PRINCIPAL’S MESSAGE
2004-2005
Welcome to Bellmar Middle School! We hope you enjoy a successful school year filled with opportunities of learning and accomplishment. Now is the time to develop your many talents. Upon entering your next step of formal education which will be the high school, you will be expected to function at the higher levels of learning. A good foundation in middle school will prepare you for the great challenges you will face in senior high school. Bellmar teachers are dedicated professionals prepared to lead you through these formative years. Be curious and imaginative in your academic undertakings.
Over the years we have incorporated a yearly theme at Bellmar. This year’s theme will offer much to you about our culture. Through the theme we hope to broaden your perspective and showcase civility and the good life.
We have all had that moment when we realized that the motion picture had seized our dreams, co-opted our imaginations, snatched our thoughts. If there is a passion that enters the voice when people talk about movies, it’s because we’re talking about who we are and what the movies have made us.
It’s a subject, of course, about which everyone is an expert. We have all been molded, inspired and twisted by the movies we’ve seen. We are the movies and the movies are us.
Our theme this school term is "The Golden Age of Hollywood." Our early motion picture history contributed to our collective consciousness since movies were thought provoking and memorable. Those films are not the new age, but the old age, when movies were uncluttered, understandable, and artful. We will explore the "message" motion picture and the role models they
exemplified.Our school themes have routinely been derived from superior literature. Film is an enhancement of quality literature. It can be seen to add to the meaning of the text but not replace it.
The Golden Age of Hollywood produced films that appealed to the center of our culture. This center was receptive to both the serious and the silly - to The Grapes of Wrath as well as Duck Soup. Today only large expensive event films or the smaller specialized films are produced. Gone are those message motion pictures and with it the Golden Age of Hollywood.
The movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood had ideas that the director and actors wanted to communicate. Director George Stevens’ Giant was an exploration of feminism in the 1950's male world. In The Wild One Marlon Brando showcased youthful rebellion . In Hud we condemned Paul Newman’s soulless selfishness. The Godfather movies of Francis Ford Coppola critiqued American capitalism. In High Noon Gary Cooper taught us the meaning of
responsibility.The movies let us time-travel in search of role models. Gary Cooper played the quintessential American. William Holden played the wisecracking cynic who cloaks some vestige of goodness under a tough-guy persona.
Katherine Hepburn legitimized woman’s rights with her independent, smart, quick acting portrayals. Greta Garbo became the extreme definition of
stardom in cinema because of her command of the camera.Battles over taste will always rage, but Hollywood movies have always had a democratic appeal; the same movies are embraced by highbrow and low, old and young, rich and poor. Gone With The Wind had universal appeal, and it was the premier movie of Hollywood’s golden age.
Revisit a film twenty years later and you may discover that history has
altered its meaning. The temporal quality of films makes compiling lists of the greats an especially tricky task. Many of the movies regarded as classics today were flops at their time of release among these are It’s a Wonderful Life to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.Someone has said, "A film, if you like it, goes to your subconscious, and that is the secret of the power of cinema’s language. As a test, run the
anthology reel, that’s in your mind of the movies or bits of film that have touched you in some way, marked a mood or an occasion, opened a window with an insight, shown a new and exciting way of the world, introduced you to a meaningful personality, or in fact, to a facet of yourself yet unexplored. These are your personal classics, the films that endure. Try listing your private selection of top movies. It’s an exercise in humility for the critic and that means every moviegoer." Indeed, the motion picture is the most dramatic form of art.Like a good motion picture director and producer, the school’s principal
provides direction, encourages and invigorates the learning community, tackles weaknesses and nurtures a vision for success. But, to be successful, the principal needs collaboration of teachers and students, much like the motion picture director requires of the actors. Here’s to a great year! Lights, camera, action!Stephen V. Russell