Review

Culture

Education

7 September 2023

6 min read

Back to school on the big screen

It’s back to school for many. Yaroslav Walker picks his favourite films capturing the friendship, the drama, and the expectation of school life and beyond.

Yaroslav Walker

Yaroslav is Vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead.

School students walk across a playground confidently talking and laughing with us

The History Boys.

BBC Films.

The summer is coming to an end, the last BBQ embers are sputtering to sleep, the weather…appears not to have been told, at least in London! Sweltering! Most importantly of all, our children are back to school, nursery or college. In light of this momentous time of year here are my top five back to school film choices, one each for the last five decades, and some honourable mentions.

1970s - American Grafitti

A teenage couple dressed in 1950s clothes sit on a kerb in deep conversation.

Charles Martin Smith and Candy Clark in American Graffiti

American Graffiti isn’t just a lovely piece of nostalgia now, it was back then. A misty-eyed look back at 60s Americana, this film is packed with slicked-back hair, classic cars, diners with roller-skating waitresses, and the complexities of teenage romance. Four friends meet on the last day of summer to experience the joys of a California evening one last time before two of them jet off to college ‘back East’. Curt is unsure about his future and is even considering staying in his hometown. Steve is hubristically thrilled about the prospect of fleeing his humdrum life and even shedding his loving girlfriend for new conquests. Terry is insecure and simply desperate to prove he is as good as everyone else, and Milner is the older friend who never left town and is a local-legend drag-racer. Over the course of a long night they go their separate ways, have adventures, and finally find some closure to their ongoing anxieties: one finds new confidence, another begins to take risks, another learns to be happy with his lot, and Milner wins a drag race…oh, an learns the genuine happiness that can be found in adult responsibility. It's too long, but it is a lovely atmosphere to meander about in, and is edited superbly so it never really drags. With superb performances and a soundtrack bursting with 50s and 60s hits, this is well worth a watch.

1980s - The Breakfast Club

Five glum students perch on stools in school room.

Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, and Anthony Michael Hall in The Breakfast Club.

Well what else could it have been!? In many ways the film set the classic pattern of US High School living (which did and sometimes still does inform UK attitudes) and the High School movie. John Hughes didn’t invent these archetypes and wasn’t the first to put them on celluloid, but he was the master of crystallising them. The Breakfast Club presents an all-day detention that just so happens to have a representative from every social caste of the High School system: Andrew the jock (Emelio Esteves), Brian the nerd (Anthony Michael Hall), Allison the weirdo (Ally Sheedy), Claire the popular girl (Molly Ringwald), and Bender the burnout (Judd Nelson). These five kids have nothing in common but their dislike of the domineering Vice-Principal (Paul Gleason was born for this role!)…OR DO THEY!? Whereas American Graffiti explored the process of maturing into adulthood and the taking charge of one’s sense of self (with a background hum of Vietnam paranoia and the end of golden Americana days), The Breakfast Club is much more forthright in demonstrating just how difficult being a teenager is. These kids don’t need help ‘growing up’, if anything they need to be allowed to be kids. Over the course of the day their defences break down and they learn that each of them has expectations and pressures that seem overwhelming, and grown to have genuine respect and compassion for each other. A script that is sometimes on-the-nose and prone to soliloquy is saved by the sheer bravura of the performances. A go to comfort film, that will always be iconic. Any film which ends with Simple Minds is a 5 star affair for me.

1990s - The Faculty

Two students walk down a school corridor, one looking away.

Elijah Wood and Jordana Brewster in The Faculty.

We move to slightly scarier fare with the 90s. The Faculty asks the question you were all asking…what if Invasion of the Bodysnatchers took place in an American high school? The answer is subtext; a lot of subtext and allegory. You know, when you’re a teenager, everything can seem quite tough. The world can seem like it's against you. It can seem like everyone you know has changed overnight and you’re lost in a sea of hostile faces. It can seem like a parasitic alien is using your school as a beachhead for a planetary takeover. The Faculty is cinematic junk-food and unapologetically so. It is camp and silly and fun. It takes those Hughesian archetypes, puts them on steroids, and then throws them into a plot joyfully riffing on the most classic sci-fi and horror tropes - all held nicely together with a quip-filled Kevin Williamson screenplay. An underrated Robert Rodriguez directorial effort which shows that he can work well across genres, and an excellent opportunity to see early performances from Josh Hartnett, Elijah Wood, Jon Stewart, and…wait…is that Usher in that film!?

