tieman64
Along with Emile de Antonio, Frederick Wiseman is one of the godfathers of documentary cinema, having established the standard for what is now known as "observational" or "objective" documentary film-making (a term which Wiseman rejects). But unlike most documentary filmmakers, Wiseman's films all focus on institutions. His subjects are whole organisations, and his drama is derived from simply observing the various cogs and people at work within these societal machines. High schools, welfare offices, zoos, hospitals, ballet groups, army basic training camps, small towns, ICBM bases and business corporations are just some of the institutions he's tackled.The end result is a vast canvas, which when put together with all of Wiseman's other documentaries, creates a human panorama akin to Balzak. This is the late 20th/early 21st century rendered, in all its expansiveness, in all its complexity, with humility by a little man and a tiny camera.The importance of Wiseman is that he dares to show, not only how much humanity has accomplished, but to what extent we've become slaves to the institutions, facilities, jobs and social structures that we inhabit. Whilst most films centre on a hero or heroes scheming to overcome some obstacle or complete some quest, Wiseman's world is one in which forces continuously exert pressure on the individual, shaping how he thinks and behaves. To Wiseman, society is a complex lattice of overlapping social structures and institutions and mankind is both the God who creates them, and the pawn who succumbs to the tides of their walls.And this juxtaposition (man as God/man as pawn) permeates Wiseman's entire filmography. Though touted as a kind of "anthropological" director or a film-maker concerned about "studying institutions", Wiseman's real aim is to highlight the follies and absurdity of human nature. Think the monkeys masturbating in "Primate", the city street-sweepers who sweep snow with futility during a blizzard because "that's their job", the suburban white kids being shown how to put a condom on a giant black dildo in "High School" or the doctors so desensitised to death that they joke about their vegetable patients. This is black comedy at its darkest, its most absurd, its most surreal.Wiseman's films, when viewed in tandem, start revealing their own patterns, their own rhymes and rhythms. Watch how "Ballet" mirrors "Le Dance", "Zoo" mirrors "Primate", "Basic Training" mirrors "Missile", "High School's 1 and 2" echo his work in "Juvenile Court" and "Public Housing". Likewise, observe how "Hospital" mirrors "Near Death" and "Deaf" mirrors "Blind". This is not a film-maker jumping randomly from institution to institution, this is a human portrait on a grand scale.That said, Wiseman's "High School" works well as an individual film. Shot in a Philadelphia high school, whose academic reputation is esteemed, the film coolly observes the institution's various comings and goings on. It's all quite innocuous at first, until Wiseman's theme begins to come into focus. Education isn't the point of this institution, but socialisation and indoctrination. Consider one scene in which a teacher informs a student that he must sit detention, regardless of his guilt or innocence, because it proves that he can "be a man" and "obey orders". Consider the words of the gynaecologist brought into the school, the staff's obsession with instilling obedience to administrative authority, and the final scene, in which a teacher reads a letter from a former student fighting in Vietnam and then suggests that his service is proof that the school is succeeding in its job. It's spooky stuff.8.9/10 – Worth one viewing.
evanston_dad
An antidote to every phony show about high school ever shown on the WB, "High School" is another harrowing documentary from that most harrowing of documentarians, Frederick Wiseman.Once again, Wiseman lets his cameras roll and leaves it to the viewer to draw conclusions. But don't be surprised if the conclusion you draw is that this particular high school is a fascist, Orwellian hell for its students, where the faculty are dictators and the attendees their cowering subjects. No other moment in the film nails that point home more than the one in which a bullying principal needlessly humiliates a student.My high school experience wasn't like this, but regardless, this movie didn't make me want to revisit my high school years anytime soon.Grade: A
deaniac1-1
The first time I saw this movie was when I was in High School, and needless to say, I felt a great affinity towards these kids. It doesn't matter what era or place that you've grown up in, high school is the same old oppressive grind. My friends and I went to a special showing, and we stood up and cheered when the guy on the phone pointedly covers his ear and turns his back to the teacher trying to discipline him. This is pretty much the only scene in which we see a student really blatantly showing his complete contempt towards an authority figure. It is so rude, it's thrilling. It gives you hope for the future, to see that there are actually people who refuse to become one of the automatons that the public school systems are determined to produce. It's good so see that at least some of them have slipped through the cracks.
Agent10
Sometimes odd, or funny, or nostalgic, this film really exemplifies the difference between the 1960s and today. There really isn't much difference, except in the clothing and the political agendas. But this film also shows a time where discipline was much more valued as opposed to today's standards. With the disintegration of the public school system, this could be a historical keepsake when the school system takes its last plunge.
