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March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 1.聽
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Saturday, 20th March 2010
Here we are, then. Hope I get the balance right; not too academic, and no pretentious semi-colons (....Doh!).
I want to contrast the Hollywood version of the All-American High School tale with the British equivalent, maybe later with references to other national cinemas. Please chip in.
My starting point is the suggestion that films mainly take place in three archetypal settings: A city, a village or a wilderness. If this is true (and who would doubt the wisdom of Media Studies?) then the difference is in how much a Morris Minor is like a '48 Chevvy, and how much not.
Ask most people to name the first US High School/Teen movie, and maybe they'll say "American Graffitti," but the genesis goes back to a 1930 film, based on a hit Broadway show(*), which had the tale of a lovable but dim sports jock who falls for the class swot and persuades his pals to coach him in a bluffer's guide to that-thar-book-learning to impress her, only to find that what they really share is a love of dance, and each other.
This formula of opposites in collision creating new unities has been endlessly reworked since, until, like students cutting and pasting their homework from bad photocopies, the genre is now referentially up itself rectally, with the entertainment coming mainly from recognising the original sources and then congratulating yourself. The problem I have is that kids today will watch 'John Tucker Must Die' or 'Jennifer's Body' unaware of the intertexuality and think themselves freakish for not resembling the knowingly ironic hyperstereotypical characters or sharing their dehumanised values, whilst all the while, the evil producers in their stucco mansions chuckle to themselves counting their cash.
The American High School films I prefer are the ones that, as the saying goes, "Look Closer," do their homework and tell an original tale, such as 'The Last Picture Show' or the flawed genius of 'Donnie Darko'. My favourite is the most influential example since 'Graffitti', the film that broke the mould of rose-tinted nostalgia for the 50s & 60s. The US equivalent of 'Gregory's Girl' in its honest depiction of my generation and our perceptions and values, Cameron Crowe's semi-autobiographical memoir, 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' shows the full range of adolescent relationships in all their painful detail better than anything before or since, most especially for its refusal to have any truck with the seductive alcopop sold as Cool.
Apart from the scale, the important contrast British school films provide is showing how much the Rydell High paradigm is far from univseral. The Jocks/Nerds thing is a product of the peculiar influence of sports scholarships at US Universities. Neither do we, not in my day at any rate, have any truck with the hideous "Pahpyahlah" imperitive, maybe because, as the emigre Paul Gambaccini suggests, without a welfare safety net, American high schools are places of neurotic conformism where all must find their 'click' or be left to choose between social leprosy or deciding that you Don't Like Mondays...
The British School Film has its roots in Literature and the postwar social-manners comedies the UK industry did so well. In contrast to the metropolitan vastness of the US Senior High, the world they depict is more parochial and intimate, maybe stifling, and is invariably one in which the conflict is between the Old and the New, and one where individuals want to escape the crowd to be more fully themselves rather than join with a particular bunch of sheep.
Originally played out with characteristically understated wit in the prototype, "The Happiest Days Of Your Life" and the early St Trinians titles from the same team, the category grows up in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," is forever suubverted by "If (dot dot dot)" and "Kes," gloriously revived by Gregory's Girl and beautifully inherited and executed by "An Education," which also bears (pun) an innocent and unintended resemblence to a notorious 1961 "Porn" film that is nothing of the sort but was ironically mis-certificated as such by moral panic, "The Yellow Teddybears."
Them's most of my faves, anyway. Please contribute your own pet loves and hates, and queries if you have any.
(*"Good News", most famous for its show-stopping, knicker-flashing dance, the Varsity Drag. It was tamed in the 1947 remake, which also presaged the nostalgia of "American Graffitti" and all subsequent pop revivals that take the menace out of yesterday's threat to the moral fabric of society so it can be given away free with the Mail on Sunday thirty years on.)Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 2
Posted by Rusters (U11225963) on Saturday, 20th March 2010
JB, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie immediately sprang to mind, and I make a point of watching it whenever it is shown on television. I'll be back later with some of my other favourites of the genre.
Meanwhile, list of upcoming Film Club discussion:
April - Coming of Age Films (Leaping Badger)
May - Billy Wilder (E. Yore)
June - The Casting Couch (Mamanchauffeuse)
July - Clint Eastwood (Rusters)
August - DID Films. I suggest that we list at our 8 favourite children's films. No discussion leader but opened up by the first person in.
