VIDEO AND CD-ROM REVIEW

     _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Understanding a Classic_.
     Princeton, N.J.: Films for the Humanities and Sciences, 1998.
     34 mins., color, VHS.  FFH 7968.  Purchase: $149.00.  Rental:
     $75.00.  Prices include public performance rights.

     _Mark Twain: Huckleberry Finn and Other Works_.  Princeton,
     N.J.: Films for the Humanities and Sciences, 1998.  FFH 7960.
     CD-ROM, Mac/Windows.  $149.00.  Price includes public
     performance rights.

     Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:

          Joseph B. McCullough <[log in to unmask]>
          University of Nevada, Las Vegas

     Copyright (c) 1999 Mark Twain Forum.  This review may not be
     published or redistributed in any medium without permission.

Two recent companion publications produced by Films for the
Humanities and Sciences, one a video entitled _The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn: Understanding a Classic_, and the other a CD-ROM
entitled _Mark Twain: Huckleberry Finn and Other Works_, assess the
impact of Mark Twain's enduring presence in American literature,
specifically focusing on _Huck Finn_.  Both the video and CD-ROM are
hosted, directed, and produced by John H. McBride, II, and feature
extensive and ranging interviews with three Mark Twain scholars:
Justin Kaplan, Shelley Fisher Fishkin and David Lionel Smith.  Both
productions enrich our understanding of Twain and provide useful and
often stimulating perspectives.  However, given the inherent
limitations of a video and a CD-ROM, many viewers and readers will
not find all parts equally valuable.

The video, which runs approximately 34 minutes, uses various
techniques to hold the viewer's attention and to further the
audience's understanding of one of America's classics.  The film
begins with a brief introduction by McBride, then moves to several
minutes of interviews with each of the three guest scholars, in which
they explore a number of issues important to understanding the novel.
David Smith suggests, for example, that _Huck Finn_ is not only
concerned with race; it is also concerned with the coming of age,
cruelty, the consequences of greed, the meaning of civilization, and
freedom.  Race is put into context with these other inquiries.  While
this segment of the film is not organized in any discernible way, the
issues explored early on gain resonance as the film progresses.
Interspersed among the interviews are illustrations taken from the
first edition of the novel, and captions which appear from time to
time containing a quotation, often humorous, from Twain.

The film then moves to a brief, sketchy biography of Twain's life,
narrated by McBride, again with discussions by the three scholars
interrupting the narration in order to link Twain's life to various
settings (e.g., the Mississippi River, and Hannibal, Missouri) and
incidents in the novel, as well as to explore incidents in Twain's
life which influenced his writing career.  Shelley Fishkin, for
example, shows how Twain's passionate social views could not be
expressed as straight editorial positions, so he turned to irony and
satire in order to get his ideas into print.

During this second segment of the film, Shelley Fishkin and David
Smith spend considerable time discussing African-American influences
from Twain's childhood that are reflected in the novel, and suggest
that these references are often misinterpreted by readers and form
the basis for charges that Twain was a racist.  All three scholars
provide a balanced discussion of Twain's racial views and ably refute
recent irresponsible and vitriolic attacks against Twain and the
novel.  Incidents from his life, including his vehement anti-slavery
and anti-racist articles, are used as convincing counterpoints to the
charges.  In maybe the film's strongest moments, all three scholars
demonstrate how readers must constantly understand Twain's use of
irony to avoid misinterpretation of many incidents and speeches in
the novel.  Finally, this segment also includes an informative
discussion of the condition and treatment of African-Americans during
the post-Reconstruction period as background for understanding the
novel and appreciating attitudes that would have been held by Twain's
contemporary audience.

In the film's final segment, the narrator summarizes the plot of the
novel and focuses on major characters, interspersed by the guests
commenting on the characters and on the thematic significance of
various episodes.  The scholars use this time as an opportunity to
discuss the controversies surrounding the ending of the novel, again
defending Twain against his detractors.  It is curious, by the way,
that the narrator summarizes most of the novel's episodes but
neglects to mention perhaps the most famous episode in the novel--
Huck's decision to go to hell rather than return Jim to slavery.  I
point this out merely as an illustration of what I consider one of
the film's weaknesses.  Often incidents are cited which viewers
already familiar with the novel would need no introduction to, while
less familiar episodes or ones more central to understanding why the
novel is a classic are overlooked.

