The Film Club -- David Gilmour: A Book Review

I was in a bookstore the first time I saw The Film Club. I was looking through the biography and autobiography sections when I passed across the title, which alone did not interest me. It was the name of the author, David Gilmour, that caught my eye.

David Gilmour was -- for nearly three decades -- the lead guitar player for the psychodelic hard rock band Pink Floyd. To say the least, being a huge fan, I was mildly surprised that he'd written a book I knew nothing about. So I slid the book from the shelf and read the inside flaps. The third paragraph told me David Gilmour was an award-winning novelist. Again, I was mildly surprised. I had no idea that the lead guitarist for Pink Floyd was so versatile.

By now the book had me hooked. The Film Club was the true account of David Gilmour and his son, Jesse, a troubled young man that Gilmour had allowed at the age of 16 to drop out of school and watch movies. Three per week, as a matter of fact. The Film Club, as they called their little two-man group, was Gilmour's attempt to save his son from a life of aimlessness, get him involved in something that he knew he enjoyed before he became lost, and spend some time and reconnect with the boy he loved before he grew up and moved out of his life forever.

Turning to the right-side flap, there were several blurbs from authors of which I had never heard. But one of the blurbs stated that Gilmour, at the time in which the book was set, was an "unlikely moral guidance counselor," was "broke, more or less unemployed, " and had "two children by two different women."

I thought, "Broke? The guitarist for Pink Floyd? Unemployed? He was a successful musician. Must've been before he joined the band."

I turned the book over and a picture of two men, one a silver-haired Ed Begley, Jr., look-alike and a slightly shorter young man, presented itself. I knew right away that neither of these two gentlemen had ever played for Pink Floyd. But the pictured David Gilmour had won the 2005 Governor-General's Award for fiction in Canada for A Perfect Night To Go To China.

Just slightly disappointed that I wouldn't be reading about one of the greatest living guitarists, I decided that the premise of the book was just strange enough (truth is stranger than fiction) to be worth reading.

David Gilmour felt as if he was losing his son. The boy's grades were failing. He was distracted and bored with school. He began to fear that his son would soon begin not only hanging around the wrong types of people but would also begin making decisions that might cost precious years of his life or even his freedom. Catching him not going to school one day and seeming to be generally directionless, Gilmour hit upon a unique idea: He would give his son a choice between watching movies with him -- movies that Gilmour himself chose -- and going to school. Perhaps he could reach the teenager and teach him through the lessons conveyed in movies -- the movies themselves, the plots, the directors and stars and their lives, the cinematography, why a scene was shot a certain way or altered, etc.

And thus, the Film Club was born.

Gilmour readily admits that he had his own selfish reasons for offering his son the choice. He also readily admits that several times he doubted if his idea was actually working or even if his son was getting anything out of their time together and/or the movies they were watching. As time went by and his son approached his 18th birthday, Gilmour admits that he seriously doubted if he had had much impact on his son and that his educational experiment had been a failure. But then he started asking questions of his son and found that perhaps the Film Club was not a total waste of time.

The Film Club is a learning experience for the author, his son, and for the reader. It is a bold endeavor by a desperate father unwilling to see his son let his life go to waste. The Film Club is also a testament to hope and perseverance, about a father David Gilmour hit upon a unique solution to a perceived problem and followed it through, although plagued with doubts throughout.

But what The Film Club may be more than anything is a look at the state of the modern education system and its inability to reach many of those they are charged to educate. David Gilmour recognized the problem in microcosm, personified by his son's apathy and disaffection with regard to school, and attempted to gear an education regimen more fitted to his son's interests. And although the Film Club model may not be for everyone, the idea behind it, personalized education planning, might well be the answer to more effective and productive education systems.