September - Charlie Chaplin (Reggie Trentham)
The Film Club is looking for volunteers to lead a discussion of their choice in the months after September. If anyone would like to do this, please would they post on the Rota thread here:
F2693944?thread=6795121&skip=20&show=20
List of past Film Club discussions:
Links to past Film Club discussions:
*2006*
September - Preston Sturges F2693944?thread=3478441
October - Those Were the Days: A cinema goer's trip down memory lane F2693944?thread=3573153
November - Almodovar F2693944?thread=3679179
December - Fred & Ginger F2693944?thread=3748217
*2007*
January - Screwball US comedies of the 1930s F2693944?thread=3819522
February - Powell & Pressburger F2693944?thread=3898224
March - Film parodies F2693944?thread=3979158
April - Ealing comedies F2693944?thread=4078333
May - Gainsborough films F2693944?thread=4170064
June - Film noir and neo-noir F2693944?thread=4272114
July - Yasukiro Ozu F2693944?thread=4364674
August - Desert island films F2693944?thread=4490375
September - Hitchcock: Early years (1926-44) F2693944?thread=4580949
September 鈥 Hitchcock: Glory years (1945-57) F2693944?thread=4604887
September 鈥 Hitchcock - and Later years (1958-76) F2693944?thread=4627367
October - Life and films of Leslie Howard F2693944?thread=4696607
November - Remakes F2693944?thread=4792081
December - Melodramas F2693944?thread=4887407
*2008*
January - Ernst Lubitsch F2693944?thread=4997926
February - Sword and sandal epics F2693944?thread=5105863
March - Shakespeare on film F2693944?thread=5215377
April - Mancunian film studios F2693944?thread=5348478
May - Robert Altman F2693944?thread=5463712
June - Westerns F2693944?thread=5593880
August - DIDs: films that got you into film F2693944?thread=5786988
September - War films: the soldier鈥檚 story F2693944?thread=5907024
October - War films: the civilian鈥檚 story F2693944?thread=5990379
November - Women directors F2693944?thread=6080539
December - Christmas films F2693944?thread=6167516
*2009*
January - Bill Forsyth F2693944?thread=6238296
February - Stanley Kubrick F2693944?thread=6344975
March - Frank Capra F2693944?thread=6422685
April - Films about music F2693944?thread=6506133
May - Courtroom dramas F2693944?thread=6591078
June - Prison dramas F2693944?thread=6692548
July - Mike Leigh F2693944?thread=6787430
August - DID: Turkeys F2693944?thread=6842924
September - Australian/New Zealand Films: F2693944?thread=6937423
October - Children in Film F2693944?thread=7009827
November - "Light" Sci-Fi F2693944?thread=7094035
December - Road Movies F2693944?thread=7165030
*2010*
January - Roman Polanski F2693944?thread=7223025
February - Miscastings F2693944?thread=7314996
RustyLink to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 3
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Saturday, 20th March 2010
Rusters
The version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie shown on ITV from time to time is censored. The key scene where Sandy deconstructs and destroys Jean in the eyes of Teddy is cut for narratologically necessary and very fetching nudity, more's the pity. ITV do the same with Walkabout and probably also with "Don't Look Now" which I shan't bother recording on Sunday night as a result.
You can only get the DVD of Ronald Neame's excellent realistion of the Preston Sturgess adaptation of Muriel Spark on Region 1 import. So much about it that is worthy of mention, but I'll just observe that it manages to take the three actresses (as they then were called) who play Sandy, Jenny and the Other One from age 11 to age 18 and get away with it, thanks to great costume, camerawork, acting and direction.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 4
Posted by ARENA (U3567614) on Saturday, 20th March 2010
My first memorable experience with US school films, was Andy Hardy.The ebullient Mickey Rooney and cookie Judy Garland......"Say guys, I gotta swell idea. Why don't we do the show, right HERE!"
I suppose the British equivalent was....
'It's Great to be Young'
with mini Richard O'Sullivan stealing the show in a bit part.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 5
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Saturday, 20th March 2010
That Mickey & Judy thing looks like a direct descendant of "Good News," which sadly no longer exists, the second reel having been lost. But luckily the Varsity Drag survives!
