190: High School

Frederick Wiseman’s High School (1969) is a near perfect documentary.  Its tone is flawless.  Whereas many contemporary docs try to force a point or even a specific point of view, High school simply does what a documentary is supposed to. It documents.  The events displayed concern the goings on at a Philadelphia high school in 1968, and what struck me most as I viewed the film was that I was watching my parents’ adolescence flash before my eyes.  I kept getting the feeling that if I were to watch the film with my mother she would regale me with endless stories stemming from every scene. 

This is why Wiseman’s laissez-faire approach works so well.  By avoiding the emphasis of a single position or issue he makes the film universal.  Whereas my mother, who would have been a high school junior when this documentary was filmed, could use it as an endless trigger of memories, I was able to read my own dreadful post-pubescent academic experiences into the piece.  While the film was shot during one of the most turbulent years in the 20^th century, it is not without 21^st century connection.  Here all the violent, terrible, and exciting events of the late 1960s are presented, documented through a youthful perspective, but they do not feel so different from my own experiences a generation later in the age of global terrorism.

I think criticism that this film is “dated” is off-base. What film isn’t dated in some way? Casablanca (1943) is one of the greatest films ever made and still has massive universal appeal, but it doesn’t mean the same thing in 2011 that it did in 1943.  It simply can’t.  Nazism, while a credible go-to for an antagonist in any Steven Spielberg film, has been (almost totally) defeated. History has written that book. Hitler was a bad guy.  The threat of Nazis doesn’t feel as real to the contemporary viewer as it did when Casablanca was released.  The reason that film is never labeled as “dated” is that the emotions in it still feel real despite the archaic political message.  High School is the same way.  Yes the clothes are out of style, and the external turmoil the film addresses has subsided, but their will forever be guys with glasses who get punched in the face, and whiney kids who argue the merits of detentions with assistant principals.  

What makes this film great is its universal tone.  What makes it particularly special is the fact that some of the most important events of the 20^th century are being documented as they happen.  The King assassination and the space race are given equal weight as the powder puff pep rally and the school fashion show.  This is what high school felt like.  Each day contained events that in retrospect were trivial, but meant the world at the time.

           And then of course there was that one teacher, the young one who seemed to still care about connecting with students. I hated this guy in high school, but in the film there is a special scene in which a young English teacher brings in a Simon and Garfunkel record to teach her pupils about poetry.  She plays them “The Dangling Conversation” and for a brief moment Paul Simon’s words seem to be less about a relationship in decline, and more about the disconnect that exists between us all; those things that remain unspoken in youth because we are too frightened put them into words and be labeled as an outsider.

Grade: 4 Hats Off