Movies about Truancy
Lakomec a Patnáct are short, silent, fictional dramas that I made as a teenager when I was experimenting with filmmaking. Lakomec is a four minute movie in which a young boy (played by my 10 year old brother Richard) decides to miss school for the day. The camera pans from the imprisonment of the school yard to open fields and woods. The boy runs towards the trees, hurling his school satchel down the slope ahead of him. He spends the day by a small river fishing and making an improvised catapult from his sock garter (normal boys’ wear at the time). Early the next morning, he attempts to forge a letter to explain his absence from school, but his mother comes in to the room and finds him …
udělal jsem Lakomec when I was 13 or 14 and it won a minor prize in the Amatérský filmový svět annual film competition of 1960. Looking back to the time, it’s possible to see parallels with the fourth act of Truffaut’s Převraty Les Quatre Cents (1959), where the motif of the abandoned satchel heralds Antoine Doinel’s (Jean-Paul Leard’s) truancy. And the close-up on Richard’s stricken face at the end of the film matches the final shot of Antoine Doinel’s capture. But I don’t think I had seen Truffaut’s film at that time, so perhaps the resemblances are just something to do with the zeitgeist.
In Patnáct, made two years later, Richard is growing up and the world of boyish abandon meets teenage party culture of the early 1960s. He is the leader of a gang of boys who race their bicycles around the suburban streets. They find an abandoned motorcycle in a sloping field and all four ride it down to the bottom of the hill, powered only by gravity and their combined weight. Though it lacks an engine, the motorbike hints at the possibilities of adult life. Finding a party invitation addressed to me (his older brother), Richard goes in my place and tries to pick up a girl, but is rebuffed. Again, the film ends with an image of isolation as he leaves the party alone.
I made two alternative endings to Patnáct. The one I didn’t use is presaged by the scene in the film (after the motorcycle run but before the party) when Richard is given a drum kit for his birthday. He is shown playing the drum with skill, and the later party scene contains shots of a guitar band, Hrobáři, whose drummer is conspicuously drinking. In this optimistic scenario, Richard’s skill saves the day when the drummer becomes incapacitated. He is welcomed into the band and becomes the toast of the party. Although I shot some of the scenes for this scenario, I felt it lacked plausibility and that a darker ending was closer to experience. In the event, Richard leaves the party alone and the final scene shows him walking up an empty road. The only possible Truffaut reference here is the use of a red filter with black-and-white film stock to give the effect of night during daylight shooting (la nuit americaine).
Patnáct is both thematically and technically a progression from Lakomec. The title of the film is taken from Beverly Cleary’s teenage novel, Patnáct, which I have never read, but which I believe also deals with problems of teenage identity and relationship. The film is more than twice as long as Lakomec, and the technique is more assured. The close-ups of straining faces during the bicycle race still convince within the diegesis, although the participants were not actually moving at the time. The original film was accompanied by a tape-recorded soundtrack, mainly music composed and played by Hrobáři. This was synchronised to the projector by use of a home-made strobe disc which I designed in accordance with instructions in Amatérský filmový svět. The projector (a 1940s Specto 9.5 mm machine) had a variable speed control (using a rheostat). I mounted the strobe disc on one of the sprocket spindles and used the speed control to keep the strobe markings apparently still, moving neither to the left or the right. As the speed of the reel to reel tape recorder was relatively well governed, this produced acceptable synchronisation of picture and sound (although, of course, lip-sync was not possible).
The audiotapes have been lost, and, in any case, the magnesium oxide coating that holds the audio track would have perished over the last 50 years. But I can still remember the music composed by Andrew Speedy of Hrobáři, and I shall attempt to recreate it and add sound to the digital version of the films. In the meantime, here are the original silent movies, in digital mode.
Edutopia List: Best School Movies
Whether you’re a school teacher, student, or neither, here are some must-see flicks.
Is it still an escape if the rental you’re watching reminds you of what you do all day? We think so, since you can happily while away a long winter’s night watching these staff favorites.
Sbohem, pane Chipsi (1939) There are several filmed versions of this story, but the first is the best. Robert Donat is top drawer as Charles Chipping, looking back on a long career at an English boarding school. Get out your hankies.
Blackboard Jungle (1955) Glenn Ford, as «Teach,» takes on Vic Morrow, Sidney Poitier, and other young toughs in the ’50s template for dozens of no-wild-child-left-behind films.
Rychlé časy u Ridgemont vysoce (1982) The definitive statement on ’80s West Coast education. Sean Penn as a stoner in long blond locks steals the movie.
Ferris Bueller den Off (1986) A triumph of truancy. Not much in-school action — after all, it’s about ditching — but the classroom scene where Ben Stein drones on to his stultified students is a fine how-not-to primer.
Postavte se a doručte (1988) Edward James Olmos, sporting a really bad comb-over, earned an Oscar nomination for his performance as Jaime Escalante in this true tale of kids transformed by good teaching.
Společnost mrtvých básníků (1989) A restrained Robin Williams proffers rhyme and resistance to privileged but prosaic private school boys. Carpe DVD.
Hoop Dreams (1994) The gritty, realistic, and inspiring documentary about William Gates and Arthur Agee, inner-city Chicago kids who yearn for basketball scholarships and get a chance to attend a suburban school with a famous coach. Not to be missed, even if you’ve never had a hoop dream yourself.
Opus pana Hollanda (1995) Music education goes tone deaf from budget cuts, so Richard Dreyfuss teaches students to play his own composition. Yet another spin on teacher as saint, but at least it’s the concert version.
Volby (1999) This might be called Ferris Bueller Grows Up. Not. Now in the role of high school career counselor, Matthew Broderick sabotages a campaign for student council president by Reese Witherspoon (hatefully perfect as Tracy Flick).
Škola skály (2003) Jack Black, as out-of-work musician-substitute teacher Dewey Finn, pulls a Mr. Holland with back beat and amplifiers. Pay attention, kids: this guitar riff will be on the final.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
Love him or hate him, the smug truant Ferris Bueller is an iconic character in 80s teen movies.
168 recenze
Věková skupina 14+ let
Review by Lucy, 14
Stand By Me (1986)
Stand By Me (1986)
A dark and touching coming-of-age tale about a group of four boys who are forced to face harsh reality when they find the body of a missing boy.
453 Hodnocení
Certifikát
Goodbye Lenin! (2003)
Goodbye Lenin! (2003)
Enjoyable German comedy about a family’s elaborate schemes to keep the fall of the Berlin Wall from their ill mother.
9 Hodnocení
Certifikát
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