The list of feature films that show the challenges faced by teachers and students seems to be endless, but they always address controversial issues in different ways. Some endings are happy, others are not, because after all, reality is often harsh. What matters is that people see that with persistence, discipline and respect, it is possible that school problems can be overcome within Education. Within this list of school plots are "Dead Poets Society", "Freedom Writers", "The Class", "Dangerous Minds", "Leon on Me", "Take the Lead", among others. But one, in particular, opened the fan for the following productions: "To Sir with Love".
Written and directed by James Clavell (best known for writing Shogun), inspired by a 1959 book of the same title, by author Edward Ricardo Braithwaite who recounts his own experience as a teacher. The film is an adaptation that tells the story of Mark Thackeray (Sidney Poitier), a black engineer from Guyana who finds it difficult to get a job in his area and accepts an opportunity at a secondary school in a low-income neighborhood in London. As soon as he arrives at school the other teachers wish him good luck with the class and he doesn't understand why he needs luck so much. The principal warns him that some students are difficult, but that deep down they are good people and act rebellious because of the situations they live in their homes.
Born in the Bahamas, actor Sidney Poitier was sent at the age of 15 (average age of the students in the film...) to live with his brother in the United States, due to the constant problems he was involved in in his homeland. He knew, in his personal life, poverty, lack of a good education, and unemployment. All this seems to have made possible the construction of an unforgettable role in the history of cinema, that of Professor Tackeray. Clothed with an aura of honor and dignity, empathy for the students and deep dedication to teaching, Tackeray became and would remain, for movie viewers, a kind of archetype of the ideal teacher, which everyone would like to have - and who would only come to threatened more than 20 years later by Robin Williams' John Keating.
A remarkable product of its time, the film was banned in South Africa because it was considered "offensive for a black teacher to teach a class of white children". Even if it were not so well executed, this fact alone, combined with the courage to present a black protagonist at the height of the conflicts in the USA for black civil rights (the "long summer" of 1967) would already give the film a definitive place in the history of the film. Movie theater.
The strongly dialectical structure of the feature film, which always opts for a strong marker to highlight this clash between student and teacher, which, in the end, translates into the general interpretation of the film as a kind of "good versus evil" as an element that moves the action of the film fable. Social malpractice is transformed through a very powerful and socially engaged pedagogical act, converting what was bad into something good. The tone is always humanistic and part of the most basic premise of universal education: it is possible for everyone to learn everything.
It is very singular that the figure of undisciplined students does not indicate an individuality, that is, we are not talking about a specific student - the difficult Pamela Dare (Judy Geeson) or the problematic Bert Denham (Christian Roberts) -, we are dealing with the portrait of a collective. I mean, the character is collective and represents, through a microsystem (the undisciplined classroom), a macrosystem (society as a whole). The classroom serves as a laboratory for a successful social experiment, which transforms the collective subject as a whole, making it sociable, and thus the film beckons to a consistent optimism in its reading of human relationships. And of course, all this positive status change has in the hands of a teacher the most essential key.
Still, the film operates as if it were constantly pushing its initial acts towards the conclusion, which would be the moment when these undisciplined students would then gain some discipline and start to see Professor Mark, already deeply disrespected at a certain point in the film, as an expensive example of a human being, of a social subject. From the beginning, the direction points to this place and makes the actions that precede it abrupt and sometimes harsh so that, when changing the status of the plot, we delight in the change generated in the heart not only of the students, but of the film itself, which acquires a different tone from the first part, always bringing, in each shot from now on, an aspect of commotion and rhetorical emotion, so that the bond forged between the Master and the students becomes something close to a very sentimental affection, introducing in each line of the script ideas of respect, humanity, decorum, equality and compassion.
The fact is that, a priori, the twist is not what matters, but the way it is conducted in the mise-en-scène, that is, the way, the strategies, the dialogues and the behaviors that led to this adventure and the film demonstrates this. Step by step, with a firm script, which leaves no point untied. In all acts, even after guaranteed respect and above all after the change of fortune (central motif of the film), the master continues to teach through gestures, decisions and postures in the face of situations that arise.
The film does not only address issues of the school environment, it shows how social aspects interfere in the reality of a teenager. Among the students are people who don't have a family base, who have divorced parents, who take care of their siblings or the house when they get home, who consider themselves the scum of society and think they have no future. Although we have a black person as a teacher in a mostly white class, racism is rarely addressed. With the exception of the moment when a mixed-race student loses his mother and his classmates save money to buy a wreath, but cannot go to his house because they will be frowned upon by society at that time.
Despite having premiered in 1967, its approach remains very current, dealing with recurring themes also from the 21st century. Films that talk about the school environment are always moving, not only because the situations experienced by students and teachers are difficult, but also because they are stories of overcoming, showing that with education it is possible, yes, to change the reality of a child or adolescent who it was "destined" to be a "nothing" for society. Despite its concept being current, this is a work that, despite still being iconic, deserves an adaptation for today, keeping the main ideas, but updating many situations and dialogues, including the opportunity to better explore the lives of students and the teacher outside the classroom, even creating new characters with new dramas. If a new adaptation falls into skilled hands, this new version could easily become a new classic for the human and universal potential of the story.
On a cold note, the aesthetic hasn't aged so well and that low-budget movie impression is notorious. Some choices in the editing harm the emotional immersion, there are segments that are drawn out, but two points remain strong: Sidney Poitier's impeccable performance, full of dignity, intelligently internalizing his feelings, and, of course, that unforgettable ending, in which the students gather to surprise the master with a beautiful song, sung by Lulu, who oozes charisma. It is a sensitive example of how cinema can be a truly transformative tool.
