Father Knows Best

By Mike Gange

The Film Club: A True Story of a Father and Son
By David Gilmour
Thomas Allen Publishers, $18.95, 247 pages

 

Every now and then, you run across a wacky idea – so wacky that you stop and think, “well, it might work...” David Gilmour’s wacky idea was letting his 15-year old son quit school as long as the son agreed to a sort of home-schooling – watching and discussing three films every week with his father. There were some other conditions too, such as not using drugs, but the films, and the explanations and conversations they generated, were to become the extent of the son’s education.  “Well, it might work...”

David Gilmour is a former CBC film critic, whose insightful commentary and cogent analysis had always impressed me. And to tell you the truth, I got this book as much because I wanted to read what films Gilmour thought would be worthy replacements to what I see as a somewhat unwieldy education system. However, I was soon hooked on the true story of a dedicated and loving father, at wits’ end as to how to maintain a relationship with his son whose own life was on the edge of spinning out of control.  

Gilmour is the 2005 winner of the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. For a long while he hosted Gilmour on the Arts on television. He has written six other books, but this one is different, more touching and in lots of ways more meaningful than his other notable work. To be sure, this would not be an easy story to tell. It requires brutal honesty. It means opening your personal life to your readers. It means admitting your past mistakes and present foibles. In short, it means taking the risk of allowing your readers to sit in judgement of your actions. Gilmour does all of that with a candour that establishes his credibility, trustworthiness and integrity even in the moments when he at his most bohemian.

David Gilmour and his wife switch houses with his ex-wife in order to help then-15-year old Jesse who is seriously struggling in school. Gilmour moved into the ex’s house, she moved into his loft, and under dad’s watchful eye, the kitchen table homework ritual soon became a fruitless and frustrating experience for both father and son. Gilmour realizes that he still has to engage the mind of the six foot four teenager he can no longer control physically, and one day in frustration blurts out “Maybe you should quit school.”   The two establish some ground rules and embark on the unconventional educational and personal journey.

The first film the father-turned-educator shows the boy is Francois Truffaut’s 1959 film The 400 Blows. Gilmour’s description of the film shows how it parallels his son’s lacklustre academic world, a situation that is not lost on the 15-year old. The next day he shows the boy Basic Instinct (1992) with Sharon Stone. You might remember the movie shows Stone killing a man with an ice pick while engaging in intercourse with him and the subsequent cat-and-mouse game that engages Michael Douglas as the police detective. Sure enough, Jesse is soon involved in a relationship with a stunning but cold-hearted beauty who is more interested in ripping out Jesse’s heart than enjoying a real life and loving relationship.

Thus begins a very engrossing tale. Gilmour used a system of cue cards to keep track of the movies they watched together. Next on the list is Woody Allen’s 1989 Crimes and Misdemeanours, a movie Gilmour describes as “a movie that lets you see how Woody Allen sees the world – as a place where your neighbours really do get away with murder, and goofs end up with great girl friends.”  Of course the teaching/viewing list includes Citizen Kane (1941) and On the Waterfront (1954).

The list of fine movies and their significance goes on and on, but for me, the book pretty quickly became more about the relationship between father and son. Where does one draw the line as an authority figure and where does one let the 17-year old boy and his friends sit on the front porch and have a few beers? At one point the line shifts again, as the father, son and mother (the ex-wife) take a vacation to Cuba. Gilmour is forced into the role of protector when some street thugs lure the teenager into a bar, alone, late at night.

 Jesse has his ups-and-downs but eventually turns out all right. You don’t need a “spoiler alert” to know that, but the real story here is how the father never gives up on his son. The father feels every slight dealt to the son by the cold-hearted beauty. The father feels every whistle of approval or every jeer of derision when the boy performs in public. At a Christmas party, Gilmour’s aunt, a former school teacher, says “Don’t be fooled. Teen age boys need as much attention as a new born. Except they need it from their fathers.” Obviously, these words of wisdom are not lost on Gilmour.

As a teacher, I see countless boys like Jesse, Lost Boys who you just know are not going to make out so well. When this happens, I start to wonder about the future of society. Gilmour is unconventional, sometimes downright wacky. Nonetheless, we need more fathers like him.. Fathers who will admit their love of their children, fathers who will step up when they most need to be counted on, fathers who give the gift of their time. And we need more writers like Gilmour, who can plumb the depths of family love and can write about it, sharing their stories with naked honesty. Then our society just might work.

 

Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism at Fredericton High. He is the proud dad of two teenagers.