Conrack (1974)

I saw Conrack on a night I couldn't sleep and I was never so glad to have insomnia ! This story of a young white teacher who takes a position teaching poor black kids on an island in the Carolina's is a great advertisement for teaching , and for simply helping each other .Set in the early 60s , with the civil rights issues , Viet Nam and all that came with the 60s ,it is forgotten that the Peace Corps and many young people struck out to make a difference helping the unprivileged .Conrack with his open style of teaching is interested in these kids as people , and encourages an honest interaction in his class that scares the power's that be .The greatest part was that Jon Voight said they had a 20 year reunion and 18 of those kids became teachers !! Its enough to make you think we as humans may have a chance to survive ourselves ,maybe , hopefully .See this film .

I have to say that I had mixed feelings about this movie. On the positive side, the basic story is very interesting and inspiring - both well told and well acted. It's also a powerful testimony of what can happen when a teacher actually wants to teach, and does so with passion, wit and intelligence. All that was good. Jon Voight was superb as the title character of Pat Conroy (Conrack was what his students called him) - a young schoolteacher sent to an isolated island off the coast of South Carolina to teach a class of black and mostly illiterate students, and who runs into opposition from everyone - the parents, his principal (Madge Sinclair) and the school administrator (Hume Cronyn) - as he tries to do it. In one sense, it's a pretty typical story; one that's been done many, many times. As unoriginal as the story may be, though, it's still well done. Those are the positives. Unfortunately, I also had a bit of a negative gut reaction to this movie. It struck me as paternalistic; the sort of movie one might expect from what you could call the "white liberal establishment" of the early '70's. Basically, a bunch of black kids have to be saved from everybody (including their own parents and that black principal who thinks that "coloured kids" need the feel of "the whip" to learn anything) by a white liberal schoolteacher. Bluntly, it struck me as a bit of a guilt assuager for whites who needed to feel better about themselves in the aftermath of the civil rights battles of the 60's. As for the movie itself, the character of Mad Billy (Paul Winfield) struck me as poorly developed. Aside from popping up in maybe 3 or 4 scenes and offering some comic relief, I wasn't clear what the purpose of his character was. Then, if indeed this was based on a true story, one might have appreciated some information at the end as to what happened to these kids. Were they so inspired by Conroy that they went on to bigger and better things, or did they just sink right back into their old ways when he left. The ending was both ambiguous and unsatisfying. On balance, I liked the movie but was also a bit put off by it at the same time. A strange combination of reactions. 6/10

I'm going to make this short and sweet. It's not surprising that you had no use for this film. This is a story about the power, beauty and possibilities inherent in a meaningful education. Based on your pathetically composed comments I can see that your own education has been woefully neglected... or worse... completely wasted. Your comments are those of a truly ignorant person. I would advise you to do something about this condition... but in your case I feel it's probably too late. My hope is that you yourself don't intend to go into the teaching profession ( especially in Film Studies) because you could only do damage. Oh... one last bit of advice. In the future, if you intend to write more opinion pieces, you should really proofread your work. It will make people take you more seriously.

This film, as has already been pointed out, is of the "idealistic teacher meets challenging class in unsupportive environment and triumphs" class. And it's nicely done.But the ending sure touched a nerve in me. Our idealistic teacher who has been very successful in teaching his class many important things then chooses to abdicate his responsibility to his students rather than give up behaving any old way he pleases. His few attempts to work with those who must take responsibility for his work are actually greeted with some movement on the part of the authorities. But he changes not at all, continuing to teach his charges by example that self-discipline and willingness to face and cope with adversity are not important. Appropriately, the music played as our teacher abdicates his young charges is the "death knocking at the door" theme of Beethoven's 5th.