Customer Reviews

John Steinbeck [VHS]

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1 star:		(4)

 

 

I was embarrassed when I actually showed this film to my 8th grade classes during our unit on The Pearl. It was a waste of time, simplistically pointless, and told us absolutely nothing about this wonderful author. THIS IS A MOVIE TO SKIP!!!!!

Thank you Mr. Fleck for taking the time to review this truly awful video. I've written a couple of "sample" reviews of this video, but I have yet been able to write one that is balanced in its presentation. Over the course of my twenty years of teaching I have viewed countless videos. This is the worst one I have ever previewed. Mr. Fleck's description of the video's content is painfully accurate and insightful. There is absolutely no reason to show this to students who hope to learn something useful and meaningful about Steinbeck. A Noble prize winning author deserves better!

Don't let the "one-star" kid you - this video is worth NO STARS. After viewing this somewhat insipid and rather horrible 30-minute purported biography, one is left to wonder what it was that Steinbeck really did for a living. The first twenty minutes of this tape deal with Steinbeck and where he lived for his first twenty years; the last ten minutes deal with a cursory discussion of four books. The only mention of "Grapes" is something about how much money he sold the movie rights to 20th Century Fox for. Both research and scholarship for this video lead to such dubious conclusions that finally this thing resembles a really bad five-paragraph essay some freshman has been forced to write. Example: the filmmakers at one point state that Steinbeck was "not political," and then go on a *minute* later to mention that he was a speechwriter for LBJ! If you're a teacher (like me) and you think you want to show this to your students - don't. You'll only waste their time and make them resent you even more. But then again, if you want to get back at your students, show them this video...

Steinbeck was a very private man who disliked interviews, pictures, and publicity, so it has to be be difficult to compile a decent video documentary on his life.

However, that's no excuse for the absolutely worthless nature of this entry in the FAMOUS AUTHOR'S series.

The video spends the vast majority of its time documenting Steinbeck's relatively uneventful youth. The camera focuses lovingly on modern-day shots of his house, Cannery Row, and other California vistas. What's missing is any real discussion of Steinbeck's work; even the controversy over THE GRAPES OF WRATH is left unmentioned.

Too, there are no moving images nor soundbites of Steinbeck himself--surely SOMEONE must have filmed his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech! What's left to fill the gaps are photos cobbled from Jackson Benson's bio THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF JOHN STEINBECK, WRITER--and these are poorly reproduced to boot!

I purchased the video sight unseen, hoping to use it in my high school English classes. Upon viewing it, I realized it was so bad, I couldn't show it...at least, not without risking "turning off" my students to Steinbeck. It sits now in a drawer in my desk, a waste.

Far better is the A&E Biography JOHN STEINBECK: AN AMERICAN WRITER.