Download Film 'LINK' Freedom Writers

The idea for the film came from journalist Tracey Durning, who made a documentary about Erin Gruwell for the ABC News program Primetime Live. Durning served as co-executive producer of the film. The film was dedicated to the memory of Armand Jones, who was killed after filming Freedom Writers. He was fatally shot at age 18 in Anaheim, California, after a confrontation with a man who robbed Jones of a necklace in a Denny's restaurant.[3]

Freedom Writers had a domestic gross of $36,605,602 and had a foreign gross of $6,485,139 bringing the movie to a total gross of $43,090,741 worldwide. On the film's opening weekend it grossed a total of $9,405,582 ranking 4th behind Children of Men (3rd), The Pursuit of Happyness (2nd), and Night at the Museum (1st).

Download Film Freedom Writers

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Cynthia Fuchs of Common Sense Media gave the film three out of five stars, writing in her review that "the plot is predictable, the actors too old to play high school students, and the pacing too slow. And really, the camera circles around deep-thinking faces a few too many times. But Freedom Writers also argues for listening to teenagers. That in itself makes it a rare and close-to-wonderful thing."[6] The film received a positive rating from Fox Weekly, giving the film a 9 out of 10.[7]

From award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson (Wounded Knee, Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, The Murder of Emmett Till) Freedom Riders features testimony from a fascinating cast of central characters: the Riders themselves, state and federal government officials, and journalists who witnessed the Rides firsthand. The two-hour documentary is based on Raymond Arsenault's book Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice.

Filmmaker Stanley Nelson and American Experience Executive Producer Cameo George discuss three of Nelson's Civil Rights films, how these stories shaped and advanced the ongoing civil rights movement, and how public media can help elevate filmmakers of color in telling diverse stories.

Street life here is depicted with a gritty realism, but the film strains credibility once it moves to the classroom. The film piles on the canned dialogue and a series of emotionally overwrought scenes; a big blowup in the class is followed by a confrontation with an administrator and then another argument with a fellow teacher. As is typical of such films, the main character, here Gruwell, is presented as nearly flawless while all those in the surrounding adult world are jealous and spiteful. Now, it is not hard to believe that her liberal father (Scott Glenn), perhaps the most nuanced supporting character, would suddenly resist his promising daughter's very concrete way of trying to realize what she thought her father had taught her; or that her husband (Patrick Dempsey) would gradually become disaffected as his wife becomes consumed by her students; or that administrators and fellow teachers would be suspicious and envious of the reported successes of a rookie teacher. But the problem for the story is that the characters have no complexity to them; they are merely foils for the heroism of the main character.

One of the more compelling, if fairly obvious, themes in the film is the way the bureaucracy of the public schools protects its own interests rather than serving the needs of the students. Books the students should be assigned are stored safely away because the students cannot understand them and deface them. Then there is the inevitable argument that Gruwell's methods should not be permitted because they create inequality in the school. Unless we can do this for everyone, so the leveling argument runs, we should not do it for anyone. Since the school already operates a successful honors program, this argument is specious; it indicates a resistance to educating certain types of students.

The students, played by a cast of little-known actors who give the most credible performances in the film, also learn the power of stories, of having a vocabulary to understand the lives of others and in light of which to begin to articulate their own lives. From the lone and mildly terrified white kid, played with unassuming humor by Hunter Parrish, to the courageous Eva, who may be tougher than any of the male students in the class, the students come alive the way all students come alive, through an encounter with great literature under the inspiring direction of a masterful teacher. Unable to put The Diary down, Eva pauses long enough to inquire, "When is Anne going to smoke Hitler?" When she reaches the end and discovers Anne's fate, she angrily confronts her teacher, "Why did you give us this to read? She's not supposed to die. If she is killed, what does that say about me?" Another student interjects that Anne's life matters. At least people are reading about her life, unlike the many friends they have lost in gang wars whose lives are forgotten as soon as they are buried.

