The Film Club: A Memoir

by David Gilmour

Book Overview

A warmly witty account of the three years a man spent teaching life lessons to his high school dropout son by showing him the world's best (and occasionally worst) films. At the start of this... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446199303
• Release Date: June 2009
• Publisher: Twelve
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.6" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

A Great Weekend Read

I was drawn to this title based on a New York Times Book Review of this deeply satisfying book about a bold father whose ballsy choice to step out the way of a his resistant teen son's relationship to high school gave me hope that things tend to turn out the way they are meant to turn out. This story is affirmation of our kid's ability to work things out for themselves as long as we remain present and loving for the drama known as adolescence. If you have a Jesse at home, or any troubled teenager, pick up this book and give it a chance to enlighten what you think you know about film, parenting and your kids. Thank you David Gilmour and Jesse, for sharing your time with me!

Touching, absorbing and memorable

It never occurred to me to judge David Gilmour's parenting techniques because he perfectly captures a dilemma known to me. There is your child, adrift, possibly in danger of floating away for good. This is the time for the greatest parenting move ever...and all you can think is, maybe I'm not so good at this parenting stuff. Gilmour reaches deep into himself, to something he is good at, i.e., movies, in an attempt to forge a connection with his son. He seems cool and confident in this gesture, but I think he is really terrified. Luckily the kid takes the bait, and what a great ride it is from there. Just because they are watching movies together, doesn't mean they instantly forge an impenetrable bond and the son is saved. Gilmour has to watch his boy suffer through early relationships with the opposite sex (surely one of the most exquisite forms of torture ever for a parent). Almost magically, there are movies that can help with this stuff, or at least make a parent feel like he is doing something, anything, to help his child cope. It's certainly not an easy path out of the woods. The kid gets himself into situations and suffers a fair amount. The ending is great. It does seem like they are both making progress. What a perfect example of thinking outside the box to solve a problem. I was totally engrossed, and this one has a permanent berth on my Kindle.

You want to be a member

The Film Club is everything you could want in a memoir. In letting his son drop out of school to watch movies under (his) adult supervision, David Gilmour attempts a zen-like parenting move that is both inspired and insane. The story immediately takes off and never lets you down, nor does the language, which is inspired on virtually every page. Consider this passage from the middle of the book. "I knew down the road, not that far, we (he and his son) were going to have a shootout and I was going to lose. Just like all those other fathers in history." If you happen to be one of those fathers, you'll understand. If you're not, read this book and you will.

RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "A FATHER & SON MULTI-LEVEL COMING OF AGE STORY."

Because my Father was the greatest Father in the world I always wanted to be a Father, and then I was blessed with the greatest son. Since the two roles in my life; son, when my Dad was alive, and Father now, are so special to me, I'm always enthusiastically interested in any literature regarding the magical union of Father and Son. The author of this book David Gilmour has been among other things the national film critic for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and has written six novels. David was confronted with a personal and family crisis when his fifteen-year-old son Jesse was failing every subject in school. Jesse had no real desire to continue going to school so David had to make a gut wrenching decision... a decision that wasn't discussed in the "Being A Father" manual that you weren't given when your first child was born. David gave Jesse the freedom to quit school with one proviso: he had to watch three movies a week with his Dad, and his Dad chose the movies. Jesse gleefully accepted the deal. What the author wound up receiving was three years of indescribable time together that involved way more than just watching movies. The Father cleverly became a skillful teacher without standing up in the front of a classroom and announcing I am "THE TEACHER!" The teacher he became did not have a set curriculum that you would find in any institution of higher learning. The subject wasn't math, English or history... it was much more important! It was "LIFE". Though the author shared his lifetime love of movies with his son, the movie subjects were picked, and schedules changed, based on the curve balls being thrown at Father and son by a combination of destiny and fate. This book is lovingly written and the reader shares the travails of a sixteen-year-old dropout with no job, girl problems, and a Father trying to feel his way blindfolded, through a darkened twisting tunnel, in an attempt to come out on the other end with a boy who becomes a man, and a loving Father/son relationship still intact. The tools the Father uses are of course great movies renowned and obscure, ranging from "The Bicycle Thief" to "The Exorcist" to "Scarface" and beyond. He reaches into his past experiences as a movie critic to share inside info with his son, such as when he interviewed Dennis Hopper and asked him who his favorite actor was. "I thought he was going to say Marlon Brando. Everyone says Marlon Brando. But he didn't. he said James Dean. You know what else he said? He said the best piece of acting he'd ever seen in his life was that scene with James Dean (in "Giant") when he takes his leave, he stops by the door, fiddling with a long piece of rope, like he's practicing a rodeo trick... he makes a movement with his hand, like he's sweeping snow off a desk. It's like he's saying "F" you to the business guys." As important as the education by film, are the situations that force the Father to open up his own past, involving hurt and disappointments with wo

A father and son watch movies together. But that's just the plot, not the point.

His grades started dropping in the ninth grade. In the tenth, they toppled. He switched to a private school. No difference. Jesse Gilmour just didn't give a damn. His father --- David Gilmour, a well-known Canadian novelist --- was unhinged. At this rate, Jesse wouldn't be going to college. At this rate, Jesse would be flipping burgers at minimum wage --- if he didn't completely fall apart. Dad had to intervene. And he did. He had been a movie critic for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. His son liked movies. On that frail connection, he proposed that Jesse drop out of school and watch three movies a week. Dad's choice. Just the two of them. The film club began with Truffaut's "400 Blows". European. Arty. Certain to bore the kid. But important because Truffaut was "a high school dropout, a draft dodger, a small-time thief." They watch. They talk. You're interested. Then Rebecca Ng enters the story. She's mature, mysterious, unspeakably hot. Jesse's smitten. David's worried. Seeing Rebecca and Jesse together was "like watching him get into a very expensive car. I could smell the new leather from here." Girls and movies make for a more complicated story. Now add another element: David's writing career. Suddenly it's going about as well as Jesse's schooling. It looks as if there are two dropouts in the Gilmour residence. But David perseveres with the film club. In the course of the screenings, he serves up terrific tidbits. Did you know Alfred Hitchcock built a second set of stairs so Ingrid Bergman's long walk at the end of "Notorious" is doubly tense? That Stephen King didn't like the film of "The Shining" and had no affection at all for its director, Stanley Kubrick? That director William Friedkin got a great performance by a priest in "The Exorcist" by asking the guy if he trusted him --- and then slapping him in the face? Yes, you learn lots of cool trivia from "The Film Club", but that's not the big takeaway. This easily digested memoir is about something much bigger than film --- it's about people, and how we see them, and how we treat them. There are, if you think that way, "good kids" and "bad kids". And there are "responsible parents" and "permissive parents". You can put those grids over relationships and make some easy, smug judgments. And I'll bet, if you're that sort of reader, even this brief description of "The Film Club" is enough to lead you to conclude that Jesse's a bit of a loser and Dad's a bit of a flake. If you're that kind of reader --- what am I saying? I'm that kind of reader! I judge like mad! And of course I feel superior to this father-and-son team. Why not: I loved school. And as a stepfather and now a father, the kids who have lived with me have also loved to learn --- even in school. So if you're that kind of reader --- if, like me, you think of yourself as a rebel, but you don't color too far outside the lines --- this is a very subversive memoir. Three years in two lives. Father and son really getti