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A warmly witty account of the three years a man spent teaching life lessons to his high school dropout son by showing him the world's best (and occasionally worst) films. At the start of this brilliantly unconventional family memoir, David Gilmour is an unemployed movie critic trying to convince his fifteen-year-old son Jesse to do his homework. When he realizes Jesse is beginning to view learning as a loathsome chore, he offers his son an unconventional deal: Jesse could drop out of school, not work, not pay rent - but he must watch three movies a week of his father's choosing. Week by week, side by side, father and son watched everything from True Romance to Rosemary's Baby to Showgirls, and films by Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Brian DePalma, Billy Wilder, among others. The movies got them talking about Jesse's life and his own romantic dramas, with mercurial girlfriends, heart-wrenching breakups, and the kind of obsessive yearning usually seen only in movies. Through their film club, father and son discussed girls, music, work, drugs, money, love, and friendship - and their own lives changed in surprising ways.… (more)
User reviews
On behalf of film lovers, I commend his premise to teach through film. Though when thinking of parents who may uncritically admire Gilmour, I shutter. On behalf of those who take education seriously, I'm offended. Home schooling is hard, noble work. I applaud Gilmour for his willingness to look outside the box of contemporary education which is killing our youth, but rather than fight for his son, he sits back and hopes that conversation without leadership or inspiration will stop the malaise that is slowly draining his teen's soul.
Sadly, there is little to admire contained in its pages.
I am always fascinated by alternative approaches to teaching. The public school system's cookie cutter approach to education is bound to fail for some kids, which means that otherwise intelligent and good kids get lost along the way.
Gilmour's son falls into that category, and although he writes about him in a rose colored glasses kind of way at the beginning of the book, he presents an interesting journey in which father and son use movies as a form a communication, relating to one another, and as a form of intellectual pursuit. Multiple life challenges come up for both father and son, including the loss of a job and the loss of love (as well as Gilmour's doubts as to whether he is doing right by his son), but movies offer a way of connection and catharsis throughout. Overall an entertaining book.
So, in the end, what it lacks in poetic prose it makes up for in heart.
In an act of
Thus begins the process of unschooling (or deschooling): Gilmour picks DVDs that contain what he thinks his son most needs. At times the focus is on film production, good writing or good acting. Other times, he picks a theme to fit the issues Jesse is dealing with in real life. Surprisingly, given that Gilmour is a former film critic, The Film Club gives a fairly superficial treatment of the movies themselves. Jesse himself seems less interested in his dad's opinions about movies, than his reassurances and reflections about girls, about what makes a real man, and whether Jesse's becoming one.
For homeschooling parents or those considering pulling their kids out of school, Gilmour's film choices may not be the best guide. (Showgirls but not Schindler's List? The Texas Chainsaw Massacre but not The Tuskegee Airmen? Robocop but not Roots?) But as a portrait of a father-son relationship in transition from adolescence into adulthood, this memoir is at once poignant, heartwarming, and distressing. (see full review at Worducopia)
It was an easy read and I did want to know what happened to the son, but perhaps I'd rather have heard it from him, as I found the father irritating.
The book suffers a bit in the middle where David Gilmore goes into a sort of "... and then... and then..." rant that could have used some harder editing.
But all in all, it's a great book
The book is a quick,
The book made me think about my relationship with my own father, and in that respect, the book succeeded, but as far as joining the "film club" goes, it seems like outsiders aren't privy to most of their thoughts of the films they watched.
The discussions about the movies in the book aren't long enough but they are quite interesting and it covers quite a long list of films. Some classics and some recent hits. I really liked hearing his thoughts on the films and i actually rented and watched a few of his recommendations.
The relationship between David and Jesse is the strangest part. It's not at all what i would want with my son but then again i don't have one so i can't really talk. It sounded like a pretty rough situation and while it seems to have turned out well, some of the decisions seem pretty asinine.
If you're a lover of movies, it's worth plowing through this as it's short and light. If not, i wouldn't recommend it.
Dad David allows his 16 year old son to drop out of school with the agreement that they watch 3 films a week.
This book shows the relationship that develops between them.
Really charming.
One section is a man who decides that the best way to educate his teenage son would be to allow him to quit school, then try to teach him about life through movies.
The second part is a man with an interesting take on movies.
Several thoughts:
As far as
If I were writing the book I think I would have found something else fill one third of a book rather than teen hormones and agony over the boy's girlfriends.
What I did like was the trip down film lane with a man who obviously loves them. THIS made it worth the time spent reading through the girlfriend crap.
Jesse's "girl troubles", while annoying, really keep the feel of the memoir authentic. The ending is a bit rushed though. Jesse's problems are solved off stage so to speak.
I would be interested in read a book by this author focusing solely on his love of films. He has some funny things to say.
I'll take a minute to tell you why I like it. It's an examination of a desperate father having a second (or in this author's case, maybe a 4th or 5th) mid-life
While David congratulates himself for leaving certain interaction to Jesse and his peers... he does so while fostering the most iron clad dependence I've ever seen described between a parent and child. Dependence that the son only succeeds in escaping from when he abandons the entire experiment the book is describing (without abandoning his gains - namely, specialist knowledge to be an informed critic, a job his father is grooming him for in a transparent attempt to hijack his son's interests and imprint himself on the boy as hard as possible in the last remaining years of the son's reliance on his parents).
But I like the book.
You don't have to like characters to like a book. You can learn a lot from someone who's living very differently than yourself, and who has glaring flaws (this author has a troubling view of women, beyond understandably taking his son's side when things go wrong with his relationships).
When you confess to the fact that your boy turns to you, fearful that his feelings emasculate him - and you dispel that fear while reinforcing it with everything else you do... it paints a picture of the condition of masculinity in our culture, and the microcosm of the family. A framework that is fraught with hypocrisy and ugliness. A propping up of male ego at the expense of women.
Career, education, and aspiration are all described pejoratively against women, while these attributes are being sought for his son. Everything he wants for his son, he rejects in his son's female peers. It's stark. That doesn't make the examination invalid.
I hope David and Jesse can escape the prisons they've inherited. They're said to almost kill the kid repeatedly through the book... and yet are never recognized (by the characters) as hazardous constructions of their own making. An honest look at a tragic state of being.
edit to add:
I'm downgrading the book to 3 stars (from 4). Much of the work's value as layered revelation about the faults of it's author are too subtle to accurately characterize him - and I don't want to imply that the book's virtue is in the face-value content of the book itself.
The sore points are the numerous chapters dedicated to Jesse's girl friends which I found rather annoying and belly aching. I would have been more interested in finding out about how his jobs and the movies matured him.
Overall, a very well-written account which will have you running to your local video store.