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(Of) Farmington Hills 31005 Orchard Lake Road Just South of 14 Mile • 248-855-4866 www.detroitjewishnews.com 2/21 2003 72 Find out before your mother! Behind The Schoolhouse Doors Award-winning documentary looks at public education through the eyes offirst-year teachers. AUDREY BECKER Special to the Jewish News la with Guggenheim about public educa- tion in America, documentary film- making and his Jewish background. very year, the public waits JN: The film's focus on new teachers with bated breath to find is compelling. What motivated you to out which movies have been make a documentary on this topic? nominated for Academy DG: I was always interested in public Awards. But, while feature films and education, and it's a problem right lead actors are headline news, docu- now. It's part of our democracy; you mentaries are usually relegated to a have a right to a good education no brief mention in the final paragraph. Since 1998, however, nonfiction matter what your background is. When my son was born, I started to filmmakers have had their own presti- gious film festival. Founded by docu- worry about where I was going to send him to school. mentary photographer Nancy Buirski, Sending him off to a good school formerly foreign picture editor at the New York Times, the Full Frame because I could afford it didn't sit Documentary Film Festival takes place each spring at a historic the- ater in downtown Durham, N.C. With a notable board of directors — includ- ing filmmakers Martin Scorsese, Ken Burns and Jonathan Demme — the festival's laud- able mission is to "[champion] the docu- mentary filmmaker as an important witness to society." A touring program of A scene from Davis films from the festival's first five years, "Best of right with me. I felt like there are too Full Frame," comes to Ann Arbor's many people who buy their way into a new Madstone Theaters Feb. 28- March 2. Located in Briarwood Mall, good education and turn their back on [the public] schools. You really start Madstone Theaters is part of a nation- thinking about this when you have a al chain of art-house cinemas dedicat ed to bringing independent films to kid. It's where your politics and your wider audiences. ideals. clash with reality. Among the films to be screened is Davis Guggenheim's The First Year, a JN: So would you consider yourself compelling look at novice public-school to be an activist as well as a director? DG: I didn't want the film to be polit- teachers. Guggenheim, who is married ical. I wanted it to be apolitical to actress Elisabeth Shue, explores the because the education world is so struggles and the triumphs of five ideal- highly charged. istic educators as they attempt to make You're either for testing" or "against a difference in the Los Angeles public testing." You're either "for charters" or schools — known as some of the toughest schools in America. you're "against charters." I didn't want it to be about that. I wanted it to focus on In addition to its inclusion in the the human element of good education. Full Frame Festival, The First Year was the recipient of a George Foster JN: We get a very intimate portrait of Peabody Award, considered the most the young teachers who are the subjects prestigious award in electronic media. The Jewish News recently talked of the film. How did you find them? DG: It was a week before school, and we tried to find as many teachers as we could who were potential candi- dates. We found about 50. After [we narrowed it down to 10], it was about who was willing to open themselves up completely and who could express themselves. It's one thing to have the experience, but it's another thing to be able to articulate it. JN: The five that you follow are impressive. It's fascinating watching them deal firsthand with the "sys- tem." It seems like the camera's always in the right place at the right time. How did you manage that? DG: Most documentaries shoot between 10 and 20 days. We shot 110 days. We were deep in their lives. On a given day, we could be in three or four different schools. When you make most movies, you know where it's going — there's a script. And this had no script, and no real premise other than "what is it like?" JN: Was it the full immersion of a teacher who has never taught before? DG: Yes, the audience definitely gets a sense of what it's like. But there's a complicated emotion at the end of the film. As a viewer, you feel somewhat jaded but also optimistic. And you wonder what the filmmakers want vou to think. JN: So, what do the filmmakers want you to think? DG: The filmmakers don't want you to think anything. In a lot of docu- mentaries, there's a secret agenda. And, actually, we've had hundreds of screen- ings of this film. I've heard people say we over- romanticize the job. And I've heard people say that we've made the job so intimidating and awful that no one would ever want to teach. I love the fact that it has that full range of reaction. I think a good docu- mentary makes the audience draw their own conclusion. I welcome a debate — as long as it fires people up. JN: Not all of your work is as contro- versial. You have a lot of directing credits. And many of them — like episodes of 24, Alias, NYPD Blue and