Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 21, 1994 TAG: 9401210024
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAOUL V. MOWATT KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: SAN JOSE, CALIF. LENGTH: Medium
But because of their ignorance of the subject, a group of high school students broke into giggles while watching the film during a field trip to an Oakland theater this week. In what appears to be a clash of cultures and generations, theater managers ousted the Castlemont High School students after other moviegoers complained that they were laughing loudly and contemptuously after one of the movie's most affecting scenes.
"They were laughing at people being murdered by Nazis, laughing out loud," said Allen Michaan, owner of the Grand Lake Theater. "People were shaking with anger. The issue was: They weren't permitting other patrons to enjoy the movie."
School administrators and teachers, however, accuse the theater and the media of blowing the incident out of proportion. They claimed that the laughter was not disruptive and sprang from a nervous, immature reaction to the depiction of a brutal execution.
"We told [students] that they were going to see a movie of a serious nature and they were to act appropriately," said Tanya Dennis, Castlemont's dean of students. But, she added, they couldn't help but be shocked by the scene.
Although the two sides tell widely contrasting tales of what happened during the noon showing of "Schindler's List" on Monday, they agree on one thing: The students, ranging from sophomores to seniors and primarily black and Hispanic, understand little about the Holocaust and bias against Jews.
About 70 students agreed to see the film on the Martin Luther King school holiday, with teachers hoping they would learn from watching the movie about how other groups have been deprived of civil rights and subjected to brutality. The lesson apparently didn't click with many students.
"We asked the kids today if they knew what anti-Semitism was, and the majority said no," said Rick Finkelstein, a teacher who chaperoned the trip.
School officials are seeking ways to turn the embarrassing episode into a lesson by having the students meet actual concentration-camp survivors and focus on learning about the Holocaust. The Anti-Defamation League and the East Bay Jewish Community Relations Council have scheduled a meeting next week with the school's principal to discuss a new curriculum around the movie and Holocaust education in general.
Theater managers say the trouble started early in the three-hour show. During the viewing of "Schindler's List," about 20 students from the group tried to sneak into showings of "The Pelican Brief" and "Grumpy Old Men," also showing at the Grand Lake, said Roger Brown, the theater's manager.
Other students, seated in back rows of the theater, were talking so loudly that four other patrons sought and received refunds, Brown said.
The problem escalated about an hour into the movie, when Spielberg depicts the beginnings of a concentration camp, Brown said. When an intelligent, gentle Jewish woman suggests to a Nazi guard that the foundation of a building is unsafe, she is shot in the head without remorse. That scene led to an outbreak of laughter from about 20 students, Brown and Michaan said.
Shortly after, about 30 patrons, some of whom had lost relatives in the Holocaust, complained to management. Michaan had the projector shut off and told Castlemont students to go to the lobby, meet their teachers there and leave. About half of the 450 other people attending the show applauded the action, Brown and Michaan said.
But school administrators said the group was misunderstood by the other, older moviegoers. And rather than endorsing Nazi tactics or sentiments, the students were expressing their shock at the dramatic execution, administrators said.
by CNB