0:00:00.670,0:00:05.336
Evidence suggests that humans in all ages and from all cultures

0:00:05.336,0:00:09.486
create their identity in some kind of narrative form.

0:00:09.486,0:00:12.227
From mother to daughter, preacher to congregant,

0:00:12.227,0:00:15.291
teacher to pupil, storyteller to audience.

0:00:15.291,0:00:17.081
Whether in cave paintings

0:00:17.081,0:00:19.711
or the latest uses of the Internet,

0:00:19.711,0:00:23.542
human beings have always told their histories and truths

0:00:23.542,0:00:25.999
through parable and fable.

0:00:25.999,0:00:29.476
We are inveterate storytellers.

0:00:29.476,0:00:33.859
But where, in our increasingly secular and fragmented world,

0:00:33.859,0:00:37.957
do we offer communality of experience,

0:00:37.957,0:00:42.307
unmediated by our own furious consumerism?

0:00:42.307,0:00:45.807
And what narrative, what history,

0:00:45.807,0:00:48.488
what identity, what moral code

0:00:48.488,0:00:51.840
are we imparting to our young?

0:00:51.840,0:00:54.722
Cinema is arguably

0:00:54.722,0:00:57.307
the 20th century's most influential art form.

0:00:57.307,0:00:59.357
Its artists told stories

0:00:59.357,0:01:00.639
across national boundaries,

0:01:00.639,0:01:03.507
in as many languages, genres and philosophies

0:01:03.507,0:01:04.757
as one can imagine.

0:01:04.757,0:01:07.389
Indeed, it is hard to find a subject

0:01:07.389,0:01:09.406
that film has yet to tackle.

0:01:09.406,0:01:11.057
During the last decade

0:01:11.057,0:01:13.473
we've seen a vast integration of global media,

0:01:13.473,0:01:16.857
now dominated by a culture of the Hollywood blockbuster.

0:01:16.857,0:01:19.273
We are increasingly offered a diet

0:01:19.273,0:01:22.757
in which sensation, not story, is king.

0:01:22.757,0:01:25.190
What was common to us all 40 years ago --

0:01:25.190,0:01:27.989
the telling of stories between generations --

0:01:27.989,0:01:30.074
is now rarified.

0:01:30.074,0:01:32.322
As a filmmaker, it worried me.

0:01:32.322,0:01:36.189
As a human being, it puts the fear of God in me.

0:01:36.189,0:01:38.606
What future could the young build

0:01:38.606,0:01:39.973
with so little grasp

0:01:39.973,0:01:41.757
of where they've come from

0:01:41.757,0:01:44.815
and so few narratives of what's possible?

0:01:44.815,0:01:46.463
The irony is palpable;

0:01:46.463,0:01:49.964
technical access has never been greater,

0:01:49.964,0:01:53.031
cultural access never weaker.

0:01:53.031,0:01:57.364
And so in 2006 we set up FILMCLUB,

0:01:57.364,0:02:01.399
an organization that ran weekly film screenings in schools

0:02:01.399,0:02:03.481
followed by discussions.

0:02:03.481,0:02:07.214
If we could raid the annals of 100 years of film,

0:02:07.214,0:02:09.282
maybe we could build a narrative

0:02:09.282,0:02:10.830
that would deliver meaning

0:02:10.830,0:02:13.913
to the fragmented and restless world of the young.

0:02:13.913,0:02:15.516
Given the access to technology,

0:02:15.516,0:02:19.247
even a school in a tiny rural hamlet

0:02:19.247,0:02:22.948
could project a DVD onto a white board.

0:02:22.948,0:02:24.782
In the first nine months

0:02:24.782,0:02:27.130
we ran 25 clubs across the U.K.,

0:02:27.130,0:02:30.198
with kids in age groups between five and 18

0:02:30.198,0:02:33.230
watching a film uninterrupted for 90 minutes.

0:02:33.230,0:02:36.114
The films were curated and contextualized.

0:02:36.114,0:02:37.865
But the choice was theirs,

0:02:37.865,0:02:39.681
and our audience quickly grew

0:02:39.681,0:02:43.914
to choose the richest and most varied diet that we could provide.

0:02:43.914,0:02:46.713
The outcome, immediate.

0:02:46.713,0:02:52.299
It was an education of the most profound and transformative kind.

0:02:52.299,0:02:55.631
In groups as large as 150 and as small as three,

0:02:55.631,0:02:58.347
these young people discovered new places,

0:02:58.347,0:03:00.264
new thoughts, new perspectives.

0:03:00.264,0:03:02.398
By the time the pilot had finished,

0:03:02.398,0:03:05.231
we had the names of a thousand schools

0:03:05.231,0:03:09.050
that wished to join.

