Class Projects

by Shari L. Rosenblum

This season, the magic of the movies brings us the magic of the classroom on two separate schoolfronts, one fictional and one factual. In School of Rock, written by Mike White (Orange County, The Good Girl) and directed by Richard Linklater (Waking Life, Before Sunrise), Jack Black’s faux-substitute teacher feeds his students on dreams of rock and roll and grows along with them. In Être et Avoir (To Be and To Have), culled from 600 hours of film observation by documentarian Nicolas Philibert, Georges Lopez, true-life teacher, fills a single-room schoolhouse -- and a group of mismatched, underprepared, adorable pupils -- with numbers, words, hopes, and love.

Both films capture the vulnerability of children, but only the documentary breaks our hearts. Both films believe that to teach is to liberate -- but only the fantasy inspires faith that it will.

School of Rock follows the travails of rocker manqué Dewey Finn (Black), an oversized, undermatured Peter Pan for the Jimmy Page set. One night, Finn rocks a bit off and falls flat on his face, unceremoniously uncaught by an unwelcoming mosh pit. He soon discovers that absolutely no one’s got his back: while he was preparing for a Battle of the Bands, his band replaced him with a cross between Fabio and Cher, the shrill girlfriend (Sarah Silverman) dominating the pushover buddy he’s been mooching off of for years (White) is demanding back rent... now, and he doesn’t have a hope of getting a job. Seems that Finn’s got little choice but to borrow a name and credentials and get a gig as a substitute teacher at a high-powered grade school, presided over by an uptight principal (Joan Cusack), where he can scoff at the do-gooding man-obeying gold-star-grubbing formal fifth-graders to whom he’s been assigned. And so it goes, until Finn discovers the rock-and-roll rhythm inside every child -- and adult -- and figures out a way to get his own gold star.

Just the same three chords, over and over, you might say, but School of Rock plays like a rowdy, rambunctious semi-heavy love song to the rock-and-roll spirit: rebellion, self-assertion, self-acceptance. And like rock and roll itself, it is invigorating. Invigorating and funny. Black is high-energy, and his larger-than-life true love of the music shines through his blubbery slacker persona -- particularly in the rock-video history lessons he gives his students. White, in his smaller role, is a complement rather than a contrast -- a wink and a nod to rock and roll never forgetting. And Cusack, perfect as always, conveys with delicious restraint the puckered nervousness that barely shades the airy Wiccan within.

School of Rock is not an art film and makes no pretense at realism. Still, there’s more to the picture than meets the eye. Every child’s discovery of the freedom of letting go, saying no, or being cool feels both fresh and familiar as a favorite song. And though we may think we know how the Battle of the Bands will end, we may be wrong. But trust me, it’s still fun, fun, oh baby.

On the other hand, I found little fun in George Lopez’s real-world schoolroom in Auvergne, though it did make me smile at times. To Be and To Have wants to be a lyrical film about a teacher’s commitment and the way he touches the lives of the children he teaches. It focuses on the old-style format, where children aged pre-school to pre-middle school share a single room and a single teacher, divided only by their ages and their tasks, and it embraces the warmth and adeptness of the teacher himself, as he moves generously, attentively among them.

Lopez is clearly a gifted teacher who has earned and reciprocated the love of his students. His patience is exceptional, his classroom a warm, inspiring place. However, in his attempt to show the poetry of teaching, director Nicolas Philibert exploits his tender subjects. It chooses favorites in the way a teacher never should (the adorable Jojo, for example), and chooses favorite victims, demonstrating in its aesthetic choices a palpable insensitivity. Worse, there are multiple scenes in which Lopez, playing on -- and in essence betraying -- the trust of his students, provokes them in mock private moments to embarrassment, shame, and tears as their anxious eyes glance up, painfully aware of the camera’s intrusion. These are moments that might be warm and beautiful were they truly intimate connections. But here they are played as commodities -- filmbytes of warmth -- distasteful to me in my identification with the children, as in my professional distancing from the teacher. The horror I felt was visceral. I ached.

There are multiple other scenes in which the camera moves into the children’s home lives, superiorly capturing the weakness of the academic traditions to which they attest: a mother slapping a child because he gets the wrong answer, an entire family gathered around, arguing about simple multiplication tables. These are moments that make one pity the families, who undoubtedly believe themselves showing off for the film crew and posterity. It seemed to me that Philibert above all, in choosing such moments, missed, countered, distorted the true beauty of the teaching moment, substituting something else in its place, an approximation, forced and phony. A superciliousness the true teacher never feels.

But in the end, the teaching moment does prevail. To Be and To Have takes us through to the last day of class and the final farewells, and it overcomes, with this, its own worst flaws – conveying with absolute honesty the poignancy of setting free those we has protected, and of moving on from a place of safety and comfort. The camera observes, but seems not to invade the private space here, as the children, some gone for the summer, some for good, say good-bye and thank you to monsieur, with love.

©2003 Shari L. Rosenblum
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