While I suspect that all viewers will find something of value in the
film, some weaknesses are apparent.  One of the film's minor
annoyances is the awkwardness of many of the elisions, and the lack
of consistent development of many of the novel's central themes and
artistry.  This may have more to do with the editing than anything
else, as the comments by the guests are usually informative and
stimulating, but at times their comments are folded into the
narrative in awkward and unsystematic ways.  Another weakness of the
film, and one which I consider more important, is that while it
spends some time discussing the art of the novel, the discussions are
clearly more concerned with the ideas in the novel.  Furthermore,
there is virtually no discussion of the humor found in the novel.
These weaknesses aside, however, the film succeeds admirably in its
goal to further our understanding of _Huck Finn_ as an American
classic.

The CD-ROM, _Mark Twain: Huckleberry Finn and Other Works_, is also a
valuable scholarly companion which provides useful information that
allows students to gain an appreciation of six major works:
_Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_, "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras
County," "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg," "The $30,000 Bequest,"
"A True Story," and "Sociable Jimmy."  Broader in scope than the
film, this work is also hosted, directed, and produced by John H.
McBride, II, and features the same three Twain scholars in video
clips discussing various topics related to Twain's life and times.

The CD-ROM contains four main features: (1) a program overview; (2) a
screening room containing interviews with the three Twain scholars;
(3) the full text of all six works, fully searchable by word or
phrase; and (4) eleven essays and a bibliography in a section labeled
"contexts".  All of the text is easily accessible with a click of the
mouse to "turn" the page, and sections pop up by moving the cursor
over the text.

The interviews in the screening room each run anywhere from 50 to 100
seconds, and are organized under three broad categories: Characters,
Themes in _Huck Finn_, and Twain's Era.  Each of these categories
contains subsections with topics for each speaker identified:
Characters ("Jim's Importance," "Huck and 'Sivilization,'" "What Tom
Sawyer Represents," and "Jim's Imprisonment"); Themes ("Opening
Images," "Race and Other Themes," "Huck and Jim's Dream," and "Sir
Walter Scott and the South"); Twain's Era ("Political Contexts,"
"Sociable Jimmy," "A True Story," "A Twain Editorial," "Hannibal,
Missouri," "Early Years," and "Clemens Becomes Twain").

The section on contexts contains three categories, the first two of
which feature short written essays for each topic, with the sources
for the articles usually indicated at the end of each piece.  The
third category contains an annotated bibliography, divided into two
parts: Bibliographies and General Studies (ten entries), and Books
about _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ (nine entries).  The essays in
the first two sections are identified by topic: American Issues
("Anti-Imperialism," "'Gilded Age' Corruption," "International
Copyright," "Reconstruction," and "Subscription Publishing"); and
Twain's Personal Life ("William Dean Howells," "Olivia Langdon,"
"Paige Compositor," "Was Twain a Racist?," "Twain's Early Years," and
"Twain's Twilight Years").

As with the film, readers will find much useful information on the
CD-ROM.  It is not clear how valuable having the full texts available
may be, as my experience has been that few students read full works
on a CD-ROM.  This is especially the case for having all of _Huck
Finn_ on the disk--although the search feature is useful, even if one
does not read the entire work in this format.  I would have preferred
to have given over this space to more articles and a much fuller
annotated bibliography, as well as more discussion by the guests of
the short works contained in the package and additional articles
linking the short works to the novel.

The bibliography, for example, while containing many useful works, is
unnecessarily abbreviated, and does not include many works which
students would find at least as useful as some of the works included
on the list.  To use but two brief examples, any bibliography of
_Huck Finn_ should include Walter Blair's _Mark Twain and Huck Finn_,
and Tom Quirk's stimulating series of essays on the novel in _Coming
to Grips with Huckleberry Finn_ would add variety and depth to the
constricted list.  The same holds true with those works cited in the
general studies section.  One, for example, might wish to see such
central works in Twain scholarship as Henry Nash Smith's _Mark Twain:
The Development of a Writer_ added to the list.

One final comment: Prior to writing this review I had the opportunity
to teach _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ to a typical undergraduate
class this summer, and decided to preview the film in class and
solicit responses from the twenty students, as well as make the CD-
ROM available for viewing.  Of the twenty responses to the film,
thirteen were positive to very positive; seven students were less
enthusiastic.  The negative comments usually focused on the film's
organization and editing, the lack of any serious discussion of Twain
as artist, and what was perceived at times to be a preoccupation with
the racial aspects of the novel, sometimes to the neglect of other
important social and artistic aspects of the novel.  Of the nine
responses to the CD-ROM, most were positive, although questions were
raised about the advisability of including the full texts on the CD,
the choice of selections of stories included, the lack of any
discussion of the stories, and the inadequacy of the bibliography.

All of the students felt that the two works taken together were
useful companions to understanding Twain and _Huck Finn_, though they
all suggested that the price of the package was prohibitive for most
students and would probably be found mainly in libraries.  Together
with my students, my final conclusion is that these two works deserve
one and a half thumbs up.