High School [1968]

 Frederick Wiseman, in his sophomore documentary feature High School, toned down on the scalding nature of his subject selection from his incendiary debut Titicut Follies, but retained both his formal and topical choices – viz. fly-in-the-wall observational essays on institutions, organizations and communities, which became his directorial signature – in this ‘direct cinema’ classic. Its matter-of-fact tone notwithstanding, the captivating piece, centred on the Northeast High School in Pennsylvania, comprised of pointed undercurrents, and that was discernible in the teacher-student interactions that it focussed on which were representative of power contrasts in a hierarchical structure existing at the knife-edge between progressive pedagogy and rigid discipline. One therefore sees, on one hand, a Spanish teacher explaining Sartre and existentialism, a hip literature teacher selecting Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘The Dangling Conversation’ for her poetry class, and a wisecracking gynaecologist providing sex education to adolescent boys; on the other hand, one finds the school’s grumpy principle instructing students on the utmost importance of obeying authority, even if that means accepting unfair reprimands, and blindly following the stringent dress codes of prom, when he’s not hunting for rulebreakers in the corridor. Ironically, the same principle then patronisingly advises a parent not to impose their desires and expectations on their children, and accepting it if they’re not the smartest kid in the block. Excellently shot in grainy B/W using a roving, curious and unobtrusive 16mm camera, the docu was therefore teasingly informed by a deadpan outlook on the uneasy juxtaposition between conformity and self-expression in the school – which attained an especially sardonic meaning given that 1968, the year in which it was made, was defined by global protests by rebellious youth – while avoiding any heavy-handed elements.

Director: Frederick Wiseman

Genre: Documentary

Language: English

Country: US