TONIGHT: Screening of High School, a vérité doc about Philly's Northeast High
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
If you're looking to see a different kind of controversy re: the School District...
If you're not doing anything tonight, go check out tonight's screening of High School, Frederick Wiseman's fly-on-the-wall documentary of a year at Northeast High in 1968. The hugely prolific documentarian will give a talk after the screening as part of his two-day residency at Drexel.
High School was controversial in its time, in a completely different way that the School District is controversial now.
"In our judgment at the time, it was a totally negative portrayal," recalled Bill Jones, who was public information officer for the Philadelphia schools at the time.
"They'd gone in with certain notions about High School USA and shot what they wanted to find. It gave the school, which had a long tradition of excellence, a black eye."
The central theme of High School is the clash of conformity and self-expression — a timeless struggle for teenagers that gains urgency in the documentary as teachers and administrators impose heavy-handed discipline and espouse social mores that now seem regressive. In several scenes, educators react as if they were the last line of defense against the protests and upheaval of the '60s.
So, stuff like this:
The film wasn't even screened in Philly until 2004.
It's free and open to the public. Starts at 7 p.m. at Drexel's URBN Annex, 3401 Filbert St.