I was lucky enough to catch "It's Great To Be Young" on C4 one afternoon a few years ago. It is available on DVD in the Screen Icons series as part of a collection of John Mills films. Music by Humph, doncha know.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 6
Posted by E Yore (U1479700) on Saturday, 20th March 2010
Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:04 GMT, in reply to JB-on-the-West-Cliff in message 5
Flying visit to bookmark - will return later to read carefully and post when I am less brain dead than at present.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 7
Posted by E Yore (U1479700) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
Sun, 21 Mar 2010 08:34 GMT, in reply to JB-on-the-West-Cliff in message 1
Okay, back in the land of the (marginally) thinking. Very many thanks, JB, for your introduction, which is fascinating. I'd personally no idea at all of what lies behind the High School Film other than a demographic willing to pay to see the films ...
Like Analyst, my first experience of the High School Film was the Hardy Boys; (oops, pesky semi-colon) my second, "If ...". Going from one to the other was quite a shock! What they had in common, I seem to remember, is the virtual absence of adults playing any meaningful part in the adolescents' interaction and I suppose it is this, whether it is realistic or not, that is central to the school film. Remembering the Hardy Boys films, quite a lot of their scrapes could have been solved effortlessly had an adult stepped in but that wouldn't have made for good cinema.
Would the film 'Metropolitan' fit this HS film category? I remember loving the film, especially for the accuracy with which it described the lives of the teens on the Upper East Side.
You mention other cinemas and I've been racking my brains to think of a French equivalent to this genre. Perhaps the fact that French children rarely go to boarding schools or that French parents are far more involved in their offsprings' lives (and a lot of socialising takes place within the extended family)or the highly selective nature of the beast means that the Lyc茅e film is more difficult to outline. The only films I can think of are more about primary school children, such as 'La Guerre des Boutons' or 'Chouette, mes parents divorcent'.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 8
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
Bonjour E.Yore
You highlight a significant point in that the depiction of adults is an index of the character of this sort of film. They can be monsters, idiots, marginal and irrelevant or totally absent, or sometimes there is one sympathetic soul who understands, maybe because they still remember what it's like to be young. As the teenage novelist (in both senses) Susan Hinton, author of 'The Outsiders' and 'Rumble Fish', two good teenage films, said: 'Kids like me want to read about kids like me.'
Not familiar with 'Metropolitan,' but there are many films where there is a high school sub-plot, e.g, American Beauty, where I'm sure screenwriter Alan Ball based the Anglea and Janey characters and their relationship on the parts played by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Phoebe Cates in 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High,' a film that discovered them both, along with Sean Penn, Nicolas Cage and half a dozen other then-unknowns who went on to much bigger things. It also includes the now obligatory School Hall (Corridor) walkthroigh shot, most memorably executed since in Donnie Darko.
I was hoping we'd get onto the French. You're right that there is a paucity of Lycee Films, although it seems you missed the recent award-winner, La Classe, as it confsingly is not known in France (Entre les Murs.)
What the French have is Les Grandes Vaccences Movie, in which the young person goes off on the final summer hols of childhood in some suitably photgenic region, meets a slightly or much older admirer, becomes close to them and learns something, all inspired, it seems by the Grand-Homme of the Nouvelle Vague's* 'Le Genou de Claire,' studied by the post new wave generations and copied in its main theme in numerous examples such as La Dentelliere, A Ma Soeur and Les Filles Ne Savant Pas Nager.
*Eric Rohmer died in January, I only found out from researching this. Not a peep about it in the UK media, in contrast to the death of John Hughes, father of the US 1980s Teen Comedy, about whom I shall have much more to say next month.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 9
Posted by Reggie Trentham (U2746099) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
I think my introduction to the high school movie was Don't Knock the Rock now thankfully sunk into obscurity and which served mainly as a vehicle for the music of Bill Haley.
And while I'm talking about BH what about Blackboard Jungle? Surely the parent of all British high school movies and it featured Rock Around the Clock as its theme music.
Can't see how The Last Picture Show really fits into this genre. It's a very good film but not really a school movie (imo). You might just as well include American Graffiti while you're about it. A similar sort of film in some ways, though not nearly as good. And what about Grease while we're about it? It's got some great songs.
Ps Film 4 is showing The Guinea Pig at frequent intervals at present.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 10
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
Ahoy there Reggie
Thank you for highlighting The Blackboard Jungle, which is the grand-daddy of all those imitations where the idealistic teacher goes into the 'tough' school and learns lessons him/her self whilst revealing how those tough kids are all pussycats really: Dangerous Minds, that one with Sam-U-L Jackson, and of course, To Sir With Love, which is lovely, but don't tell me he wouldn't have had staffroom racism to deal with as well.
