Very rarely does it feel like the movies cross over with my work and now my graduate degree classes, nor do I want it, but this movie encapsuled just about everything that I have heard in my grad and undergrad classes, but it does it in a much more subtle and emotionally engaging way. This film is the new movie Armageddon Time. James Gray directs an emotionally potent movie that takes place in 1980 in the outskirts of New York, it takes place in a couple of schools, one inner city and one affluent private school. It also takes place in the Graff household, which is not that great a place to be. It also stars some big names like Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway, and Jeremy Strong, but the kids are the main roles, but the strong support of the adults helps the film.
Paul Graff, a young kid, is the center of the story. He is on the on the brink of becoming a teen, and he is having a tough time finding his way in the world. There are two people that he feels comfortable around, and those are his Grand Pa and his friend, Johnny, who he initially goes to school with. Paul and Johnny are good at getting in trouble at school, and the teacher does not handle it well. The behavior problems spill over at home as well. Paul and his parents are constantly at odds. Sometimes it is due to Paul being disrespectful, but other times his parents are being way to harsh, and they are abusive, so that does not help either.
Eventually Paul and Johnny go to far, and they get caught smoking weed in the bathroom, so Paul changes schools, and his grand pa convinces him that it is a good choice. In the new school, Paul feels out of place, but it does seem like they take him into account as a person a little more than his previous school. The other students in the school though are not that great. They have a haughty attitude, and they look down on those that are different from them. In a conversation with his grandfather, Paul tells him about the students and the unkind things that they had been saying about others, and his grand pa told him that he needs to stand up for others, because there was a time when Paul’s family was looked down upon for being Jewish. Shortly thereafter his Grand Pa passes, and Paul does something that results in the loss of the friendship between him and Johnny.
In the opening scene in the school Paul draws a picture of the teacher, and it is done incredibly well, but under the teacher’s head, he draws a turkey’s body, a play on the teacher’s name. The teacher grabs the notebook and immediately starts to berate Paul. A Situation that could easily have been taken light heartedly, and the teacher could have even commented on the high level of the art, but instead, he took the worst route. Then Johnny makes a simple joke when attendance is being called, and the teacher flips out again over something basic, and he reduces Johnny by criticizing him for repeating a grade. This is all in two minutes, where he minimizes one student’s gifts, and he completely destroys a relationship with Johnny by calling him dumb. The first day of school is about getting to know the students and building relationships, not ruining any chance for a rapport with them.
On the other hand, Paul and Johnny do not have the best home life, and this often leads to the problems at school, which the teacher will never know about, because he does not care about his students. Johnny lives with his grandmother, and he is the primary caretaker of her. A responsibility no kid his age should have to shoulder. Paul lives in a decent house, and he does have a large amount of family surrounding him, but they are not all supportive. His grand pa is the only one that seems to understand and encourage his passions. Whenever he mentions his art, his parents scoff and look down upon it as a hobby, not a way to make a living. They demand he goes to college and find a career. He is still young, yet they do not allow him to dream his own dreams, he is forced into a pipeline of his parents wanting. It makes the heart hurt when his grand father dies, and his one familial support vanishes. Not only was his grand father his only support, but it was also the most moral member of the family. He taught good life lessons and was gentle. If Paul or his brother got in trouble, there was a threat looming, and that was their father. A man who worked hard to provide for his family, but he was very abusive, which does not teach anything except for fear.
This leads to Paul feeling like he needs to leave home. So him and Johnny concoct a plan to steal a computer from Paul’s new school, and then they will flee to Florida, where Paul will become an artist at Epcot, and Johnny will join the Air Force with his brother, when he is of age. They both have clear dreams, but both are shunned at their first school, and neither have the immediate family support to feel like they achieve it there either. They feel left with no choice other than thievery and running away. Sadly, the theft goes wrong, and both are caught. Paul gets out of it, because Paul’s Dad helped to fix the water heater of the cop for free, but Johnny was left to become a part of the system, and thus an early example of the school to prison pipeline. Paul made the plan, but Johnny paid the price.
There was one example of good teaching, and it is perfectly paired against bad teaching. So the bad comes from the public school. The students had just been on a field trip to the Guggenheim, and after the teacher wanted them to make a drawing of a noun, but Paul was inspired by the art that he saw at the museum, and he tried to recreate one of the abstract pictures he saw instead. When the teacher saw it, he made fun of him in front of the whole class and proceeded to throw away the art. Not only did he criticize the good work, on a task that had limited options, but he also made a show out of the embarrassment of Paul. He could have easily mentioned it quietly to him that he was doing the assignment wrong, instead of calling him out in front of the whole class.
The better example of teaching comes from the private school. Paul is in art class, and they are supposed to be drawing a self-portrait, but his grand pa had just passed, and he was reflecting on a good memory he had with his grand pa where they shot off a rocket. His teacher notices right as he is finishing it, and she still calls him out in front of the class for doing the wrong thing, but she does praise him for doing a good job in the drawing he did create. She does take it from him, and later the audience finds out that she kept it to hang it up in the hallway. This played a key moment later, when Paul realized that some teachers do care about him, and that he is talented.