0:03:09.050,0:03:10.671
The film that changed my life

0:03:10.671,0:03:15.638
is a 1951 film by Vittorio De Sica, "Miracle in Milan."

0:03:15.638,0:03:17.391
It's a remarkable comment

0:03:17.391,0:03:20.721
on slums, poverty and aspiration.

0:03:20.721,0:03:24.955
I had seen the film on the occasion of my father's 50th birthday.

0:03:24.955,0:03:28.917
Technology then meant we had to hire a viewing cinema,

0:03:28.917,0:03:31.894
find and pay for the print and the projectionist.

0:03:31.894,0:03:33.566
But for my father,

0:03:33.566,0:03:39.352
the emotional and artistic importance of De Sica's vision was so great

0:03:39.352,0:03:41.983
that he chose to celebrate his half-century

0:03:41.983,0:03:45.848
with his three teenage children and 30 of their friends,

0:03:45.848,0:03:47.200
"In order," he said,

0:03:47.200,0:03:50.667
"to pass the baton of concern and hope

0:03:50.667,0:03:53.150
on to the next generation."

0:03:53.150,0:03:55.917
In the last shot of "Miracle in Milan,"

0:03:55.917,0:03:59.867
slum-dwellers float skyward on flying brooms.

0:03:59.867,0:04:02.399
Sixty years after the film was made

0:04:02.399,0:04:04.600
and 30 years after I first saw it,

0:04:04.600,0:04:07.150
I see young faces tilt up in awe,

0:04:07.150,0:04:09.418
their incredulity matching mine.

0:04:09.418,0:04:11.916
And the speed with which they associate it

0:04:11.916,0:04:15.540
with "Slumdog Millionaire" or the favelas in Rio

0:04:15.540,0:04:18.488
speaks to the enduring nature.

0:04:18.488,0:04:21.605
In a FILMCLUB season about democracy and government,

0:04:21.605,0:04:23.521
we screened "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

0:04:23.521,0:04:29.940
Made in 1939, the film is older than most of our members' grandparents.

0:04:29.940,0:04:34.081
Frank Capra's classic values independence and propriety.

0:04:34.081,0:04:35.640
It shows how to do right,

0:04:35.640,0:04:37.374
how to be heroically awkward.

0:04:37.374,0:04:40.124
It is also an expression of faith

0:04:40.124,0:04:43.649
in the political machine as a force of honor.

0:04:43.649,0:04:47.132
Shortly after "Mr. Smith" became a FILMCLUB classic,

0:04:47.132,0:04:51.798
there was a week of all-night filibustering in the House of Lords.

0:04:51.798,0:04:53.082
And it was with great delight

0:04:53.082,0:04:55.733
that we found young people up and down the country

0:04:55.733,0:04:57.566
explaining with authority

0:04:57.566,0:04:59.582
what filibustering was

0:04:59.582,0:05:05.099
and why the Lords might defy their bedtime on a point of principle.

0:05:05.099,0:05:09.233
After all, Jimmy Stewart filibustered for two entire reels.

0:05:09.233,0:05:12.300
In choosing "Hotel Rwanda,"

0:05:12.300,0:05:15.583
they explored genocide of the most brutal kind.

0:05:15.583,0:05:19.116
It provoked tears as well as incisive questions

0:05:19.116,0:05:20.916
about unarmed peace-keeping forces

0:05:20.916,0:05:23.599
and the double-dealing of a Western society

0:05:23.599,0:05:27.533
that picks its moral fights with commodities in mind.

0:05:27.533,0:05:31.599
And when "Schindler's List" demanded that they never forget,

0:05:31.599,0:05:35.716
one child, full of the pain of consciousness, remarked,

0:05:35.716,0:05:36.985
"We already forgot,

0:05:36.985,0:05:40.999
otherwise how did 'Hotel Rwanda' happen?"

0:05:40.999,0:05:44.766
As they watch more films their lives got palpably richer.

0:05:44.766,0:05:49.399
"Pickpocket" started a debate about criminality disenfranchisement.

0:05:49.399,0:05:53.266
"To Sir, with Love" ignited its teen audience.

0:05:53.266,0:05:55.915
They celebrated a change in attitude

0:05:55.915,0:05:57.615
towards non-white Britons,

0:05:57.615,0:06:01.035
but railed against our restless school system

0:06:01.035,0:06:04.083
that does not value collective identity,

0:06:04.083,0:06:10.150
unlike that offered by Sidney Poitier's careful tutelage.

0:06:10.150,0:06:14.265
By now, these thoughtful, opinionated, curious young people

0:06:14.265,0:06:17.100
thought nothing of tackling films of all forms --

0:06:17.100,0:06:18.415
black and white, subtitled,

0:06:18.415,0:06:21.149
documentary, non-narrative, fantasy --

0:06:21.149,0:06:23.848
and thought nothing of writing detailed reviews

0:06:23.848,0:06:27.332
that competed to favor one film over another

0:06:27.332,0:06:31.156
in passionate and increasingly sophisticated prose.