On E.Yore's earlier point about the marginalisation of adults, The Happiest Days of Your Life is mostly misremembered for the farce-like final ten minutes, when most of it is genteel social manners comedy set in the staffroom. The first St Trinians (Belles of...) was also mainly about the teachers, and only shifted to focus almost entirely on the 'young ladies' in the two sequels by popular demand.
There is also the sub-genre of the 'Much-loved' teacher and his or her mid-life crisis. I'm irredeemably prejudiced against Goodbye Mr Chips out of pure class hated, but I quite like Mr Holland's Opus, although it does try to cram too much in.
Genre is arbitrarily subjective and gives the enemies an excuse to give media studies a bad name: 'Social Science is a contradiction in terms,' Norman Tebbit said, but I don't think he was channeling Karl Popper.
The Last Picture Show is a high school film for me because the school is at the centre of the drama. It begins with the old boys mocking the young lads because the football team lost again, and goes on to explain that the reason the kids are losers is no fault of their own. It stands as a wonderful antidote to all those depictions of growing up in the USA at that time as an innocent Shangri-La.
(American Graffitti by contrast is set at the weekend, and so is no more a High School film (IMO) than Ferris Bueller's Day Off which I promised myself I would not mention till next month, but a Big Up for the Badger and his Coming-Of-Age stand when it comes.)
Grease: Raw Nerve. Yes, it is a hoot. Yes, songs are good. But I hate it. When my mates and I saw Olive tottering on her heels about to burst out of her tight trousers, we quickly re-named the ghastly hit song, 'You're a wobbly dog.'
Apart from inspiring far too many bad end of term productions, it is the biggest criminal of all in the area of ananchronistic miscastings, as mentioned last month. JT was 24 at the time and is the least of the offenders. Olive Neutron-Bomb was 30, and the fragrant Stockard Channing was playing a part half her age, against which a law there ought to be.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 11
Posted by ARENA (U3567614) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
A very good French 'school' film E-yore..
l'Argent de Poche (Pocketmoney) I have watched several other good ones but can't bring their titles to mind
Stretching the point slightly,one of my favourite
films, 'To Kill A Mockingbird', qualifies as a great school film.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 12
Posted by E Yore (U1479700) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
Sun, 21 Mar 2010 12:50 GMT, in reply to JB-on-the-West-Cliff in message 8
You are right, JB, I had forgotten 'Entre les Murs' - but does that fall into the category of fiction or documentary?
And you are also right about the typical 'vacances' film - due in no small part to the fact that the school holidays are long and often spent far from home in another part of France quite entirely. But perhaps discussion of them should belong properly to next month's coming of age theme.
One high school film yet to be mentioned is 'Dead Poets' Society' (and both as a teacher and as a former teen who once had a teacher as enthusiastic as the Robin Williams character, all I can say is heaven preserve students from the damage that type of teacher can inflict.)Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 13
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
Dead Poet's Soc: Ugh! Who cares what these posh brats think about anything? Lindsay Anderson had the right idea, Kill em all!
"If dot-dot-dot," was supposed to use B&W for fantasy and colour for reality, in a neat reversal of the Wizard Of Oz paradigm, but in the end they ran out of money and colour stock. It's still great, though.
Robin Williams reprises a slightly less annoying version of the same character in "Good Will Hunting," which we shall also file under Next Week.
I'd put in a good word for Picnic At Hanging Rock, though. It is often credited as the film that gave birth to Australian Cinema, although I still maintain that accolade belongs to Walkabout.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 14
Posted by ARENA (U3567614) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
One 'unexpected' school film is 'All Quiet On The Western Front'.
It is an object lesson on the futility of war and how propaganda works. If you have never seen it I urge you to do so.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 15
Posted by Rusters (U11225963) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
I love 鈥淧eggy Sue Got Married鈥, in which Kathleen Turner plays a restless and unhappy 40-something housewife who is mysteriously transported back in time to when she was a popular high-school student, living at home and with the world before her . She retains her memory of how he future life, but would she make different choices this time round? (One would hope not, as first time round she married her high school sweetheart, the dreaded Nicholas Cage.)