The movie also commented on racism and white privilege which sadly has continued to be a message that needs to be displayed. This film explicitly talked about antisemitism, which was timely considering the recent repugnant displays of antisemitism in the media by Kyrie Irving and Kayne. So, it was good to see something in art standing up to this hate. There was also the white privilege that was shown throughout. This came in the form of Paul being able to leave the packed inner-city school for the more formal private school with small class sizes. It was also shown multiple times when him and Johnny got in trouble. In the formal settings, Johnny always got the worst of it, but Paul did get worst punishments at home, but Johnny did not have a support system at home to punish him.
It was a tough story to watch, no one really came out on top, and the familial and school practices were largely poor. In class, I have learned about providing students with a swath of options, students should have some say in the activities that they are choosing, and when possible, they should be encouraged to use their strengths and interests to learn. There were multiple times when Paul’s strengths were pushed down and made to feel unimportant. Also the teachers at the first school failed completely to try and create relationships with the students, and as Dr. Morgan always said, “No significant learning can occur without a significant relationship.” How can they except the school to succeed without having teachers that care? I often reflect on my teaching experiences and critique myself in ways that I have failed, but it is films like this, that help me to realize my short comings and think of ways I can improve.
Two other films came out this week, that were incredible, and I would argue that the three films I saw this weekend are in the top four of the year. Here are summaries and brief reviews on Tar and The Banshees of Inisherin.
Olivia Tar is on the top of the world. She is a musical savant, and her reputation spans the globe. People flock to her for her advice, but she is unwilling to give it. There is also a problem creeping up on her. The problem is her demeanor, which is cold and strict. In one of her lectures, she is giving a student criticism about the choices he is making, specifically the song choice. When she is going at him, she says that he is being over dramatic in trying to avoid white composers, and other adverse comments. None of her comments were great, and they were borderline inappropriate, and it caused her student to storm off. So in some ways she wants to stick with the old. One of the most important aspects of Tar’s life is order and cleanliness, but most of all, she always gets her way, despite how it makes others feel. The times when she does decide to go off the beaten path, it ends up hurting others.
A young attractive celloist, Olga, comes in for an audition, and she gets selected in part due to Tar’s attraction to her. Then Olga, starts to spend more time with Tar outside of normal rehearsal, and it turns out that this is not the first time that Tar has done this, she has a reputation for taking in young musician women, getting what she wants, and then spitting them out. In one case, the player who was spit out committed suicide, and the blame has been placed on Tar. Other accusations start to rise, and Tar is falling, and it is hurting her mentally. Then the people who she had offended by breaking the norms in the orchestra start to turn on her as well, and her conductorship is taken away from her, but this is not rock bottom for Tar, she continues to fall.
The movie has a few different components playing into it. One of them is: can you separate the art from the artist. If the artist is excellent and creates impeccable work, but they are a scum bag, can the art be fully respected. This is a question that can only be answered personally, and there is no right answer. It also is a look into the amount of work others must put in to make a person great, and without them, they might not get the recognition otherwise. In this case there is a vast orchestra that performs these pieces under Tar, but she gets all the credit, and the others are largely pushed to the side. The movie also discusses how lonely it is to fall from grace. Tar goes into complete isolation, before making a reappearance in a foreign country as the director of an orchestra for a sci-fi cult film. It is a beautiful film and might be the best film of the year.
The Banshees of Inisherin, is the story of two best friends breaking up. Padraic and Colm have been the best of friends for years. They live on a small island off the coast of Ireland in the 1920s, and although there is a Civil War occurring on the mainland, they live a peaceful existence on Inisherin, at least until Colm decided he no longer wants to talk to Padraic, creating a civil war on Inisherin. Colm is older, and he feels the pull of mortality upon him, and he feels like he has accomplished nothing in his life. So he decides to turn from his friend and look at music instead. Padraic does not take this well, and he continues to try to get Colm back despite Colm threatening to cut off his fingers if Padraic continues to bother him.
During this tumultuous time, Padraic turns to Dominic and his sister, Siobhan, for friendship. Sadly, these relationships do not seem to help replace Colum’s spot in his heart, so he goes back to try to win Colm back, and Colm starts to cut off his fingers. Then Siobhan gets a job offer, her talents were not worth anything on the small island, and she felt more at home taking a job on the mainland. Also, Dominic starts to turn from Padraic after, Padraic tricks one of Colm’s new friends into fleeing the island. This leads to another bad interaction with Colm more fingers being cut off, and this time when the fingers are left behind, Padraic’s emotional support donkey chokes on one of the fingers and dies. This pushes Padraic all the way over the edge as his life has been completely shattered.
This focuses on loss, and it is not in the way of death, in some of the cases. Padraic lives on a small island in a tight knit community. He has a couple of tightly chosen people he enjoys being around, and they all decide to leave him or are forced to leave him, and this breaks him. There are not many other options for him. So in his life it is the height of adversity. The film is incredibly funny. It makes so many jokes, and they all hit, but it is not a comedy. It is a serious film about relationships, and when they want to pack an emotional punch, they do so, and they do not hold back. The film excels in every way, and all of it is packed into a stunning landscape that truly seems lost to time.
I cannot recommend watching all of these films enough. They are three of the best four films of the year! They are all emotionally resonant with strong messages.
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