Is humanism in film dead?
If you consult box-office wonder "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" -- with its crush of ultra-violent, heavy-metal robots -- maybe so. If you talk to Teri Schwartz, the new dean of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, the answer is hopefully not.
One of the producer-turned-educator's main goals in taking over the reins of one of the top film schools in the country is to promote entertainment that "nurtures and enlightens and entertains and hopefully inspires change for a better world," says Schwartz, defining humanistic storytelling. "The great film and theater institutions have to figure out how to embrace and marry together story, humanism, global diversity, civic responsibility and technology. A great school takes on the big questions of the time and builds stories around that. Technology is in the service of story, not the other way around.
"If we do our job right, then students will be mindful of ethical choices they make in storytelling," says Schwartz, though she adds, "I'm not here to dictate what somebody's values and morals are. If you have a humanistic point of view, you're just mindful of the world and are empathetic to others."
Schwartz, an energetic, 59-year-old woman appointed in June and who had her first official day on the job last week, replaced former Dean Robert Rosen. She tends to speak in staccato bullet points and insists that what's good for the world isn't inherently bad for the bottom line. She points to both "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Up" as recent examples of humanistic filmmaking that she applauds but also understands that replicating those offerings -- an out-of-left-field Oscar winner and the latest film from Pixar, practically Hollywood's gold standard for artistic yet remunerative filmmaking -- is no small task.
Indeed, Schwartz, who produced such films as "Sister Act" and "Nuts" and ran a production company with actress Goldie Hawn, is taking over UCLA at what portends to be a critical juncture in film education, as Hollywood is shaken daily by seismic changes in technology and profit models as well as the recent implosion of the art-house market and possibly even the adult studio film.
