1959-Tulane Portrait (Video)

Transcript

[Inaudible]
- We're going to paint a portrait, but not on canvas.
Our subject is much too big for that.
We're going to use these gadgets for a constantly changing
portrait of many voices, many rooms,
and some rather unbelievable pieces of machinery.
Our subject is very large.
It is a university.
We will attempt a portrait of Tulane.
[instrumental music]
My name is Howard K. Smith.
I'm an alumnus of Tulane,
the College of Arts and Sciences, 1936.
I'll play the part of narrator for the film.
All right, how do we begin?
How do you get a university to sit still for its portrait?
[Howard] What do you say, Ed?
- Well, I think that's just the point.
The university doesn't stand still.
It's geared to the times, more than most people realize.
The university is a street
leading from the past to the future,
and there are a lot of doors along the way.
Now, I think our film should
open as many of those doors as possible,
give a glimpse of the activity, scope, and the intensity.
Now, I suggest we open with a wide shot of the campus...
- [Howard] The university is rather deceptive
in this respect.
It doesn't suggest frenzied activity.
Except at class change time,
you will find only a few
strolling figures in a serene landscape bounded by solid,
quiet, stone buildings.
♪♪
And yet--
at this precise moment of time in the life of the university,
a man's blood
is being circulated through his body
by this heart-lung machine,
which pumps and oxygenates the blood while his heart lies
still under the probe of delicate instruments.
[machine pumping, background chatter]
Two floors over his head in Tulane's medical school,
the needles of an encephalograph machine record
the electrical impulses from the brain of a monkey.
External stimuli such as this...
[man snaps fingers]
record like this...
[machine needles reacting]
In the basement of this building,
students are gathered
in the bullpen to listen to a diagnosis being advanced...
- On the basis of present findings...
by my diagnosis is peptic ulcer.
- Why do you think peptic ulcer?
- Well, the patient has classic symptoms...
[audio trails off]
[projector running]
- [Howard] These men are medical students
watching motion pictures of a state prison volunteer.
He is exhibiting the symptoms of schizophrenia.
These symptoms will wear off in an hour or so.
They have been artificially induced
to help throw some light on one of the many problems
of mental illness.
[projector running]
In the Law Building, a different drama is being played.
Moot court is in session.
- [Law Student] Now Miss Evans..
have you ever seen this object before?
- I object!
- [Inaudible]
- The court will admit the evidence.
- [Howard] Directly across Tulane's campus,
a student works with the language of the abstract.
[chalk on blackboard]
This is modern mathematics,
a new language to fit the new sciences.
The mathematics of the new world of Columbus' time, updated.
[missile launching]
The mathematics of the new world of today.
The space age.
The age of the computer,
electronic answers to abstract queries.
[computer sounds]
These are some of the sights and sounds of a university.
Here are others.
A pile driver is sinking pilings into the delta mud to support
new residence halls, a power plant, a student union.
[banging sound]
These are the sounds that books make...
[flipping pages]
The quiet sounds of study.
[book opening]
The sounds of business...
[typing]
engineering...
- [inaudible]
- [Howard] architecture...
and art.
This is the inaudible sound of clay being shaped...
the whirr of the potter's wheel...
the creak of a turntable
[wheel turning]
These scenes are taking place in the Fine Arts School
of Newcomb College,
the Women's College within Tulane University.
The sound of voices outside a classroom...
[muffled voices]
mixed with other sounds.
[arrows shooting]
[music playing]
The sound made by trees...
[leaves rustling]
and a cafeteria preparing to serve 2000 lunches.
[cart rolling, glass clinking]
These are the sounds of a language lab...
- [inaudible voices]
- [Howard] a Texan studying Spanish...
a boy from Alabama learning French...
a girl from Pakistan studying English.
- [inaudible voices]
- [Howard] These are the sounds of recreation
[Students playing]
[Hitting volleyball]
[Bat hitting baseball]
[Racket hitting tennis ball]
[Diving into pool, splash]
Those were the sounds of a university.
Now here are some of the silences...
The silence of the empty rooms.
The first room is empty
because the biology class is studying the fungus pollution
of a river in upstate Louisiana.
This room is dark because geology students
are collecting field specimens in Mississippi.
This is a silent room, but far from empty.
It is one of the rooms used to store
the remnants of a lost civilization.
These are Mayan ruins,
uncovered by Tulane archeologists in Yucatan.
[light switch]
- How does it strike you?
- Well, fine as far as it goes.
But so far,
all we know is that
there are a lot of separate activities
making up the concept of a university.
But what about this particular university?
What about Tulane?
What are the forces that shaped it,
that caused it to be what it is?
I think we need some background-- some history.
- [Howard] Of all the forces that shaped Tulane,
this is undoubtedly the strongest.
The Mississippi River, the highway at the door.
