Conrack

A young white teacher is posted to a one-room school on an island off the South Carolina coast, attended only by Black children. They cannot read, they do not know the name of the country's president, and they cannot pronounce their teacher's name either: instead of Conroy they say Conrack. That is where the title comes from. The film is not interested in the teacher's heroism. It is interested in institutional resistance: when he drops the curriculum and starts teaching the children to swim, to listen to music, to know the world, it is the administration that objects. The form is warm and comic. The classroom scenes are long and the children play naturally. The source is Pat Conroy's book The Water Is Wide, about his own years as a teacher. The clumsy idealist on screen is the youth of a man who became one of America's well-known novelists. Martin Ritt directed. Jon Voight plays the teacher, with Paul Winfield and Madge Sinclair as adults on the island. Who it is for: viewers who like socially minded American films of the seventies and school stories. Who it is not for: anyone uneasy with the white saviour narrative. The film leaves little room for the children's own voices and keeps the teacher at the centre throughout.