2000s - The History Boys

Yes, we move to British shores at last. Alan Bennett’s stage-play is brought to beautiful cinematic life by original director Nicholas Hytner, who has an excellent track record of translating Bennett’s work from stage to screen. It’s another flash of nostalgia (which all such films are, as adult writers and directors look back to their own school days and teenage angst and adventure) which transports the viewer to 1980s Sheffield. A group of friends at the local Grammar School have all done very well in their A Levels and are now put to the task of preparing for the Oxford entrance exams. All are lovers of History (well, maybe not Rudge) and have received an enviously eclectic education in the full gamut of culture from the eccentric and long-suffering Hector. Like all the films above, The History Boys explores the challenges of adolescence, but with a specific focus on ‘doing well’ in a particularly British way. Sporting excellence or popularity aren’t the measure of student success - Oxbridge is. The teachers don’t push the young men nearly as much as they do themselves, seeing a place at Oxford as the best form of advancement. The witty and moving script also touches on the issue of infatuation, attraction, sexual fluidity, and chaste reciprocity: Posner’s love for Dakin being encouraged only so far in some sort of mutually agreed stand-off, Dakin’s willingness to sleep with the substitute teacher Irwin, and (of course) Hector’s tradition of giving the boys a ride home on his motorcycle and…appreciating them aesthetically. Not easy subject matter, but written and directed and shot and performed with such sensitivity that you can’t help but fall in love with every character.

2010s - The Inbetweeners Movie

Two students look at each in in incomprehension.

Blake Harrison and Simon Bird in The Inbetweeners.

We end with crudity. Crudity and friendship and a booze-filled week in Crete. Lovers of the TV show (I was one) - which explored the trials and tribulations of four unpopular, unremarkable, and unfortunate teens at a British comprehensive school- were well served by this upgrade. TV comedies, like plays, rarely translate well; The Inbetweeners Movie is an honourable exception. Will, Simon, Jay, and Neil have come to the end of their school days and decide that they need one final hurrah before they go their separate ways. The proceeding 90 minutes is a torrent of drunken antics, foul-mouthed discourse, and crass toilet humour, all threaded together by hapless and fruitless sexual intrigue. 90 mins of that might seem like it would wear thin, but The Inbetweeners Movie is too kind-hearted to go stale (unlike its successor which was a genuinely squalid and unpleasant affair which had me questioning humanity). The four young men are so pathetic in the true sense of the word, that you can’t help but cheer for them. The overall message of friendship as a virtue that transcends the ups-and-downs of life give the salty humour a sweet edge. For a certain generation - mine - this might be the definitive British school movie.

Honourable Mentions

Grease

Sort of like American Graffiti…but better. I’m talking Travolta, I’m talking Newton-John, I’m talking songs that are bullet-proof! Graffiti is on the official list because it speaks to the many cultural and political undercurrents of the time…but Grease is so much more fun. If you can only see one of the two, see Grease!

Gregory’s Girl

Pipped by Breakfast because of the archetypes and Simple Minds, but probably one of the finest British rom-coms ever!

Mean Girls

Obviously. It's so fetch!

Article

Culture

Music

Wildness

17 December 2024

6 min read

Rock ‘n’ roll’s long dance with religion

How popular music conjures sacred space.

Jonathan Evens

Jonathan is Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell. He is co-author of The Secret Chord, and writes on the arts.

Rapper Stormzy raises a hand to heaven as he sings with a gospel choir on the Glastonbury stage.

Blinded by Your Grace, Stormzy, Glastonbury 2019.

BBC.

In Faith, Hope and Carnage, his book of conversations with Seán O’Hagan, Nick Cave said: “Music plays into the yearning many of us instinctively have—you know, the God-shaped hole. It is the art form that can most effectively fill that hole, because it makes us feel less alone, existentially. It makes us feel spiritually connected. Some music can even lead us to a place where a fundamental spiritual shift of consciousness can happen. At best, it can conjure a sacred space.”

That’s because, as Elvis Presley stated during his ‘68 Comeback Special, "Rock and roll is basically just gospel music, or gospel music mixed with rhythm and blues". Following in the wake of key precursors such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Rock ‘n’ roll merged Blues (with its spiritual strand) and Country music (tapping its white gospel) while Soul music adapted much of its sound and content from Black gospel. For both, their gestures and movements, and sometimes the songs too, were adopted wholesale from Pentecostalism. Some, such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Sam Cooke, felt guilt at secularising Gospel while others, like Johnny Cash, arrived at a hard-earned integration of faith and music.

All experienced opposition from a Church angry at its songs and influence being appropriated for secular ends. This opposition fed a narrative that, on both sides, equated rock and pop with hedonism and rebellion. The born-again Cliff Richard was often perceived (both positively and negatively) as the only alternative. Within this context the biblical language and imagery of Bob Dylan and Van Morrison was largely overlooked, although Dylan, in particular, spoke eloquently about the influence of scripture within the tradition of American music on which he drew.

However, this changed in two ways. First, the Church began to appropriate rock and pop to speak about Christian faith. David Wells has explained that: “The American branch of the Jesus movement effectively started in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, but there was also a parallel development in the UK that slowly evolved from beat groups performing in church coffee-bars. By 1971, leading British Christian rock band Out Of Darkness were appearing at notorious countercultural gathering Phun City, while Glastonbury introduced a “Jesus tent” that offered Christian revellers mass and holy communion twice a day.”

