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Film Schools Confront a Focus Crisis as Students Struggle to Watch Assigned Movies

Faculty blame phone-driven media habits, prompting experiments from dark-room screenings to clip-based lessons.

Overview

  • New analysis highlights a proposed remedy from some professors who immerse classes in Slow Cinema to retrain attention, citing approaches by Kyle Stine and Rick Warner.
  • Multiple instructors report students failing to finish assigned features and missing basic plot points, echoing findings first reported by The Atlantic.
  • Phone use during screenings is widespread even with device bans, and campus streaming logs indicate many assigned films aren’t completed at home.
  • Reported causes include short-form social algorithms, remote-learning multitasking habits, and a drive for perceived efficiency that discourages sustained viewing.
  • Responses now range from strict no-phone, theater-style screenings to syllabi built around clips, shorter or contemporary titles, with some commentary noting claims that streaming platforms expect distracted viewing.