We are facing the results of an excellent seeding - allegorical seeding that represents much more than the classroom, but indicates the possibility of transforming the human race through pedagogical means. Or rather, it demonstrates the possibility of social change, working from smaller categories to express verisimilitude in fiction and leaving everything with an aspect of "possible", of "true".
Written and directed by James Clavell (best known for writing Shogun), inspired by a 1959 book of the same title, by author Edward Ricardo Braithwaite who recounts his own experience as a teacher. The film is an adaptation that tells the story of Mark Thackeray (Sidney Poitier), a black engineer from Guyana who finds it difficult to get a job in his area and accepts an opportunity at a secondary school in a low-income neighborhood in London. As soon as he arrives at school the other teachers wish him good luck with the class and he doesn't understand why he needs luck so much. The principal warns him that some students are difficult, but that deep down they are good people and act rebellious because of the situations they live in their homes.
Born in the Bahamas, actor Sidney Poitier was sent at the age of 15 (average age of the students in the film...) to live with his brother in the United States, due to the constant problems he was involved in in his homeland. He knew, in his personal life, poverty, lack of a good education, and unemployment. All this seems to have made possible the construction of an unforgettable role in the history of cinema, that of Professor Tackeray. Clothed with an aura of honor and dignity, empathy for the students and deep dedication to teaching, Tackeray became and would remain, for movie viewers, a kind of archetype of the ideal teacher, which everyone would like to have - and who would only come to threatened more than 20 years later by Robin Williams' John Keating.
A remarkable product of its time, the film was banned in South Africa because it was considered "offensive for a black teacher to teach a class of white children". Even if it were not so well executed, this fact alone, combined with the courage to present a black protagonist at the height of the conflicts in the USA for black civil rights (the "long summer" of 1967) would already give the film a definitive place in the history of the film. Movie theater.
The strongly dialectical structure of the feature film, which always opts for a strong marker to highlight this clash between student and teacher, which, in the end, translates into the general interpretation of the film as a kind of "good versus evil" as an element that moves the action of the film fable. Social malpractice is transformed through a very powerful and socially engaged pedagogical act, converting what was bad into something good. The tone is always humanistic and part of the most basic premise of universal education: it is possible for everyone to learn everything.
It is very singular that the figure of undisciplined students does not indicate an individuality, that is, we are not talking about a specific student - the difficult Pamela Dare (Judy Geeson) or the problematic Bert Denham (Christian Roberts) -, we are dealing with the portrait of a collective. I mean, the character is collective and represents, through a microsystem (the undisciplined classroom), a macrosystem (society as a whole). The classroom serves as a laboratory for a successful social experiment, which transforms the collective subject as a whole, making it sociable, and thus the film beckons to a consistent optimism in its reading of human relationships. And of course, all this positive status change has in the hands of a teacher the most essential key.
Still, the film operates as if it were constantly pushing its initial acts towards the conclusion, which would be the moment when these undisciplined students would then gain some discipline and start to see Professor Mark, already deeply disrespected at a certain point in the film, as an expensive example of a human being, of a social subject. From the beginning, the direction points to this place and makes the actions that precede it abrupt and sometimes harsh so that, when changing the status of the plot, we delight in the change generated in the heart not only of the students, but of the film itself, which acquires a different tone from the first part, always bringing, in each shot from now on, an aspect of commotion and rhetorical emotion, so that the bond forged between the Master and the students becomes something close to a very sentimental affection, introducing in each line of the script ideas of respect, humanity, decorum, equality and compassion.
The fact is that, a priori, the twist is not what matters, but the way it is conducted in the mise-en-scène, that is, the way, the strategies, the dialogues and the behaviors that led to this adventure and the film demonstrates this. Step by step, with a firm script, which leaves no point untied. In all acts, even after guaranteed respect and above all after the change of fortune (central motif of the film), the master continues to teach through gestures, decisions and postures in the face of situations that arise.
The film does not only address issues of the school environment, it shows how social aspects interfere in the reality of a teenager. Among the students are people who don't have a family base, who have divorced parents, who take care of their siblings or the house when they get home, who consider themselves the scum of society and think they have no future. Although we have a black person as a teacher in a mostly white class, racism is rarely addressed. With the exception of the moment when a mixed-race student loses his mother and his classmates save money to buy a wreath, but cannot go to his house because they will be frowned upon by society at that time.
Despite having premiered in 1967, its approach remains very current, dealing with recurring themes also from the 21st century. Films that talk about the school environment are always moving, not only because the situations experienced by students and teachers are difficult, but also because they are stories of overcoming, showing that with education it is possible, yes, to change the reality of a child or adolescent who it was "destined" to be a "nothing" for society. Despite its concept being current, this is a work that, despite still being iconic, deserves an adaptation for today, keeping the main ideas, but updating many situations and dialogues, including the opportunity to better explore the lives of students and the teacher outside the classroom, even creating new characters with new dramas. If a new adaptation falls into skilled hands, this new version could easily become a new classic for the human and universal potential of the story.
On a cold note, the aesthetic hasn't aged so well and that low-budget movie impression is notorious. Some choices in the editing harm the emotional immersion, there are segments that are drawn out, but two points remain strong: Sidney Poitier's impeccable performance, full of dignity, intelligently internalizing his feelings, and, of course, that unforgettable ending, in which the students gather to surprise the master with a beautiful song, sung by Lulu, who oozes charisma. It is a sensitive example of how cinema can be a truly transformative tool.
We are facing the results of an excellent seeding - allegorical seeding that represents much more than the classroom, but indicates the possibility of transforming the human race through pedagogical means. Or rather, it demonstrates the possibility of social change, working from smaller categories to express verisimilitude in fiction and leaving everything with an aspect of "possible", of "true".