Becoming a Polyglot; Adding Media-Speak and Tech-Speak

I recently went to see Martin Scorsese’s first film created for children called “Hugo,” based on the award-winning book, “The Invention of Hugo Cabret.”

The movie followed the book’s plot-line fairly closely and was a perfect vehicle for the partially fictional story which centered on one of film’s early pioneers, Georges Méliès. Scorsese claims that he decided to make the film after one of his children complained that they were not allowed to see any of his films, which often carry an “R” rating. When I discovered that Scorsese had started a visual literacy program for middle school students, everything seemed to fit together.

The program was created when Scorsese realized that kids needed to tools to interpret the  visual imagery that they are immersed in every day. “So much of today’s society is done visually, and even subliminally, for young people, that it could be dangerous. One has to know that it is a very, very powerful tool.” The director should know. He was not willing to let his own young children watch his powerful movies; the images and ideas that they presented were not appropriate to their stage of development. The awareness of other images that they were being confronted with on a daily basis, no doubt occurred to him at the same time.

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