It is a very funny film, but there are some touching bits too. I am thinking particularly of the scene where the young Peggy Sue visits her beloved grandparents. She knows that they actually died years ago - yet here they are.
I have also enjoyed films which took their plots from Austen and Shakespeare and others: 鈥淐luless鈥 based on Emma, and 鈥10 Things Hate About You鈥, based on The Taming of the Shrew, 鈥淪he鈥檚 All That鈥, based on Pygmalion and 鈥淐ruel Intentions鈥, based on Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Great fun.
Alan Bennett鈥檚 鈥淭he History Boys鈥 was wonderful , and I just wish I鈥檇 seen the play which is said to be even better.
RustyLink to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 16
Posted by irene (U14262395) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
whereas i love 'goodbye mr.chips' (lst version that is). this is because i absolutely adore robert donat. and inevitably blub at same moments when re-viewing.
Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 17
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
"History Boys" is so good, it's almost enough to forgive all concerned for discovering James Corden.
The 'based on Shakespeare' thing was often more of a gimmick than a reality, particularly in "She's All That" which is in reality an inferior reworking of the same neurotic obsession about losing your girlfriend to a reality TV celeb the same writer employed in "Get Over It," aka 'Cynical High School Musical.'
Had to bring it up, HSM. I love I and III but hate II: Great Mindless Fun.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 18
Posted by Spartacus (U38364) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
Sun, 21 Mar 2010 20:25 GMT, in reply to JB-on-the-West-Cliff in message 17
I can only think of two "High School" movies I liked - "Buffy (the Vampire Slayer)" and "The Faculty". ;-DLink to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 19
Posted by Occasionalist (U10475533) on Sunday, 21st March 2010
"*Eric Rohmer died in January, I only found out from researching this."
There was at least a piece about him on Last Word for that week.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 20
Posted by petal jam (U1466691) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:27 GMT, in reply to JB-on-the-West-Cliff
Does Another Country count as a school movie? If so, that's my favourite. If not, I'd go with the wonderful Clueless, which appeals to quite young kids - I think they like the premise of the new girl in the class taken under the wing of two socially confident girls. Cruel Intentions was played to death in our house; the soundtrack lived in my car until the CD player gave up [though it's definitely /not/ a high school musical, the tracks chosen seemed just right to me.] Of the John Hughes school of high school movie [inc Ferris Bueller and Pretty in Pink] I have a soft spot for Some Kind of Wonderful, which touches real emotional loss as well as the social loss of face which is often encountered in recent teen drama.
All of these are about social class and the drawbacks of privilege and surfaces, and about finding deep affection in friendship, after mistaking love for longing. All four films contain some kind of betrayal - of self, of country, of truth. Seems a long way from Andy Hardy.
Ohh ps I liked Metropolitan too, though it's not well known here, I think. Are they not strictly speaking college kids though, or at least from different schools? My memory is that none of them knew each other well enough to be confident of making a meaningful social network.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 21
Posted by E Yore (U1479700) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 06:40 GMT, in reply to petal jam in message 20
I liked 'Clueless' as well (as I think they managed to keep the spirit of Jane Austen) - but although it is set among high schoolers, the fact that you have the older stepbrother, the father etc., in other words the intrusion of the outside world, sets it slightly apart from the genre (imo).
'Another Country' is indeed a school film of sorts, but could also be a coming of age film, no?
'Metropolitan', although it isn't set within one specific NYC independent school, is a school film from my recollection (which could be wrong) as many of the characters are in senior year in various independent schools. As someone who went to one of the schools in question, I can say that their portrayal of the various teens & families is spot on.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 22
Posted by Lady Trudie Tilney Glorfindel Maldini (U2222312) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
My problem is I always get confused between American High School and College - i'm sure that's because of Grease when all the 'schoolkids' looked at least 25!
In that spirit I would like to offer one of my fave films, 'Breaking Away' which I think is set in a college rather than a school. But it fits the 'coming of age' description, and is about class (posh college kids v poor local kids), rather than the usual jock/nerd thing. It's a bit of a cult movie amongst cycling fans and has lots of wonderful Italian opera music as a soundtrack.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 23
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
See my post above Ermintrude for their ages.
A good point: In the USA, 'School' is full-time education at any age. On the continent, all teachers are doctors or 'professors'.
Some women in their mid-twenties can get away with playing ten years younger. I call Carey Mulligan in evidence. You do need to 'doughnut' them by surrounding them with the genuine article, though.