This development led eventually to the emergence of a new genre, Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) and a consequent oscillating movement between CCM and the mainstream. Mainstream artists such as Philip Bailey, David Grant, Al Green, Larry Norman and Candi Staton developed CCM careers while artists originally within CCM such as Delirious? Martyn Joseph, Julie Miller, Leslie (Sam) Phillips, Sixpence None The Richer, Switchfoot, and Steve Taylor achieved varying levels of mainstream exposure and success.

Second, the Hippie movement expanded the spirituality already inherent in rock music through the visionary aspect of drug culture and a wider engagement with religion which included significant connections with Eastern religions but also, in part through the Jesus Movement, with Christianity. This was the period of songs such as 'Presence of the Lord' by Blind Faith, 'My Sweet Lord' by George Harrison, 'Fire and Rain' by James Taylor, 'Sweet Cherry Wine' and 'Crystal Blue Persuasion' by Tommy James and the Shondells, 'Let it Be' by The Beatles, 'That's the Way God Planned It' by Billy Preston, 'Hymn' by Barclay James Harvest, 'Jesus is A Soul Man' by Laurence Reynolds, 'Are You Ready?' by Pacific Gas & Electric, 'Spirit in the Sky' by Norman Greenbaum, 'Put Your Hand in the Hand' by Ocean, 'Jesus Is Just Alright' by the Doobie Brothers, ‘God Gave Rock and Roll to You’ by Argent, and both ‘My Life Is Right’ and ‘Try Again’ by Big Star.

This was also the period of musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell and, from the Jesus Movement, Lonesome Stone and Yesterday, Today, Forever. Among the most interesting, but then relatively obscure, examples of albums connecting faith and music were Electric Prunes’ Mass in F Minor (written by David Axelrod), C.O.B.’s Moyshe McStiff and the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart and Bill Fay’s Time of the Last Persecution. Gram Parsons drew heavily on the Gospel music tradition in Country Music, also taking The Byrds in the same direction, while many of the songs of Judee Sill dealt specifically with Christian spirituality.

It was that spirit that was transposed into the feel and flow of rock and soul and it is this that gives rock and soul its affective nature.

With the majority of Soul stars having begun singing in church, many of the most effective integrations of faith and music were also found there, with Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On and the Gospel-folk of the Staple Singers, such as Be What You Are, being among the best and most socially committed examples. Gospel featured directly with Preston, Edwin Hawkins Singers, Aretha Franklin’s gospel albums, and Green's albums from the Belle Album onwards.

The biblical language and imagery of stars like Cave, Leonard Cohen, Dylan, Morrison and Bruce Springsteen began to be understood and appreciated. This was helped to varying degrees by explicitly ‘Christian’ periods in the work of Dylan, Van the Man and, more latterly, Cave. Dylan’s conversion came about through the Vineyard Church movement which also impacted musicians such as T Bone Burnett, Bryan MacLean, David Mansfield, Maria McKee, and Stephen Soles.

Musicians such as After The Fire, The Alarm, The Alpha Band, Burnett, The Call, Peter Case, Bruce Cockburn, Deacon Blue, Extreme, Galactic Cowboys, Inner City, Innocence Mission, Kings X, Lone Justice, McKee, Buddy & Julie Miller, Moby, Over The Rhine, Phillips, Ricky Ross, 16 Horsepower, Mavis Staples, U2, Violent Femmes, Gillian Welch, Jim White, and Victoria Williams rather than singing about the light (of Christ) as CCM artists tended to do, instead sang about the world which they saw through the light (of Christ).

As rock and pop fragmented into a myriad of genres, this latter approach to the expression of faith (which was first articulated by Burnett) continues in the music of Belle and Sebastian, Eric Bibb, Blessid Union of Souls, Creed, Fay, Brandon Flowers, Good Charlotte, Ben Harper, Held By Trees, The Killers, Michael Kiwanuka, Ed Kowalczyk, Lifehouse, Live, Low, Neal Morse, Mumford and Sons, Joy Oladokun, Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, SAULT, Scott Stapp, Sufjan Stevens, Stormzy, The Welcome Wagon, and Woven Hand.

With his latest album Wild God, Cave is using rock music to conjure sacred space. ‘Joy’ begins, “I woke up this morning with the blues all around my head” but its key moment of transition comes when he falls to his knees calling out “have mercy on me please” and “a voice came low and hollow” saying “we’ve all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy”. In ‘Wild God’, the antidote to “feeling lonely” and “feeling blue” is to “Bring your spirit down” so that He moves “through your body like a prehistoric bird”.

In his examination of the roots of rock and roll, James Cosby notes that the entire purpose of Pentecostalism was to play music that most let its adherents feel the Holy Spirit in their bodies. It was that spirit that was transposed into the feel and flow of rock and soul and it is this that gives rock and soul its affective nature. This is where “the heart, joy and sheer exhilaration of rock 'n' roll comes from” and it may also be “one of the best examples of America’s ability to draw from both the sacred and the secular”.

Many of the artists mentioned above feature on the author's Closer to the Light playlist on Spotify.

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