High School (1968)

In High School, Frederick Wiseman takes us into the Northeast High School to observe an oppressive education system, an old teaching method when authority is taken inadequately and students didn´t have a voice.

Male Authority Figure: It's nice to be individualistic, but there are certain places to be individualistic.
Female Student: I didn't mean to be individualistic.
Male Authority Figure: No, I'm not criticizing!*


"A lot of people think the purpose of documentary films is to expose injustice to those victimized, or that the films are made to correct the filmmaker's idea of injustice. I think that's a strand of documentary but it's certainly not the only use. (...) When it was first shown in Boston in 1969, one of the people who saw it was Louise Day Hicks, a very conservative member of the Boston School Committee. I thought she'd hate the movie. But she came up and said, ´Mr. Wiseman, that was a wonderful high school!´ I thought she was kidding me until I realized she was on the other side from me on all the value questions. Everything I thought I was parodying she thought was great. I don't think her reaction above represents a failure of the film. Instead, we have an illustration that reality is ambiguous, a complex mirror, that the ´real´ film takes place where the mind of the viewer meets the screen. It's how the viewer inteprets the events".


High School is an interesting piece of study on customs and changes, especially today. It is amazing to compare the differences and similarities of society in the 60´, 70´ s and forty years later. If there was a strict discipline that didn´t allow a better relationship between teacher and students, today there is a lack of respect and consideration for the teacher figure. I dare to say that there is no much hope left as we see it in the eyes of the young teacher that dissects Paul Simon's poem "The Dangling Conversation" and "plays" the Simon & Garfunkel song version.


And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar

In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
The borders of our lives

And you read your Emily Dickenson
And I my Robert Frost
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we've lost

Like a poem poorly written
We are persons out of rhythm
Couplets out fo rhyme
In syncopated time

Yes, we speak of things that matter
With words that must be said
Can analysis be worthwhile?
Is the theater really dead?




* IMDb (this dialogue is all about a skirt length)