High school can be hard to shake. Some people never make it out
of the cafeteria; they're still trying to find the cool kids' table.
With "American Teen," opening in the United States on Friday and in
Britain in November, Nanette Burstein can claim a certain expertise
on the subject. This movie earned her the documentary directing
award at this year's Sundance Film Festival and set off a bidding
war.
It's also something of an exorcism. Burstein was co-director,
with Brett Morgen, of two highly regarded documentaries: the Oscar-
nominated "On the Ropes," about three young boxers hoping to fight
their way out of poverty, and "The Kid Stays in the Picture," a
portrait of the flamboyant Hollywood producer Robert Evans. But the
impetus for "American Teen" was more personal: her own intense high
school experience two decades ago in Buffalo, New York.
To make the 90-minute film, Burstein moved to Warsaw, Indiana,
and, deploying multiple cameras, gathered 1,000 hours of footage as
she and her crew followed four 17-year-olds through their senior
year at the town's large, modern high school. The students could
almost be the template for a John Hughes teen pic: the pampered
queen bee Megan, whose imperious will to power masks a terrible
secret; the basketball player Colin, who must win a sports
scholarship or forgo college for the army; the gifted bohemian
Hannah, ready to break away but terrified that she may have
inherited her mother's bipolar disorder; and the lonely band nerd
Jake, funny and appealing but afflicted with acne flare-ups that
complicate his determined search for a girlfriend.
To watch these teenagers is to see egos and identities in raw
formation; on the verge of entering a larger world, they are
reaching for a sense of self.
Burstein, 38, discussed her subjects' teenage years, and her own,
with the writer. These are excerpts from their conversation.
Q. How did you choose these kids and this school?
A. I looked at 10 schools in four states. I wanted an economic
mix, the timelessness of the Midwest and a one-school town so you
couldn't escape your social status. I interviewed about 200 seniors
at Warsaw.
My interviews with the four I chose are on the movie's Facebook
site, and you can see what made them so interesting. In a dramatic
film your character should have a strong need; it's the same in a
documentary. You want someone who needs to accomplish something with
all their heart and soul, and they all had that.
Q. I graduated from a large public high school in Indianapolis in
the early '60s, and I was surprised at how much the experience of
these contemporary teenagers resembled my own. Did you find that?
A. Yes. I went to a coed private day school, but it had a lot of
the same social hierarchy and the same emotional core. It was an
extremely challenging time, difficult but formative. I went from
Megan to Hannah by my senior year. It was good that Warsaw wasn't
just a mirror of my school. I could be objective and not carry so
much anger.
Q. What was the anger about?
A. Not fitting in, feeling judged, feeling like I was never good
enough.
Q. Even though you started out being one of the cool crowd?
A. I did. But I never felt part of; I was Jewish, I wasn't
wealthy, so I never really felt they were my friends. You're so
vulnerable at that age. But I was lucky. I won a scholarship to
spend my junior year in Barcelona. People were coming out of their
shell after Franco, so it was an exciting place to be. And here I
was this preppy girl in my fake-pearl necklace and khaki pants and
whale belt, and the world opened up to me. There was no clique
system, so I was able to learn how to be myself. I came home with a
pink Mohawk, knowing I wanted to be a filmmaker. The Mohawk didn't
last very long. I became more like Hannah. I didn't need to go to
extremes.
Q. Did you find the kids you filmed different from your high
school generation? These are small-town kids, but they share a huge
pool of knowledge with their big-city counterparts because of the
media and the Internet.
A. What struck me most was their ability to analyze themselves
and articulate their situation.
Q. Do you keep in touch with the kids?
A. Yes. They've all finished their sophomore year in college now,
and they look at themselves in the film as if they were different
people then. We added an epilogue that tells what they're doing now.
Q. How about your own epilogue?
A. I want to do a fiction film. I've spent a lot of time taking
real life and molding it into a narrative. Now I'd like to take a
narrative and make it feel like real life.
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