“Should the new image stand up to scrutiny and verification, it will become only the second existing photographic likeness of the reclusive Amherst poet”: New Dickinson Daguerreotype? (Emily Dickinson Museum).
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Monsieur Lazhar
Monsieur Lazhar (2011)
directed by Philippe Falardeau
French with English subtitles
94 minutes
Monsieur Lazhar joins Être et avoir (dir. Nicolas Philibert, 2002) as one of the great films about teaching. Philippe Falardeau’s film is also about displacement, loss, memory, and guilt, and it offers a reminder that every participant in a classroom, student or teacher, enters with a history whose details might be impossible for others to imagine.
Bachir Lazhar (Mohamed Fellag, billed as “Fellag”) is an Algerian immigrant in Montreal, working as a substitute teacher in a classroom of eleven- and twelve-year-olds. He is an old-school fellow, arranging the desks in rows and requiring daily dictation (Balzac, at first). But he is no martinet: he is compassionate, funny, and devoted to his students. He is no Robin Williams character either: there’s no treacle here. That M. Lazhar succeeds is testimony both to his ability and to his students’ willingness to accept a newcomer and learn on his terms. His terms: the only other men at the school are a gym teacher and a janitor.
As Elaine observes, it’s easy at times to forget that this film is a fiction and not a documentary. The acting is a matter of understatement; the cameras are often handheld. Fellag and young Sophie Nélisse (as Alice L’Écuyer, M. Lazhar’s favorite student) give brilliant performances. I saw the film with an audience that must have been full of teachers: the laughter came from those on the inside.
My favorite moment: M. Lazhar’s discourse on the classroom as a place of friendship, work, and courtesy. May it ever be thus.
Monsieur Lazhar arrives on DVD on August 28. Three cheers for east-central Illinois’s Art Theater for getting hold of this film.
[Do Canadian schoolchildren typically call their teachers by their first names? Inquiring minds want to know.]
Writing instruments
At Submitted for Your Perusal, two poster-like images of Writing Instruments Through the Ages. The second reminds me of this old paperback cover.
On being an information packrat
At BrownStudies, one, two, three, four engaging and thought-provoking posts on being an information packrat. Do I identify? Yes, I identify.
[Now where did I put that PDF?]
Monday, August 13, 2012
Lands’ End (back to school)
Nancy, back to school
[Nancy, September 5, 1944.]
The horror. Nancy awakens in the final panel to say “WHAT AN AWFUL DREAM --- AND IT’S TRUE.” Notice though that even in nightmares, school opens after Labor Day, not in the near-middle of August.
The lines radiating from Nancy’s head on a Tuesday in September 1944 radiate from my head today. School opens next week. And now if you’ll excuse me.
Other Nancy posts
Charlotte russe
The greatest Nancy panel?
Nancy is here
Nancy meets Alfred Hitchcock (Vertigo)
Nancy meets Billy Wilder (The Seven Year Itch)
Nancy meets Stanley Kubrick (The Shining)
[Nancy panel by Ernie Bushmiller, from Nancy Is Happy: Complete Dailies 1943–1945 (Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2012). Yes, in Nancy, three hyphens --- “some hyphens” --- constitute a dash. See Art Speigelman’s explanation of “some rocks.”]
Bill Madison on the Ryan nomination
“Ryan is best known in Washington policy circles for a stubborn resistance to government intervention, and for fierce opposition to taxes (‘revenuers’)”: Bill Madison on the Ryan nomination.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Recently updated
David Rakoff (1964–2012) This American Life has posted video of “Stiff as a Board, Light as a Feather.”
VDP on Discover America
“Then all the Trinidadians in LA saw the goat peering out of the trunk of the car just before the barbecue. It was outside the box, and so is this record”: Van Dyke Parks, in a short film by Richard Parks, Van Dyke Parks on Discover America.
Discover America is a 1972 VDP album of calypso and calypso-influenced songs, recently re-released on the Bella Union label.
Also by Richard Parks
Van Dyke Parks on Song Cycle
Friday, August 10, 2012
ca-kyvi-wa-sa
Good advice from David Sparks for keeping things secure online: Good Luck Social Engineering My Security Question Answers.
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