Teenage Years Never Change

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The New York Sun

“American Teen” was a sensation at the Sundance Film Festival, and when it makes its debut Friday in movie theaters, a great many people will be monitoring its reception. Fans of the documentary emerged from the first Park City screenings last January in a state of such excitement that studios engaged in a bidding war: Paramount Vantage ultimately won the battle, promising a comprehensive marketing campaign. This weekend will be the first opportunity for the studio and producers to see if the documentary can successfully transcend genders and generations to become a bona fide hit.

Even for the film’s critics — who have challenged the documentary for reiterating clichés rather than breaking new ground — the debut of “American Teen” will represent something of a referendum on what might excite younger audiences about feature-length nonfiction works.

A tightly molded, hyper-edited look at the lives of American teenagers, the film piqued interest even before “American Teen” had its world premiere. Director Nanette Burstein — known widely for her boxing documentary “On the Ropes” and the Robert Evans biopic “The Kid Stays in the Picture,” both of which were co-directed by Brett Morgen — aimed to capture a year in the life of the average American teenager. To do so, she traveled across the country, to the small town of Warsaw, Ind., and set up shop for the better part of a year, during which she aimed to become a fixture of the community. She chose 10 high school seniors, and in the editing room narrowed the film’s focus to five.

It was a daunting mission to be sure, and talking to Ms. Burstein only reinforces the scope of the challenge that she set out to conquer. “Most reality shows come in with a fake premise and put people in a fake environment, but we tackled this in a completely different way, having the luxury of time and building relationships,” she said. “Oftentimes, there was only one camera in each place, and it wouldn’t be unusual for me to do the filming. I knew to get the kind of raw honesty you see here, the kids would have to be comfortable with me, so I took the time to get to know them. In editing down the thousands of hours of footage, it becomes very edited for time, but it was always done in hopes of capturing the essence of what their lives were truly like that year.”

For some reviewers who saw “American Teen,” either at Sundance or during Brooklyn’s Sundance Institute at BAM event, the film’s essence was a little too predictable. At the outset, the story breaks down into cliques: There’s the jock, the son of an Elvis impersonator, who knows that his future hinges on his ability to get a college basketball scholarship. Then there’s the popular girl, methodically managing the high school’s rumor mill and jockeying to be the center of attention. There’s the nerd, who suffers from an extreme battle with acne and plays video games every day. He also dreams every night of finding a girlfriend.

“I really didn’t set out to have archetypes from all these groups, to have the ‘queen bee’ and the ‘math nerd,'” Ms. Burstein said. “But this is the way these people really were. And it didn’t really surprise me that they naturally fell into some sort of clique. That’s what high school is — even the in-between falls into the clique of the ‘in-betweens.’ But the more we come to know these kids, they undercut their labels and become far more complicated.”

While some of the students she followed were never quite able to become comfortable with cameras following their every move — and consequently were cut out of the final footage — Ms. Burstein said the film relied heavily on the fact that these teenagers would let down their guard as the weeks and months wore on. And, sure enough, given this era of camera phones, Web cameras, and ever-present reality TV shows, she said she was able to easily convey the purpose of the project to her subjects and gain their trust, even while standing behind a camera.

It is one of the great ironies of “American Teen” that the same technology that made these kids so amenable to being filmed and followed in the first place is often captured by Ms. Burstein as making their lives more difficult. “Working on this film reminded of how being a teenager can be larger than life. There’s the thrill of first love, and the agony of that first heartbreak — the way that one moment of embarrassment can define your life through school,” she said. “I knew technology would be a big part of their lives, but I didn’t think of how it would be used for gossip, and rumors, and cyber-bullying. The cruelty is the same as it’s always been, but now technology has sped up the process. You can have one message or one picture or one statement that can be sent to an entire phone book at once.”

The finished project is unlikely to surprise teenagers, but it will reinforce the challenges they face during every school day. It captures the euphoria of their newfound independence and the terror of their uncertain future. Ms. Burstein said all her subjects have seen the film and embraced its depiction of their senior year experience. In fact, speaking via phone shortly after the film received a standing ovation at BAM, the director said it has been parents, not students, who have been surprised most by the project. “I’ve had parents in audiences shocked by the film, shocked not about the behavior of the teenagers so much as the parents we see,” she said. “Some are shocked by the financial situations, or the way that parents view paying for college or enlisting in the military. While the movie seems to unite many audiences, reviving memories about the cruelty of high school, it’s also revealed the divide that exists between the parents on the screen and some of the parents in the audience. Some are living in very different worlds.”

ssnyder@nysun.com


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