Not so for men, particularly when they are required to feature in the obligatory changing room scenes. The absurdly developed muscles of your average young male actor are entirely inappropriate to portray teenage boys, most of whom look like wire coathangers with their shirts off. This was why Danny Boyle had to cast an English Asian boy to play the lead in Slumdog because all the Bollywood Boys were hopelessly pumped up in the gym.
"Clueless" was the next project young director Amy Heckerling made after 'Fast Times at Rigemont High.' She has been a major disappointment since.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 24
Posted by Spartacus (U38364) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 10:41 GMT, in reply to JB-on-the-West-Cliff in message 23
Some women in their mid-twenties can get away with playing ten years younger.聽
Yup. I'm currently enjoying "Caprica", where the two lead 15-year-olds are played by 25-year old and 27-year old women respectively.
Not so for men, particularly when they are required to feature in the obligatory changing room scenes.聽
Yup. In "Buffy" (the series) the actor who played Xander had a huge growth spurt between season 2 and season 3, and by the end of season 7 when he was supposed to be a year or so out of High School he looked positively middle-aged.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 25
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
Buffy the film and TV series, Bring It On, She's All That and several other films were shot at Torrance High School in SW LA, the most filmed school in the world.
They used my old school, West Hill Primary, Wandsworth, to shoot the exteriors for 'About A Boy.'
Other Great High Schools in movie history would include Shermer High near Chicago, John Hughes old school where he shot the Breakfast Club and most of his other school scenes, and Abronhill High School in Cumbernauld.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 26
Posted by Lady Trudie Tilney Glorfindel Maldini (U2222312) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
<>
Yup, the gym at Hogwarts must be particularly well-equipped. And the leading characters will be going grey if they don't get a move on and finish the series....Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 27
Posted by mag_pie (U2678603) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:18 GMT, in reply to JB-on-the-West-Cliff
Ah, I wondered when someone would mention the great Gregory's Girl. I loved that film. Although I haven't seen it in years and wonder if it would still have the same appeal now.
Carrie is a classic horror film but also a high school story, albeit a dark one. It captured very well the cruelties that teenagers can inflict on one another.
magsLink to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 28
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
"Carrie" is also responsible for the Obilgatory Changing Room Scene to end all obligatory changing room scenes, and its leading lady is another example of how small women can play girls whereas grown men cannot play boys.
Saw "Kes" again the other night, and was left feeling disconcerted by the shower scene. Those lingering shots of a 12 year old boy's buttocks seem to take on a different meaning in the changing cultural climate.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 29
Posted by Lady Trudie Tilney Glorfindel Maldini (U2222312) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
Just thought of another musical - Footloose.
Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 30
Posted by ARENA (U3567614) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
The Browning Version:
Production Team
Anthony Asquith: Director
Carmen Dillon: Art Direction
George Pollock: Asst Director
Desmond Dickinson: Cinematography
Yvonne Caffin: Costume Design
John D Guthridge: Editing
Biddy Chrystal: Make-Up Dept
WT Partleton: Make-Up Dept
Teddy Baird: Producer
Andrew Allan: Production Manager
from his own play: Script
Terence Rattigan: Script
John Dennis: Sound
Dino Di Campo: Sound
Gordon K McCallum: Sound
Cast
Michael Redgrave: Andrew Crocker-Harris
Jean Kent: Millie Crocker-Harris
Nigel Patrick: Frank Hunter
Ronald Howard: Gilbert
Brian Smith: Taplow
Wilfrid Hyde-White: Frobisher
Bill Travers: Fletcher
Judith Furse: Mrs Williamson
Paul Medland: Wilson
An excellent picture of English public school .Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 31
Posted by mag_pie (U2678603) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:31 GMT, in reply to JB-on-the-West-Cliff in message 28
I would be surprised if Ken Loach had a gay subtext, none of his other films do.
Are we defining a football (soccer) sub-genre? Kes, Gregory's Girl, Bend it Like Beckham, Beautiful Thing?
magsLink to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 32
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
Aaaah. Now I will back you up on Browning Version which is an intelligent and worthy piece.
Of course I don't hate all cinematic posh kids. The thing I don't like is when they, much like the stereotypical US High School Teens, mistake their peculiar world for some sort of Normal universal experience we can all identify with.
