Session 20

FRAMING THE MOVIE - 12 O'CLOCK HIGH

Over the next two sessions, we will watch a movie about leadership and organizational challenges.

Today, we will frame the movie in terms of what we will have discussed this semester.

The movie 12 O'Clock High is fiction, but only barely.

This movie, Memphis Belle, is factual, and the personnel in this movie are doing exactly the same things as are many of the characters in 12 O'Clock High.

Why this movie?

Twelve O'Clock High is a 1949 American film about aircrews in the United States Army's Eighth Air Force who flew daylight bombing missions against Nazi Germany and occupied France during the early days of American involvement in World War II, including a thinly disguised version of the notorious Black Thursday strike against Schweinfurt.

You might find Elmer Bendiner's The Fall of Fortresses a different view of the context of the movie. Bendiner was a navigator who flew in the planes in the movie and survived the missions to Schweinfurt.

An article in The Smithsonian discusses why it is useful: What the 1949 film Twelve O’Clock High still tells us about air combat and the burden of command.

The film was adapted by Sy Bartlett, Henry King, and Beirne Lay, Jr. from the 1948 novel, 12 O'Clock High, also by Bartlett and Lay. This film was nominated for four Academy Awards and won two. In 1998, Twelve O'Clock High was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".

You don't have to read these unless you wish to, but we might touch upon them in conversation

Things to think about

Some background to the movie may be of interest.

Today will be preparations for the subsequent two sessions

• we will frame the story
• identify the organizational realities being depicted
• and explain the symbology that helps identify roles and functions of the characters you will see

As you watch the movie ...

• watch how the characters interact with each other
• sense the organizational imperatives at work in this story
• is every character just being himself, or are some of them knowingly playing a role?
• could you see yourself in this situation? If so, who might you think you would be?

SOMETHING TO TAKE AWAY

Tony Rice

Tony Rice, an immensely influential singer and guitarist in bluegrass and in the new acoustic music circles that grew up around it, died on Friday at his home in Reidsville, N.C. He was 69. ... “Tony Rice was the king of the flatpicked flattop guitar,” the singer-songwriter Jason Isbell said on Twitter. “His influence cannot possibly be overstated.”