Chapter 10: Film and Bricolage
“Walt Whitman once said, ‘I see great things in baseball. It’s our game, the American game. It will repair our losses and be a blessing to us.’ You could look it up.” — Annie Savoy, played by Susan Sarandon, from the film Bull Durham
The LA Times did look up the reference quoted at the end of the film Bull Durham and found that Whitman’s sentiments were represented more or less accurately.[1] What appears in the film is a distillation of a longer paraphrase—made by Horace L. Traubel, a noted Whitman biographer—of a statement Whitman probably did make. The line in Bull Durham captures the essence of the quote, even if it is a paraphrase of a paraphrase. This is often what great films do. They take what is available in reality and distill it down so viewers can understand it the first time. When you make a copy of a copy, things get blurry, and more difficult to decipher. Films often do the exact opposite with elements of culture. They reduce present reality and essential past experiences into distilled intertextual products—mediated messages that combine various types of text into one.
Fitchburg State Connection
The Communications Media Department offers a concentration in Film and Video Production:
The Film and Video Production concentration allows students to work in both film and digital media, as well as study both narrative fiction and documentary filmmaking. Beginning in their first year, students are given hands-on instruction in a deeply immersive environment that stresses both the technical and aesthetic aspects of media creation.
If you’re not in the Film/Video concentration, but are interested in the area, consider taking COMM 2050: Intro to Video Editing:
Introduction to Video Editing is an introductory-level workshop course that explores the use of editing and motion graphics software common to the creation of broadcast and streaming media. Davinci Resolve and Adobe Premiere, Photoshop, and After Effects will be employed in the development of professional and creative video productions and basic motion graphics work. This course is open to any student looking to add editing and graphics work to their production skillset.
Check out this podcast which features a 2023 interview with Mike Grasela, a 2013 FSU Film/Video alumni:
- Cronin, Brian. “Did ‘Bull Durham’ Misquote Walt Whitman on Baseball?” Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2012. https://www.latimes.com/sports/la-xpm-2012-mar-28-la-sp-sn-bull-durham-baseball-20120328-story.html. ↵