I'm pretty certain that when Thomas Hughes has Tom Brown say 'all boys are sent to public school these days,' he was being ironic and in character, just as E Nesbit's famous line in the Railway Children about how they were so poor they had to sack all the servants was part of a liberal discourse intended to broaden the horizons of priviliged readers who never knew how lucky they were.
Now for a pretentious semi-colon: The literary roots of the school story go back much further; to Zola, Rousseau and the Platonic Dialogues, where the debate between the authoritarians who would instruct the young in what was Truth and the trendy liberals who would have them find it out through their own enquiries has a long and distinguished history.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 33
Posted by petal jam (U1466691) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:01 GMT, in reply to mag_pie in message 31
In which case I beg an appendix for The Might Ducks [1,2 and 3.] A glorious mix of every US theme of the 90s from Gordon Gecko to the remnants of the Cold War via the struggling single mom and equal ice for girls. "Ducks fly together."Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 34
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
"I would be surprised if Ken Loach had a gay subtext."
No, course not. But rather like Dodson's photos of Alice, images of innocence are culturally anchored and received differently when the cultural climate shifts.
Big Whole Other Subject.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 35
Posted by Eliza Bennet (U2508760) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
Has anyone mentioned the St Trinian's films yet?
Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 36
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
St Trinians: I cited them in the intro.
"Belles" was mainly about the adults, but they discovered a rich vein which they mined in "Murder" and "Hell" then lost the plot with the train robbery.
Some of the references to white slavery and dodgy marriage bureaus were very risque, but they got away with it because of charm.
The recent revival was rather nasty and leery in the first incarnation, but looks like it has focussed better on its target market of youngsters in the second. And Rupert Everett would have considerable trouble professionally with the proverbial wet paper bag.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 37
Posted by Spartacus (U38364) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:00 GMT, in reply to Eliza Bennet in message 35
Has anyone mentioned the St Trinian's films yet?聽
Oooooh, yes, they're fab. (Apart from the one near the end of the 1980s...)Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 38
Posted by Hazel Wooley (U2338026) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
Has anyone mentioned "If...." yet? Brilliant film, Lindsey Anderson's best, IMO. "Another Country" is another of my faves.
And on a lighter note, Back to the Future, Scent of a Woman and Taps.Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 39
Posted by ARENA (U3567614) on Monday, 22nd March 2010
Not to forget the iconic 'Blackboard Jungle'
which introduced most of us to 'Rock Around The Clock'Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 40
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Thursday, 25th March 2010
And Another Thing:
Alongside age-miscasting, there is also the question of needless translocation.
The adaptation of 'Waterland' was utterly buggered by moving the school from England to Pittsburgh. (Yes, Why?)
Which brings me to the onerous task of not making an obvious remark about a new release, but it's too tempting:
So anyway, I've just caught a glimpse of Eva Green's 'Cracks,' and I'm left wondering why they moved it to England from South Africa?Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 41
Posted by ARENA (U3567614) on Thursday, 25th March 2010
Some actors' best known roles have been as schoolmasters...
Robert Donat as Chips
Will Hay in several comedies
...and Alistair Sims as a schoolmam!Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 42
Posted by Spartacus (U38364) on Sunday, 4th April 2010
Sun, 04 Apr 2010 08:04 GMT, in reply to Analyst or ARENA crosswords in message 41
Yesterday, I saw a fascinating movie that might qualify...
"Brick"
It's set in and around a high school, but the only two indoor locations you see are the Vice-Principal's office and the lockers. Most of the action takes place out on the sports field, in the car park or in sundry basements.
It's a full, no-nonsense "Film Noir", with violence, murder, drug-dealing and moms offering glasses of apple juice. The language is as fast as "The Wire" and almost as difficult to follow.
Recommended.
Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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Message 43
Posted by Leaping Badger (U3587940) on Sunday, 4th April 2010
Dirty boy.
Sorry I haven't been around on this thread, been too ill. Have perked up a bit now and will attempt to read, digest and understand it soon.
One thing: it looks as though the starting point for this thread is any film which is set largely within the physical confines of a school; is that right? I see Goodbye Mr Chips has already been mentioned, which of course centres mostly on the teachers rather than boys.
One which doesn't seem to have had a mention yet is the sublime P'tang Yang Kipperbang, which is one of those I would mention next month under coming of age dramas.
Hope to return soon.
'脰'Link to this forum: March Film Club: High School Movies/School Films
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