Second to this is the Gulf and the open sea beyond,
gateway to the influences and cultures of Latin America.
In addition,
the ocean gateway symbolizes the cultural heritage of Europe,
particularly of France and Spain, whose colonial flags
both flew over New Orleans.
The influences brought
to bear on New Orleans by way of the river and the Gulf
account for the distinct tradition of architecture...
law...
[Gavel hitting]
music...
[dance music]
and cuisine...
[boat engine]
still very much alive in the new South,
the industrial South.
The product of a university is shaped by the demands
of the economy, the culture, and the environment.
The earliest demand in the mid-19th century,
when the university began
as the Medical College of Louisiana...
was for an answer to the plagues that swept the southern
United States from the jungles of Central and South America.
Typhoid...
Malaria... and Yellow Jack.
Tulane researchers suspected the mosquito
as a carrier of Yellow Fever some years before the Army
Medical Commission under Walter Reed was sent to Cuba.
Tulane's medical school has always occupied
a leading position in the fields
of tropical medicine and public health.
[streetcar moving]
Tulane is a city university...
but with a difference as you think of the subway
universities of New York and Chicago.
Tulane has managed to retain a comparative smallness,
which permits it to be a place where people know each other,
share common interests both on campus and off.
These are the tangible impressions of Tulane.
Highly selective in its requirements for admission...
small classes...
and wide academic freedom...
a sense of responsibility and leadership in the South...
as evidenced by the development of the graduate school
and the important part it plays in raising
the educational standards of the region.
[projector running]
- Those are some of the things
I think we have to put in the film.
The essence of Tulane.
Otherwise, we're just doing a portrait of "a" university.
[Paul] What do you think, Howard? You're a Tulane alumnus.
- Well, I agree with you.
I think we want to show
the special quality of Tulane-- the outstanding features
that make this university distinctive.
I think we may have
missed the significance of some of the earlier scenes.
Let's go back to that footage on the law school.
[Film projector turns on]
[Howard] An entering law student
can receive a degree in either common or civil law.
Whichever he chooses, he will study both,
giving him a unique advantage when he enters practice.
For while the United States, with the exception of Louisiana,
operates under the English or common law, South America
and Europe are ruled by the old Roman or Civil law.
Tulane's courses comparing these two
great systems are considered the finest in the hemisphere.
The importance of Tulane in the hemisphere is pointed
up, too, by the Middle American Research Institute.
We barely touched on the cultural significance
of this program when we looked at the Yucatan excavations.
Archeology is only a part of the program.
The social inter-relationships and the influences
in our neighboring countries account
for the most serious study by the Institute.
Tulane's interest in Tropical Medicine has resulted
in many administrative practices and techniques being adopted
by the Latin American countries.
Tulane's geographic location in the hemisphere accounts
for the growing influence of the Architectural school
in tropical and subtropical design.
[projector winding down]
We showed these scenes of Newcomb College,
but we could give more of the real story here.
[Film projector turns on]
[Howard] Newcomb has the atmosphere and the advantages of
a compact women's college...
combined with the larger facilities
offered by a university...
such as these...
[Page flip]
and, naturally, these...
[Bird chirping]
Then take these scenes of the medical school.
We showed heart surgery,
but we should point out that many of the techniques
of heart and vascular surgery began here at Tulane...
that Tulane research in heart diseases, vascular diseases,
and mental illness
has placed it in the first rank
of the country's medical schools.
[medical equipment sounds]
These are some of the individual
things about Tulane-- the medical school,
the law school, Newcomb,
the graduate school, and so on that make it distinctive.
[Howard] Then, of course, today there's an increasing interest
in education.
- Yes, we're even beginning to consider it
in terms of national survival.
- Right, but it's more than a race for scientists.
I think everybody is aware of that by now.
Though, of course, the race for scientists
did put the national spotlight on the problems
confronting private universities.
They need more facilities, more room.
As man's scope of interest increases-- from microbiology
to astronautics, the universities must increase also.
A physics lab has to be
three times as big today as it was ten years ago.
Just compare an optical microscope sitting on a bench
with the room filling electron microscope.
The universities have to take on more students, more teachers,
and they have to produce more teachers.
The universities need the understanding
and the solid support of the people,
and the people need the universities,
especially the good private universities of high standards
and independent influence
if we are to strengthen our concept of civilized man.
♪♪