The overused Nazi analogy is quite effective in one respect. Not in the sense in which the teacher initially uses it, namely, to try to undermine the students' sense that they belong to the baddest gangs ever to have walked the face of the earth. According to Gruwell, the baddest gang of all is daddy Hitler and his Nazi thugs. Through reading Anne Frank's diary, visiting the Holocaust museum, dining with Holocaust survivors (who appear as themselves in the film), and in arranging a visit to their school from Miep Gies (Pat Carroll), one of those who helped hide Anne Frank, the students learn that blind loyalty to one's own can be the source of the gravest injustice. Instead, integrity and honor involve what Gies calls the ordinary person's fidelity to the truth, a truth that may require defying one's group.

For some reason I've been thinking about the 2008 film starring Hilary Swank, Freedom Writers, recently, and I'm not exactly sure why. I saw it in theaters 11 years ago, and I really liked it then, though of course I was in the 8th grade and what you liked in middle school doesn't really count for much. I know I've seen it at least once since then, maybe even twice, but I know it's been at least 8 or 9 years since I last saw it. Sometimes things that I liked from years ago creep back up into my thoughts, and I revise what I think of them now based on what I remember from them.

Especially now more than ever, I'm not a fan of inspirational movies, and I never really think about other inspirational movies I saw from years ago around that same time (such as Gridiron Gang, We Are Marshal, or Pride), so I find it somewhat odd my thoughts will linger for a minute every now and then on Freedom Writers, years after I've seen it. And I also find it odd that to this day, it hasn't really diminished in my initial thoughts, I still think it's a really solid film.

All that being said, it still is formulaic, it still hits the all of the typical "inspirational" beats, it still does have quite a few "white lady gets real on some inner city school kids" moments, it is flawed, but I don't think it derogatorily belongs in the "white savior complex" category of inspirational movies. If anything, I think it does the "white savior" narrative right, in that it isn't about some selfless white person fixing the lives of inner city kids, but instead it's a privileged white woman seeking to use her privilege to introduce underprivileged kids to the stories of other people who can help them understand and articulate their own stories. In other words, it's less a expose of how white culture, white people, and white privilege can save colored students, which is the entire premise of films like The Blind Side, but instead it celebrates the vitality of literature and the power of writing. How reading about other people can help you put your own story into words, and understand the world you are living in.

What is fascinating to see in the film is how real-life teacher Erin Gruwell employed various effective techniques to unite her class across all races and backgrounds and how, with time, her efforts paid off in full, impacting the lives of her students. She first mitigated the negative effects of stereotypes before attempting to eradicate prejudice and discrimination seeing as stereotypes are the grassroots level of the problem.

I have not viewed this film yet, and I intend to do so, but I have an admitted bias: I tire of the white person enters the school and saves the minority children cliche in film and books. It's also frustrating to hear these people, when the stories are based on true tales, are often not teaching any more.

It's teachers like Erin Gruwell with love, courage and a true realness to make a difference in young adults lives that give me hope that some real teachers do exist. I grew up in the 50's and 60's when teachers taught because they really cared and not because it was a job and have the "it's just a job" mentality like so many have today. I thank God for real teachers like Erin who dispite her own personal problems for being the person she is still held strong and made a difference in lives where life meant nothing to them. God bless you Erin and when I saw the film it brought tears to my eyes. I grew up in South Central Los Angeles in the 60's and know first hand what your young adults went through and there should be more not just teachers but people like you. It's lacking today for real. Most teachers don't need to be in this field because they simply don't give a damn nor the administrators.

In this emotional, tear-jerking, film, Ms. Gruwell fights for her students and their education. She breaks the barriers between them and turns her class into a family. For the first time, students feel like they have a place filled with people they love and trust.

If this sounds corny, it is, but it is done with such sincerity, and with such love and respect for its characters, that the film never feels sentimental. It is smart enough not to portray the teacher as a perfect saint (there are some well-written scenes of her home life, where she has to examine her neglect toward her husband, played by Patrick Dempsey). e24fc04721