0:06:31.156,0:06:34.322
Six thousand reviews each school week

0:06:34.322,0:06:38.840
vying for the honor of being review of the week.

0:06:38.840,0:06:42.900
From 25 clubs, we became hundreds, then thousands,

0:06:42.900,0:06:45.982
until we were nearly a quarter of a million kids

0:06:45.982,0:06:49.398
in 7,000 clubs right across the country.

0:06:49.398,0:06:52.282
And although the numbers were, and continue to be, extraordinary,

0:06:52.282,0:06:54.565
what became more extraordinary

0:06:54.565,0:06:58.115
was how the experience of critical and curious questioning

0:06:58.115,0:07:00.633
translated into life.

0:07:00.633,0:07:03.500
Some of our kids started talking with their parents,

0:07:03.500,0:07:05.266
others with their teachers,

0:07:05.266,0:07:06.249
or with their friends.

0:07:06.249,0:07:07.949
And those without friends

0:07:07.949,0:07:10.150
started making them.

0:07:10.150,0:07:15.466
The films provided communality across all manner of divide.

0:07:15.466,0:07:18.583
And the stories they held provided a shared experience.

0:07:18.583,0:07:23.000
"Persepolis" brought a daughter closer to her Iranian mother,

0:07:23.000,0:07:26.801
and "Jaws" became the way in which one young boy

0:07:26.801,0:07:30.366
was able to articulate the fear he'd experienced

0:07:30.366,0:07:31.916
in flight from violence

0:07:31.916,0:07:34.900
that killed first his father then his mother,

0:07:34.900,0:07:39.782
the latter thrown overboard on a boat journey.

0:07:39.782,0:07:41.741
Who was right, who wrong?

0:07:41.741,0:07:43.857
What would they do under the same conditions?

0:07:43.857,0:07:45.406
Was the tale told well?

0:07:45.406,0:07:47.007
Was there a hidden message?

0:07:47.007,0:07:49.740
How has the world changed? How could it be different?

0:07:49.740,0:07:54.624
A tsunami of questions flew out of the mouths of children

0:07:54.624,0:07:56.374
who the world didn't think were interested.

0:07:56.374,0:07:59.845
And they themselves had not known they cared.

0:07:59.845,0:08:01.757
And as they wrote and debated,

0:08:01.757,0:08:04.723
rather than seeing the films as artifacts,

0:08:04.723,0:08:09.789
they began to see themselves.

0:08:09.789,0:08:12.954
I have an aunt who is a wonderful storyteller.

0:08:12.954,0:08:15.108
In a moment she can invoke images

0:08:15.108,0:08:19.073
of running barefoot on Table Mountain and playing cops and robbers.

0:08:19.073,0:08:20.639
Quite recently she told me

0:08:20.639,0:08:24.038
that in 1948, two of her sisters and my father

0:08:24.038,0:08:26.686
traveled on a boat to Israel without my grandparents.

0:08:26.686,0:08:31.152
When the sailors mutinied at sea in a demand for humane conditions,

0:08:31.152,0:08:34.886
it was these teenagers that fed the crew.

0:08:34.886,0:08:37.036
I was past 40 when my father died.

0:08:37.036,0:08:39.588
He never mentioned that journey.

0:08:39.588,0:08:43.273
My mother's mother left Europe in a hurry

0:08:43.273,0:08:46.670
without her husband, but with her three-year-old daughter

0:08:46.670,0:08:50.501
and diamonds sewn into the hem of her skirt.

0:08:50.501,0:08:51.785
After two years in hiding,

0:08:51.785,0:08:54.619
my grandfather appeared in London.

0:08:54.619,0:08:56.919
He was never right again.

0:08:56.919,0:09:01.620
And his story was hushed as he assimilated.

0:09:01.620,0:09:05.558
My story started in England

0:09:05.558,0:09:09.821
with a clean slate and the silence of immigrant parents.

0:09:09.821,0:09:11.972
I had "Anne Frank," "The Great Escape,"

0:09:11.972,0:09:14.486
"Shoah," "Triumph of the Will."

0:09:14.486,0:09:16.541
It was Leni Riefenstahl

0:09:16.541,0:09:19.324
in her elegant Nazi propaganda

0:09:19.324,0:09:23.232
who gave context to what the family had to endure.

0:09:23.232,0:09:28.882
These films held what was too hurtful to say out loud,

0:09:28.882,0:09:31.232
and they became more useful to me

0:09:31.232,0:09:33.949
than the whispers of survivors

0:09:33.949,0:09:36.884
and the occasional glimpse of a tattoo

0:09:36.884,0:09:39.732
on a maiden aunt's wrist.

