Screen

...Lean on Me notes real issues in the education crisis...

...In such a context, it's easy to bid "Hello, Mr...

...It takes an assistant principal (Beverly Todd) to make Clark listen, just once, to the ways in which his reforms affect teachers...

...Art and life can't easily be separated in such a case...

...Some critics claim the real Joe Clark enjoyed his power too much...

...But the movie stays on the surface and doesn't delve into complications...

...He was called into a war zone, filled with drugs, fifth- and sixth-year non-graduates, near rioting in the cafeterias, assaults on teachers and students in the hallways-the kind of behavior still routinely accepted in too many urban schools...

...and college teachers are always depicted as alcoholics (Reuben, Reuben and Educating Rita) orcasanovas (Terms of Endearment, Moonstruck...

...As the film shows, Joe Clark had a tough battle...

...Freeman's toughest speeches are addressed to fellow older blacks, who, he feels, have failed to protect the innocence of children or tolerated less than the best from the rest of the school...

...Still, Lean on Me was not made for film critics...

...The whole culture has bid a dismissive "Goodbye, Mr...

...Similar caricatures are found in sci-fi films: War Games, E.T., and DA.R.Y.L...

...his main enemies are a caricature mayor (Alan North) and a cardboard villainess (Lynne Thigpen), as a parent angry over her thuggish son's expulsion from school...

...Ah, a good word for discipline...

...Perhaps...

...Is there a worse way of not preparing children for later life, or for aiding and abetting the yahoo streak in American culture...

...But accessories to the crime include that portion of sixties ideology that said spare the book, coddle the child...

...Chips...

...One wishes, indeed, for more of this in Michael Shiffer's screenplay-more digging at the hidden ideological component in our educational malaise...

...At least it gives more than lip service to the idea that our national security is at stake in our schools...

...Our schools suffer from many ills, and the film notes that the widespread poverty tolerated by capitalism is the ground for their frequent failure...

...Morgan Freeman (last seen in Street Smart) as Clark dominates the film, almost brazenly...

...He's had enough, he says: for too long, "we've been crucified by a process that is turning our black children into a permanent underclass...

...The film's faults are forgivable if you find Clark forgivable, which, on balance, I still do...

...Little is shown of classroom methods, the nuts and bolts that made Stand and Deliver so strong...

...Clark...

...Too much footage consists of Freeman's shouting at, or sharing a shouting match with, unruly students or rebellious teachers who object to his methods of crisis control...

...In the context depicted- despite some believable exaggeration-Clark's extreme management style is understandable...

...We are in a state of emergency, and my word is law...

...TOM O'BRIEN...

...Discipline," he says, "is not the enemy of enthusiasm...

...Until last year's Stand and Deliver, movies have furthered this streak...

...Despite its defects- even despite the defects of the personality at its center-the film dramatizes the need to nurture hope in inner-city schools...

...Consequently, the soundtrack includes some musical numbers loud enough to wake up even an "education president...

...It is bad enough that teachers have been displaced by the media, but worse that their image has been so distorted: in Fame, Breakfast Club, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Porky's High School, Summer School, Making the Grade, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off...

...Clark's character is rendered uninflected, with little internal conflict or doubt...

...In some tough speeches to his teaching staff, he declares: "This is no g-d-mn democracy...

...What makes Freeman's portrayal of Joe Clark attractive is his caring for students, his use of martinet-style for moral ends...

...The process, for Clark, is ruled by too many left-wing cliches...

...Under vigorous direction by John Avildsen (who directed the similarly simplistic but rousing Rocky), Freeman plays Clark as a drill sergeant...

...Indeed, his best scenes are in a quiet mode, as he handles sensitive student issues in one-on-one sessions with some bright young performers...

...martial music accompanies his patrols down the hall...

...it addresses several others within reach: failure of will, poor pedagogy, lack of discipline...

...The story is based on the real life of Joe Clark, the controversial Paterson, New Jersey, school principal...

...Even Teachers, ostensibly a defense of the profession, was filled with negative images...

...In his best speech, he points out the falseness of opposing order and freedom...

...Given Clark's continued presence in the headlines, and his odd choices in school policy, the film poses some unusual problems: it makes Clark a hero while pointing to aspects of his character that trouble even those who support his goals and understand the harshness of his methods...

...Such aesthetic sins are slight compared to the good the film may do for its intended audience...

...it was made to reach the kind of adolescents Joe Clark was able to reclaim for society...

...And, of course, too few characters like-at least the fictional-Joe Clark...