Educational screen & audio-visual guide (c1956-1971])

valuatioH of new films by L. C. LARSON Director, Audio-Visual Center Indiana University CAROLYN GUSS Anociate Professor, School of Education Indiana University ISRAEL-AN ADVENTURE (Tribune Films, Inc., 141 East 44th Street, New York 17, New York) 28 minutes, 16mm, sound, color. For free use, apply to Tribune Films, Inc. and for purchase information apply to the Israel Office of Information, 11 East 70th Street, New York 21, New York. Description Here is a film that is neither a travelogue nor a political record. Instead, one finds a cultural character sketch that is rich in historical overtones. The side-by-side existence of the ancient and the modern in Israel is the theme of this film. It is even carried over into the musical score where flute and vibraharp are orchestrally married by composer-producer Nathan Kroll to a tune of ageless folk flavor. The slow pace and Arab ways of tlie old city of .Acre are contrasted with the hustle of the modern industrial city of Haifa across the bay. Near the sea of Galilee, girl sailors of the Israeli Navy explore the catacombs of Beyt Shearim, historical seat of the Sanhedrin, to find inscribed there the ancient symbols of Judaism and potsherds that could be Phoenician, Canaanite, or Byzantine. The archeologists at the new Hebrew University in Jerusalem help piece together the history of the land by identifying their finds as Grecian, Roman, and Cretan. One sees religious worship in several of Jerusalem's churches — Roman, Abyssinian, Russian, and Greek. Then there are the scribes and proofreaders of the Torah, who were the first to revere Jerusalem as holy. In modern Tel-Aviv, the Inbal Ballet group gives a dance interpretation of an ancient Yemenite wedding ceremony. The construction of a power plant in a desert for a port city yet to be built signifies the "practical dream" of tomorrow's Israel. Appraisal In the high school curriculum the film will find its most obvious correlation with the content of world history courses. Sunday school and church groups of almost every denomination w^ill find that the film gives new meaning to whatever concepts they presently hold regarding the "Holy Land." Certainly they would gain in understanding Israel's modern configuration. Israel — An Adventure is much more than places and people, facts and understandings. It is an aesthetic experience which qualifies it very highly for use on high school convocation and film society programs. Alexander Hammid and Franta G. Herman, who photographed, directed and edited the film, are able to sustain moods of mystery, so that in every scene the viewer experiences a moment of discovery. A subtle element of suspense is provided by Christopher Plummer's expert reading of Allan Sloane's restrained and poetic commentary. Film critics will be charmed by the visual poetry of the fugitive playground ball that rolls and bounces down the inhabited slopes of Carmel and through the city of Haifa to be reclaimed by a new group of children. This sequence will remind some of the Red Balloon, others of People Along the Mississippi. For the sophisticated, Israel — An Adventure will be unforgettable. — Ledford Carter GATEWAYS TO THE MINDTHE STORY OF THE HUMAN SENSES (Produced for Bell System.) 60 minutes, 16mm, sound, color, 1958. Apply to your nearest Bell Telephone System office for use. Teacher's guide and student's guide are available. Description This film, the fifth in the Bell System Science series, uses animated figures, diagrammatical drawings, live action, and documented film footage to dramatize what happens when we hear, see, smell, taste and feel. Dr. Frank Baxter, in a Hollywood sound stage .setting acts as narrator and guide. Opening scenes depict a discussion between .Xristotle and several of his students concerning the five human senses but Dr. Baxter corrects them by stating that one has many more than five senses which work together rather than independently. The film continues by showing Gene, the animator, as he describes the drawings of characters he has made to represent five of the senses. Next, Dr. Baxter explains that the senses are like dispatchers that send information through the network of the sensory system. Animated drawings show the sense of touch character dispatching a message and the outline of man's nervous system is shown in a silhouette. The film goes on by explaining that nerve fibers carry signals by electricity. Luigi Galvani's experiment with "animal electricity" is briefly explained, then the film presents an actual recording of electrical impulses going from a living eye to a living brain. The impulses jumping from cell to cell are shown by animation. Continuing, the film treats the problem of how the brain transforms the impulses it receives into action, sensation, and thought. An animated character representing the thinking part of Joe's brain reacts to stimuli flashed on the brain's master screen and flipsi switches to trigger the proper physical responses. "The film returns to Dr. Baxter who points out that stimulus is the key word. He illustrates this by projecting a film which shows animals — from the one-celled Protozoa to man — responding to stimuli. He tells that each living thing develops senses according to its needs, with man alone possessing a brain with a capacity for imagination, thought, speech, reasoning, planning, and storing knowledge. The next sequence describes and shows by drawings the parts of the ear and traces the influence of the soundwave stimuli from the outer ear to the brain pattern formed. Dr. Baxter switches on tape recordings of impulses from the optic nerve, taste buds, and others and calls attention to the fact that they are all the same. Dr. Baxter continues by explaining that taste is actually four senses: it seems like more because one smells things as they are tasted. Also, the thermal senses are in the mouth. By diagrammatical drawings, the lilni then shows the path of the molecules which are smelled to the cell filaments on the olfactory patch whicli send electrical impulses over nerve fibers to the brain. Next, the film compares the parts of the eye to those of a camera, shows a close-up view of the external human eye and points out the blind spot on the retina. In a diagrammatic side view of the human eve, the film shows 32 EdScreen & AV Guide — January, 1959