Description

Howard K. Smith, Jr. (Bachelor of Arts 1936) narrates a "portrait" of Tulane University, featuring buildings, programs, professors, and students in this public relations film released in 1959. Smith, a New Orleanian who was a track star as well as journalist, class president and student body president while at Tulane, would go on to become one of the most recognized journalists in the world. A color film with sound, self-referential in concept and execution, with Smith and others discussing on camera how to depict the various aspects of Tulane, and then depicting them in the manner discussed. Includes footage of medical school students, experimental monkeys, a prisoner volunteer exhibiting artificially induced symptoms of schizophrenia, moot court, modern mathematics, studying, sculpture, languages, recreation, campus, brief discussion of forces that shaped Tulane and its history, as well as its prominent position in the field of tropical medicine, explanation of Tulane's unique law school, descriptions of the Middle American Research Institute, School of Architecture, Newcomb College, and more. Written, produced and directed by Don Driscoll. Full transcript available. Shot on single-perf. Color reversal print. Variable density optical soundtrack. A-wind. Eastman Rev stock with 1959 Kodak date code.

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Details

Title: 1959-Tulane Portrait (Video)
Creator: Tulane University
Transcriber: Velasquez, Alan
Date Created: 1959
Description: Howard K. Smith, Jr. (Bachelor of Arts 1936) narrates a "portrait" of Tulane University, featuring buildings, programs, professors, and students in this public relations film released in 1959. Smith, a New Orleanian who was a track star as well as journalist, class president and student body president while at Tulane, would go on to become one of the most recognized journalists in the world. A color film with sound, self-referential in concept and execution, with Smith and others discussing on camera how to depict the various aspects of Tulane, and then depicting them in the manner discussed. Includes footage of medical school students, experimental monkeys, a prisoner volunteer exhibiting artificially induced symptoms of schizophrenia, moot court, modern mathematics, studying, sculpture, languages, recreation, campus, brief discussion of forces that shaped Tulane and its history, as well as its prominent position in the field of tropical medicine, explanation of Tulane's unique law school, descriptions of the Middle American Research Institute, School of Architecture, Newcomb College, and more. Written, produced and directed by Don Driscoll. Full transcript available. Shot on single-perf. Color reversal print. Variable density optical soundtrack. A-wind. Eastman Rev stock with 1959 Kodak date code.
Extent: 13 min., 56 sec.
Form: videorecording
Type of Resource: moving image
Genre: Historical films
Topical Subject(s): Universities & colleges
Motion pictures
Students
Teachers
Geographic Subject(s): New Orleans (La.)
Publisher: Tulane University Digital Library
Language: eng
Identifier (Local): 1959-TulanePortrait_reformat.mp4
Rights: Physical rights are retained by Tulane University Archives. Copyright is retained in accordance with U.S. copyright laws.
Contact: specialcollections@tulane.edu