“I’ll be back,” Arnold Schwarzenagger famously states in The Terminator (1984), before continuing his pursuit for Sarah Connor.
The same line could, probably, be attributed to Howard Suber, renowned UCLA professor emeritus, founding chair of UCLA’s Film and Television Producers Program, and one of the founders of the UCLA Film Archive. Suber retired nearly 30 years ago, but can’t resist staying away to teach by popular demand.
Naturally, it was only a matter of time before he brought his expertise to Turner Classic Movies in the form of The Power of Film, a docuseries with 40-minute weekly episodes that premiered last Thursday.
Executive produced by two of Suber’s former students, Doug Pray and Laura Gabbert, The Power of Film isn’t TCM’s first foray into airing a docuseries. Fans of the network might remember when they aired Women Make Film: A New Road Movie, directed by Mark Cousins, in 2020. But unlike Women Make Film, and other docuseries aired on Turner Classic Movies, The Power of Film is truly a film course—a Masterclass™, if you will.
Just last summer, TCM was often compared to being a “film school at home” of sorts in rallying cries by fans and critics to save the network so beloved to the film community. The Power of Film differs from other documentaries about film, including the ones the network has aired in the past, as it doesn’t school viewers the typically covered aspects of filmmaking such as cinematography, directing, or screenwriting, or dish out facts about the stars in the movies like one might see in a signature TCM intro.
Laura Gabbert, who also directed the series, and Doug Pray touched on this with Turner Classic Movies host Dave Karger before the first episode aired last Thursday, “It’s not a technical series at all,” Pray explained, “It’s all about what’s in here,” as he points to his head.
The way Suber shares his expertise in the psychology of filmgoers is akin to a quilt, as each episode merely covers a single patch in the larger picture of why films resonate, from the power of memorability explained in episode one to the aching sense of claustrophobia covered in episode two. Those who have read Suber’s book The Power of Film, or have taken his courses at UCLA, will notice the series only covers a fraction of his expertise in detecting patterns in storytelling.
With this expertise, as Howard Suber surely knows, can come the ability to manipulate the viewers to get points across—which he does exceptionally well with the use of clips of scenes from well-known movies. In episode one of The Power of Film, I found myself nearly brought to tears (again) during that scene in Bambi, laughing as the chest waxing scene in The 40-Year-Old Virgin popped on the screen, and smiling while the “Another Day of Sun” musical number that opened La La Land played on—as he’s reminding us, the viewers, of how these movies made us feel and react the first time we saw them.
Viewers might find validation in episode two (titled “Trapped”), which unpacked why many people (myself included) feel their hearts ache and stomachs tie into knots from claustrophobia found in movies ranging from It’s a Wonderful Life to Star Wars: A New Hope to Thelma & Louise. Suber takes this a step further by also exploring what it is about some endings—specifically The Graduate—that drive the audience to form their own interpretations of what happened, and what the film is suggesting might happen next. (Spoiler: they turn into their parents, perhaps?)
Other episodes in the series over the next few weeks will feature Suber, as he does, exploring the power of other common aspects found in film storytelling, including character relationships, heroes and villains, paradox, and love. “One of the things that Howard really emphasizes is that it’s not the psychology of the characters, but it’s really about the psychology of the audience,” Laura Gabbert says, as she explains what sets this series apart from other documentaries about filmmaking. TCM’s most avid viewers, who have become accustomed their favorite films being introduced with “fun facts” by Ben Manckiewicz and other hosts, have yet to see the mirror turned on them quite like this before. And they’re in for a treat.
You can watch a new episode of “The Power of Film” on TCM each Thursday at 8:00pm ET/5:00pm PT now through February 8th.
