moonspinner55 Review of The Hobart Shakespeareans

The Hobart Shakespeareans (2005 TV Movie)

Brief but exquisite; one of the most amazing documentaries you'll ever see...

[10/10 · 9 September 2005]

Shining documentary for PBS strives to be something extra special, touching on the personal reexamination of our formative years while looking ahead at the next generation. There's not a grandstanding moment in the hour as Los Angeles teacher Rafe Esquith of Hobart Elementary School goes through his own personal rigors to teach a class of inner-city immigrant 5th graders all the standard elementary school topics as well as Shakespeare, and at the end of the year they perform "Hamlet" for their amazed families. I was amazed, too, at how Mr. Esquith turns a classroom into a stimulating forum for ideas. This valentine to education manages to be both emotionally rich and intellectually provocative. One not only watches but winds up reconsidering his own years in grade school. Esquith has his bad days, admitting there are times when he feels like packing it in, but he also knows that he'd be cheating many children by giving up--and cheating himself as well. Ironically, a teacher such as this, so effective at reaching his students, is actually resented by his colleagues working at the same school (it's like a high school-pecking order but amongst adults). And yet, Esquith proves to be heroic. This simply-shot, simply-produced hour (with wonderful appearances by Ian McKellen and Michael York) shows that lives are being changed, year in and year out, by one person who gives a damn. When the kids are gathered for one last goodbye backstage, it is a graduation of honors--and they've earned it. These students, with their futures before them like an open book, have learned to love learning--no easy task for a teacher. "The Hobart Shakespeareans" should touch a lot of people.