Back to School 8—The Teacher

Many of the films we’ve talked about so far have had teachers as characters—it’s inevitable when you’re making a film set in a school to have teachers around, but they’re often minor characters, not the main characters. But there are several films that feature the teacher as the MAIN character, and that’s a different kind of high school movie.

A film from the 60s, To Sir, With Love [1967], by James Clavell, tells the story of an engineer who decides to teach high school students in a poor section of London. The job is just a filler before an expected engineering job comes through. Oh yes, he’s black and the students are all white. He’s the focus of the film and the students are the supporting players. He’s faced with undisciplined kids who don’t treat each other well—it’s a tough class to gain control of, and gaining their respect? Not easy. But, of course, he does both, so when the engineering job comes through we wonder—can he take it? Can he leave these students who need him so much?

Almost 20 years later, not that far from the plot of To Sir, With Love, comes the film Mr. Holland’s Opus [1995], by Patrick Sheane Duncan. The main character, Glenn Holland, is forced to take a job teaching high school music when his composing career isn’t paying the rent. He’s… a reluctant teacher who, in his off hours, continues to work on his masterpiece—he’s driven to compose something of value to leave his mark on the world. But over the course of the film he discovers that the mark he’s made on the world is through all the students’ lives he’s touched. For teachers everywhere, it certainly resonates.

One of the things I like about School of Rock [2003], by Mike White, is that the teacher in question, Dewey Finn, is not the perfect, upstanding citizen that most teachers are in films. In fact, he’s a total fraud. After being fired by his band, he takes a phone call meant for his roommate who’s a substitute music teacher, and Dewey decides to impersonate his friend and take the job for himself—just to pay the rent. Dewey’s methods of teaching music are, shall we say, unconventional, and we wonder if he’ll last the first day, let alone the first week. But Dewey has a talent for bringing shy students out through showing them how to be part of a music group, When Dewey’s subterfuge is discovered, we worry he won’t be able to teach anymore… and he’s so good at it. But, of course, he finds a way to teach.

One of the plusses about writing a film with the teacher as the main character is that the audience can double—adults want to see it for the lead character and teens want to see it for all the students. A win-win at the box office.

Next Week: The Musical

Copyright © Diane Lake

28Oct18

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