In his documentary "High School", Frederick Wiseman effectively uses the "cinema verite" approach to capture the oppressive environment in which the students of Northeast High School have to face everyday.
Wiseman used a number of creative decisions in composition and editing to give "High School" its rhetorical voice. Perhaps most noticeable is the film's black-and-white format. Though likely to have driven by cost, it powerfully conveys a sense of banality of the atmosphere of the high school. Audience are aware of this being a conscious choice on the part of the director to not include color, but could this very decision also be a metaphor used to represent the actions taken by the authorities of the school and their consequences a dull, sterile environment in which students are sapped of their own individualistic colors.
Also prevalent in the film is the use of juxtaposition to create situational ironies in order to further criticize, in a rhetorical matter, the institutional restraints of high school. Towards the beginning of the film, a scene is shown in which the professor is reading tasks off the bulletin of the day to a class. The next scene shows a foreign language class in which the teacher is lecturing on existentialism and various existentialist philosophers. The two scenes seem similar; in that both are in classroom settings and show a teacher lecturing and students listening, but the subjects in discussion contrast each other in their differences. The latter scene can even be interpreted as ironic itself, in that the subject lectured about, existentialism, suggests and requires abstract and free-form thinking, while it shows students reciting the material in an orderly manner.
In the absence of a spoken narrative, the voice of "High School" relies much its effect on the indexical abilities of the documentary form and constructing messages out of the indexed recordings. One situation shows a student presenting a seemingly unfair scenario to a staff and expressing his disapproval of a teacher because that teacher had yelled at him and then unjustly given him detention. The staff is shown as uninterested in finding out more of the situation, and instead takes the side of the said teacher and starts to lecture the student about respecting the authority. The documentary form, especially the "cinema verite" model, has the ability to give the illusion of representing unbiased reality
Wiseman's use of the indexing quality by showing various scenes in their entirety therefore strengthens the film's voice, as the audience is made to believe they are seeing the whole truth in a few scenes, and encouraged to extend that belief to the entire film. Though that is not to say the "High School" assumes a low audience activity. In fact, the role of the audience is pertinent to the effectiveness of this film. For example, Wiseman appeals to the emotions of the audience to achieve a stronger rhetorical effect. In the closing scene, a teacher tears up while reading a letter from a former student who is now a soldier serving in Vietnam. In the letter the former student does not only confess of his gratefulness for having attended that school because it made him a better person, but also reveal his devotion to the cause of the war and wants his insurance money to go to school if he is killed in Vietnam. The close-ups of the teacher's face reveal a wealth of emotions, expressing joy, perhaps out of self-gratitude for having helped in someway to shape the former student. The audience may perceive the letter as absurd and see it as a real-life consequence of the institutional constraints of the high school that reinforced blind obeying of authorities. Moreover, the tears of joy on the teacher's face may potentially reveal something even more horrifying the teacher is actually proud of her work and stands by the function of the school as an institution and the staff as authority figures.
Wiseman used a number of creative decisions in composition and editing to give "High School" its rhetorical voice. Perhaps most noticeable is the film's black-and-white format. Though likely to have driven by cost, it powerfully conveys a sense of banality of the atmosphere of the high school. Audience are aware of this being a conscious choice on the part of the director to not include color, but could this very decision also be a metaphor used to represent the actions taken by the authorities of the school and their consequences a dull, sterile environment in which students are sapped of their own individualistic colors.
Also prevalent in the film is the use of juxtaposition to create situational ironies in order to further criticize, in a rhetorical matter, the institutional restraints of high school. Towards the beginning of the film, a scene is shown in which the professor is reading tasks off the bulletin of the day to a class. The next scene shows a foreign language class in which the teacher is lecturing on existentialism and various existentialist philosophers. The two scenes seem similar; in that both are in classroom settings and show a teacher lecturing and students listening, but the subjects in discussion contrast each other in their differences. The latter scene can even be interpreted as ironic itself, in that the subject lectured about, existentialism, suggests and requires abstract and free-form thinking, while it shows students reciting the material in an orderly manner.
In the absence of a spoken narrative, the voice of "High School" relies much its effect on the indexical abilities of the documentary form and constructing messages out of the indexed recordings. One situation shows a student presenting a seemingly unfair scenario to a staff and expressing his disapproval of a teacher because that teacher had yelled at him and then unjustly given him detention. The staff is shown as uninterested in finding out more of the situation, and instead takes the side of the said teacher and starts to lecture the student about respecting the authority. The documentary form, especially the "cinema verite" model, has the ability to give the illusion of representing unbiased reality
Wiseman's use of the indexing quality by showing various scenes in their entirety therefore strengthens the film's voice, as the audience is made to believe they are seeing the whole truth in a few scenes, and encouraged to extend that belief to the entire film. Though that is not to say the "High School" assumes a low audience activity. In fact, the role of the audience is pertinent to the effectiveness of this film. For example, Wiseman appeals to the emotions of the audience to achieve a stronger rhetorical effect. In the closing scene, a teacher tears up while reading a letter from a former student who is now a soldier serving in Vietnam. In the letter the former student does not only confess of his gratefulness for having attended that school because it made him a better person, but also reveal his devotion to the cause of the war and wants his insurance money to go to school if he is killed in Vietnam. The close-ups of the teacher's face reveal a wealth of emotions, expressing joy, perhaps out of self-gratitude for having helped in someway to shape the former student. The audience may perceive the letter as absurd and see it as a real-life consequence of the institutional constraints of the high school that reinforced blind obeying of authorities. Moreover, the tears of joy on the teacher's face may potentially reveal something even more horrifying the teacher is actually proud of her work and stands by the function of the school as an institution and the staff as authority figures.