Conrack (1974)

Excellent but underrated film

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Though directed by the underrated Martin Ritt, "Conrack" is a generic and overly sentimental "teaching movie". Based on an autobiographical novel, "The Water Is Wide", the film stars Jon Voight as Pat Conroy, a young, idealistic teacher who is assigned to Yamacraw, an isolated island off the coast of South Carolina.As in keeping with the genre, Conroy finds himself thrust into a grim situation (teaching a number of poor, marginalised, black families), is chastised for his unorthodox and inspirational teaching methods, wins the hearts and minds of his students, inspires them to do greater things, and is himself touched by both his students and the "new culture" he has been exposed to. Very few films in the "teaching genre" break free of this template.Surprising for a film by the sensitive and once blacklisted Martin Ritt, "Conrack" is uncomfortably paternalistic and seems unconcerned with the wider, psychic effects of slavery (Conroy's students are "Gullah", descendants of South Carolinan slaves, and have preserved much of their African linguistic and cultural heritage). And like most films which advocate "being non-conformist", "Conrack" is built upon clichés and is itself throughly conformist.6/10 – See "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie", Wiseman's "High School" and Laurent Cantet's "The Class". Worth one viewing.

I saw Conrack on a night I couldn't sleep and I was never so glad to have insomnia ! This story of a young white teacher who takes a position teaching poor black kids on an island in the Carolina's is a great advertisement for teaching , and for simply helping each other .Set in the early 60s , with the civil rights issues , Viet Nam and all that came with the 60s ,it is forgotten that the Peace Corps and many young people struck out to make a difference helping the unprivileged .Conrack with his open style of teaching is interested in these kids as people , and encourages an honest interaction in his class that scares the power's that be .The greatest part was that Jon Voight said they had a 20 year reunion and 18 of those kids became teachers !! Its enough to make you think we as humans may have a chance to survive ourselves ,maybe , hopefully .See this film .

Pat Conroy is one of our most elegant writers, and his first book, a memoir of his adventure teaching a group of heart-breakingly neglected and ignorant black children on an island off the coast of South Carolina should be required upper-class reading for kids who have To Kill a Mockingbird under their belts. Now, the movie: If you read the book, the movie will seem so Hollywoodized that you'll wonder who "cuted-up" Conrack (the kids' pronunciation for Conroy). Jon Voight is earnest and sweaty, and pulls off Conroy's youthful self-righteousness to a T, but Hume Cronyn is miscast as the evil, bigoted superintendent. The kids are strangely ignored here, although they are complex and fascinating in their own right in the book. Voight's teaching is the best part of this film, but Conroy's explanation to the white citizenry of why he should be retained--after annoying the county school administration for the last time--is destroyed by the ridiculous scene with Voight driving the streets of Buford, using a P.A. system on his hippiemobile to bludgeon bewildered suburbanites.Hell, watch it anyway.

I have also watched "Conrack" several times in the past few years and I believe it is the best movie out there about actual classroom teaching. We have "To Sir, With Love", "Blackboard Jungle" and "Mr Holland's Opus", but this film spends most of its time in class with the students. We get to see Conroy struggle with the system, the absence of facilities and resources as well as the initial lack of desire among his charges. How he brings his "babies" out of their shells and creates a learning environment is simply magical. The awkwardness of those first lessons is all too real. This movie is pure teaching!Another realistic education film that comes to mind is "Stand and Deliver."Check out first few minutes of "Conrack" and you'll be hooked. Watch for it on Fox Movie Channel as they often show the letterbox version.