Wednesday, Mr. Reiff holds these classes/showings in Auburn through Cayuga Community College (CCC), through its Continuing Education program. Any adult may enroll in his class or drop by to be a guest for a night. If you’re his student at IHS, Reiff pays your guest ticket; otherwise, tickets cost just a few dollars. Overall, coming to one of these classes is a fun and valuable experience, one that is definitely worth it if you have a few free hours on a Wednesday evening.
I interviewed Mr. Reiff to learn a bit more about his enticing program.
Francesca Chu ’18: Can you give me your own description of your film program?
Michael Reiff: The idea behind it is to expose a number of folks, as many as possible, to classic films on the big screen. And I want people to be able to experience these things in their proper context. At IHS here, I teach Film Studies, and I have to teach it on the Eno board, chopped up into four to five bits. But there’s something special about seeing classic films on the big screen. So in the fall, we did a unit on Kubrick, Stanley Kubrick the director, and right now, we’re in the midst of the international unit, so French films, Japanese films, Swedish [films]. And then, in the spring, we’ll be doing four films by classic actresses and then we will be doing four films by Hitchcock, as always. So this is sort of how I approach it. I’ve been doing this now for four years. The first year it was through grants; it was not a course, but a private sort of startup, and then for the past three years, it’s been through the college, which has been great because we have a wider educational mandate. It [also] has a slightly different feel, and I can concentrate more on the educational aspect than the fundraising aspect.
FC: So, how did you get affiliated with the community college?
MR: It’s interesting. A couple different ways. I served on the board of a media creation channel in Auburn, called ARMA, Auburn Regional Media Access, and that is a station, a channel, a workshop that hopefully empowers people in Cayuga County. Anyone from the community or the county can come in, grab a camera, make some things happen. I was starting that up about three years ago, and I had some meetings with a professor at CCC, Steve Keeler, who’s the chief chair of the media department and the school of the media arts, and I talked to him about a film series at the time. Funding was getting a bit harder to find, and he brought this idea to my attention—of making a Continuing Education program. Previous to this, I had been the manager, curator, of a film series called Making Movies, which was through the Schweinfurth Art Gallery in Auburn, and I brought in filmmakers who were up from around the state, who made short films—or long films—and that had been a film series for about ten years in Auburn. But just that year that I took over the program, Governor Cuomo cut funding to a lot of grants. Institutions at that time could only apply for two grants, the Schweinfurth needed two to just run the show, and so they couldn’t fund this. So I was kind of casting about for different film programming, and actually this worked out better, because I am much more [interested] now in theory and analysis, and so this course that I wanted to teach all along sort of grew out of that. But I’ve been trying to bring film and film content to Auburn for a long time. It’s where I live, but it’s also where sound film was invented, at the Case Laboratories, so I want to make sure we have a classic film presence in this city at all times.
FC: When and how did you get interested in film?
MR: You know, my mom… had this vast VHS collection, and I would just be popping in VHS’s and I’d just watch them, growing up. Star Wars, Star Trek, were always the favorites, but these black and white films—what are these things? I see these actors in the black and white hats, and there’ll be a Hitchcock film, but I wouldn’t really know what was going on, and that was always sort of in the background. But it was really only maybe junior year in high school that I started watching films that really grabbed my attention like Seven, Fight Club, and the stuff that was popular in the late-90s, edgy—but I still didn’t really see it as literature [until] probably around senior year in college when I started taking film courses at SUNY Geneseo, because they had some great programming there. So I took a bunch that last year, and that was great. And then I took my master’s program at UB in media and literature, with a concentration sort of in film analysis. Most of it, though, has sort of been by practice. I started at Niagara Falls High School, taught a film unit there. So partly, it’s been my own interest, but partly it’s just been sort of spreading film outwards, using it as a teaching tool, and now it’s become sort of one of the focuses, not just as literature, but as cinema itself in my film studies course.
FC: What’s your favorite movie?
MR: Well, someone asked me this on a recent Model UN trip, and I’ll say it’s fairly subjective, in terms of my favorite favorite. I’d say the best technical film I can sort of point at would be Children and Men, which is a film that I actually do teach in Film Studies; it just has exquisite technique. Every shot is composed perfectly for the purpose of what’s supposed to be happening in the film—just technically flawless, superb. And if you want to know why, you should take Film Studies. Favorite films, though… it depends on the time of day, it depends on what’s happening in the news, what’s happening in my life at the time. Some that I do return to, over and over again, would be Terrence Malick’s New World, Mad Max: Fury Road (that just came out), District Nine, The City of God, anything by Guillermo del Toro—primarily his more artistic works like Pan’s Labyrinth and Devil’s Backbone, but even his more commercial stuff like Mimic and the Hellboy movies. Also, Chan-wook Park’s films, especially Oldboy and Thirst. I tend to really get into the modern stuff, Wong Kar-wai films like 2046, In the Mood for Love. Korean directors and Hong Kong directors really have it going on right now, so Snowpiercer by Bong Joon-ho is pretty remarkable.
FC: How do you pick films for your class in Auburn?
MR: You may want to take it and find out, but I do have it boiled down to three major criteria I discuss on day one. The film has to have something going on that is new for its time period, it needs to be readily explainable so that we can read it as a piece of literature. And then hopefully it’s a good story. I try to find films that do those first two criteria, but oftentimes, the truly cutting-edge experimental films are kind of head-scratcher. I’m not a big fan of head-scratchers myself, and I know students wouldn’t be either, so I make sure that maybe I have to move just a little bit ahead in the timeline and find films that also have a good story.
FC: Do you have anything else you want to say about your course in Auburn?
MR: Hopefully, it’ll continue, and continue to grow. I think it’s a great opportunity to be part of an audience that is dependably geared towards thinking and viewing and appreciating.