Film Analysis - High School (1968)

Once again, as a student at the cusp of college graduation, I often compare what I remembering knowing from high school on what I learned in supplementary courses, and I can't say that it has been all that much scholastically. The majority of what I learned in school was based in my own capability. How much work can I handle? How long can I put this off? What is the best way to structure my problems so that I can sort them out in a timely manner? I would probably argue that the finals years in high school were formative in a similar way. The monotony of a daily routine was educative if not for the social exercise that it gave me. Frederick Wiseman's 1968 documentary High School, one of the first in cinema verite style, is the right kind of exercise.

Slow-moving and uneventful, this documentary chronicles the typical process of the high school year: class time, break time, and social flow. We watch teachers speaking low to their students, and students returning verbal blows or acquiescing to their power. To some it may appear that this is condemning abuse of power, but I think it simply portrays a condition in its organic environment, seeking not to choose sides. One of the most crucial questions to ask about cinema verite is whether the presence of a camera will change the natural course of events. In this case, I would defend High School as one that did not change the course of events just because a camera was present. Students and teachers alike, without trying to gain or give attention to the documentarian, are behaving normally.

An interesting angle to approach children's education than taking the same scientific approach that the camera's lens does. It is present on scene just as our own vessels occupy reality as a looming and betimes intimidating figure suspended in a moment in which broken and injured souls are projected in all of their virtues, beliefs, and hypocrisies. From the flawed and limited perspective of a 90-degree window into reality, we must draw intimate conclusions about our social atmosphere, those in front and those behind, those above us, and those below. Wiseman's window into 1960's high school life bears the similitude of an authority staff member at the school. Some might say that the camera's presence examines and scrutinizes them and affects their behavior therefore; however, I would argue that the camera is no different in this setting than another person in a throng of people.