0:09:39.732,0:09:42.515
Purists may feel that fiction dissipates

0:09:42.515,0:09:45.516
the quest of real human understanding,

0:09:45.516,0:09:47.015
that film is too crude

0:09:47.015,0:09:49.449
to tell a complex and detailed history,

0:09:49.449,0:09:53.699
or that filmmakers always serve drama over truth.

0:09:53.699,0:09:56.833
But within the reels lie purpose and meaning.

0:09:56.833,0:10:00.100
As one 12-year-old said after watching "Wizard of Oz,"

0:10:00.100,0:10:02.399
"Every person should watch this,

0:10:02.399,0:10:04.249
because unless you do

0:10:04.249,0:10:08.916
you may not know that you too have a heart."

0:10:08.916,0:10:13.315
We honor reading, why not honor watching with the same passion?

0:10:13.315,0:10:16.609
Consider "Citizen Kane" as valuable as Jane Austen.

0:10:16.609,0:10:19.808
Agree that "Boyz n the Hood," like Tennyson,

0:10:19.808,0:10:23.826
offers an emotional landscape and a heightened understanding

0:10:23.826,0:10:25.575
that work together.

0:10:25.575,0:10:27.109
Each a piece of memorable art,

0:10:27.109,0:10:30.558
each a brick in the wall of who we are.

0:10:30.558,0:10:33.425
And it's okay if we remember Tom Hanks

0:10:33.425,0:10:35.475
better than astronaut Jim Lovell

0:10:35.475,0:10:40.039
or have Ben Kingsley's face superimposed onto that of Gandhi's.

0:10:40.039,0:10:43.595
And though not real, Eve Harrington, Howard Beale, Mildred Pierce

0:10:43.595,0:10:46.292
are an opportunity to discover

0:10:46.292,0:10:48.708
what it is to be human,

0:10:48.708,0:10:52.742
and no less helpful to understanding our life and times

0:10:52.742,0:10:58.492
as Shakespeare is in illuminating the world of Elizabethan England.

0:10:58.492,0:11:00.060
We guessed that film,

0:11:00.060,0:11:02.059
whose stories are a meeting place

0:11:02.059,0:11:04.288
of drama, music, literature and human experience,

0:11:04.288,0:11:08.793
would engage and inspire the young people participating in FILMCLUB.

0:11:08.793,0:11:10.325
What we could not have foreseen

0:11:10.325,0:11:11.958
was the measurable improvements

0:11:11.958,0:11:15.676
in behavior, confidence and academic achievement.

0:11:15.676,0:11:19.958
Once-reluctant students now race to school, talk to their teachers,

0:11:19.958,0:11:21.443
fight, not on the playground,

0:11:21.443,0:11:23.576
but to choose next week's film --

0:11:23.576,0:11:27.162
young people who have found self-definition, ambition

0:11:27.162,0:11:31.409
and an appetite for education and social engagement

0:11:31.409,0:11:34.375
from the stories they have witnessed.

0:11:34.375,0:11:37.758
Our members defy the binary description

0:11:37.758,0:11:40.576
of how we so often describe our young.

0:11:40.576,0:11:45.559
They are neither feral nor myopically self-absorbed.

0:11:45.559,0:11:47.326
They are, like other young people,

0:11:47.326,0:11:50.793
negotiating a world with infinite choice,

0:11:50.793,0:11:55.493
but little culture of how to find meaningful experience.

0:11:55.493,0:11:58.127
We appeared surprised at the behaviors

0:11:58.127,0:12:00.125
of those who define themselves

0:12:00.125,0:12:02.326
by the size of the tick on their shoes,

0:12:02.326,0:12:06.575
yet acquisition has been the narrative we have offered.

0:12:06.575,0:12:08.392
If we want different values

0:12:08.392,0:12:11.859
we have to tell a different story,

0:12:11.859,0:12:15.861
a story that understands that an individual narrative

0:12:15.861,0:12:19.724
is an essential component of a person's identity,

0:12:19.724,0:12:21.493
that a collective narrative

0:12:21.493,0:12:25.474
is an essential component of a cultural identity,

0:12:25.474,0:12:29.208
and without it it is impossible to imagine yourself

0:12:29.208,0:12:30.609
as part of a group.

0:12:30.609,0:12:33.665
Because when these people get home

0:12:33.665,0:12:36.184
after a screening of "Rear Window"

0:12:36.184,0:12:38.933
and raise their gaze to the building next door,

0:12:38.933,0:12:42.598
they have the tools to wonder who, apart from them,

0:12:42.598,0:12:44.165
is out there

0:12:44.165,0:12:46.698
and what is their story.

0:12:46.698,0:12:48.349
Thank you.

0:12:48.349,0:12:51.031
(Applause)