ABSTRACT
Dangerous Minds was a major box office attraction that failed to win over film critics. They viewed it as a predictable, trite, saccharine, credulity defying retread of movies that showcase a teacher confronting the educational problems of urban children (see Maslin, 1995; Wilmington, 1995). In contrast, High School II, Frederick Wiseman’s film of East Harlem’s Central Park East Secondary School (CPESS), won plaudits for the director, the school itself, and for Deborah Meier, the school’s founder and perhaps the most renowned educational reformer in the United States today (see Bromwich, 1994; James, 1994; Matthews, 1994). These contrasting reviews are hardly remarkable, given the different genres the films represent. One is a Hollywood confection successfully designed to reach a large audience. The other, a PBS-aired documentary by a distinguished filmmaker, is stripped of viewer-friendly conventions. Without narrator, music, or a focus on the dramatic, it sets down nearly 4 hours of footage that captures the interactions between teachers and students.
