When I was told I had to find people I didn’t know or talk to on a regular basis I was stumped as I know a majority of campus.
The first person that came to mind was Christine Madden. She works up on the third floor of Lewis Hall as the secretary for the English department. I don’t know Christine as well as I would like to, so this would feel like a relaxed conversation about our favorite movies. Sadly, Christine was nowhere to be found.
On a positive note, I was able to talk with Leslie Werden. I was worried I just trotted up to the third floor just to have to go back down with no interviews, but she saved the day.
When I asked Dr. Werden about her favorite movie, she responded with, “Oh God. You’re asking a professor of movies to tell you her favorite movie?” So, I decided to tell her my favorite movie, Super Mario Bros., while she thought of her favorite.
Dr. Werden is currently teaching a class called British Literature. Elizabeth is her favorite movie as of right now. Dr. Werden emphasizes the importance of camera angles and music throughout the film. She went into detail about what the movie itself looks like and how the camera angles just add the perfect touch of being watched.
Dr. Werden then plugged the International Film Festival that is coming up in October. It will run October 5-8 and will be showing short films from genres such as comedy, documentary, drama, sci-fi, and horror. If you are interested in learning more about the Sioux City International Film Festival visit https://www.siouxcityfilmfest.org/.
After I was done talking with Dr. Werden, I was hoping that Christine would come into the room. Sadly, after waiting about 10 minutes she was nowhere to be seen. I thought she might be in the library, so I went back. She wasn’t in the library either, but I did see a former classmate who is from Nepal.
I talked with Aabiskar “Aabi” Sharma rather than Christine. Aabi is from Nepal so I thought she would have an interesting take on what her favorite movie is. Surprisingly to me, she said that her favorite movie is Shawshank Redemption. When I had class with her last year, I would have thought her favorite movie was a Disney movie.
She said that Shawshank Redemption is her favorite movie because, “it talks about hope even in the toughest and roughest of situations. This movie shows that there is still hope.”
After saying that, she said that the only movie coming to mind was Shawshank Redemption, but that it is still one of her favorite movies. So, her reaction to me coming up to her was confusion at first, but then even more confusion when she couldn’t think of any movie other than Shawshank Redemption.
I found the differences in movie types that show between the student vs the professor interesting. I would not have thought of a professor having a historical movie be her favorite movie, especially Dr. Werden considering she is a big theatre nerd. However, I would have also not thought of Aabi loving Shawshank Redemption.
There is still so much we can learn from those around us, both on campus and off. If you ever get bored, I highly suggest walking up to someone (ignore stranger danger) and asking them a random question. My favorite random question is, “What do you get at Subway?”
This is nicely done, Maren, but weren’t you supposed to also collect an object of some sort?