Word: conroys
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...such corniness. Newsweek's Paul Zimmerman asked, "Who needs a film about a white man who teaches blacks how to think?" (But if black children are taught to think by blacks or liberated whites, aren't the rednecks the only ones who lose?) And in Time, Richard Schickel compared Conroy's relentless idealism to Chinese water torture...
...headed idealists, overwhelmed by uplift. But the critics Mad Andrew wrote about are figments of his imagination, since the only famous critics who praised the film (Kael and Kauffmann) are rigorous, not at all the "melting marsh-mallows" of his bile-ridden column. Sarris took potshots at the actual Conroy as well as at the film and its defenders, vaguely condemning him--though rhetorically denying it--for being young, energetic, individualistic, and anti-establishment. (Everything film critics are not, these days...
...follows from her profession (she teaches black literature at a Baltimore college). But her professional disposition may well be the sole source of her criticism. Although she says, "the Sea Islands actually have a very rich folk culture," she reiterates her charge instead of proving her argument. According to Conroy's book, The Water is Wide (the basis for Irving Ravetch and Harriett Frank Jr.'s script) pollution from surrounding factories ruined Yamacraw Island and starved its hunters and fishermen. Frustration spurred violence that scarred all families. Perhaps Collier cannot believe that a black culture's "wisdom, strength and humor...
ALTHOUGH JON VOIGHT performs wonders as Conroy--he is both sensitive and charismatic, full-bodied and full of wit--he doesn't have to carry the film. The 21 non-professional kids (all from the Georgia coast) act up a storm. When Voight's Conroy introduces his class to Brahms and Beethoven, or, in an effort to blow the lard from their brains, punctuates his classroom questions with a bike horn, we are gratified not only by the teacher's love and cleverness, but by the responses of his kids--abashed, suspicious, delighted, and finally openhearted...
...film does have problems. But they have little to do with race, liberality or mushiness. Ritt, Ravetch and Frank revel in the grotesque. The school superintendent and principal (glosses of groups of figures from Conroy's book) are educational Bull Connors. More interesting characters, like the island's hermit Mad Billie, and a fast-talking island slicker named Quickfellow, have neither history nor room for growth. The filmmakers also fail to develop some intriguing themes: Conroy must have influenced his children's lives beyond the classroom, but when their usually stand-offish parents strike to protest Conroy's dismissal, there...