Interview: Director Davis Guggenheim on ‘Waiting For Superman’

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CHICAGO – Oscar-winning director Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”) has returned with another film likely to play a major role at next year’s Academy Awards, the devastating “Waiting For Superman,” an indictment of the entire American education system that stands both as riveting documentary filmmaking and a call for change. Guggenheim recently sat down with me for a lively conversation over breakfast and the man lived up to the expectation that one would have of a very intellectual director propelled by his own personal interests to change national problems.

Davis Guggenheim makes clear in his film that he always thought that he would be a parent who would support his public schools but now drives by three of them to take his kids to private school. It was only when he took a look at the school system that he realized something needed to change. But most us refuse to take the look.

Guggenheim says, “There’s a study that shows that 75% of Americans think that the schools are broken but only 25% think that their OWN school is broken. A lot of people want to believe that other schools are broken but not their own. It’s human nature. The problem is ‘over there.’”

Waiting For Superman
Photo credit: Paramount Pictures

Guggenheim address another block that people have when it comes to addressing problems with our school system — “I get this weird response of ‘You picked the parents who care.’ And I find that kind of offensive. I didn’t meet a parent who didn’t care. There’s a block; the unspoken excuses that people make in their minds not to help or do anything and one of those blocks is “Those parents don’t care enough to do anything.” Or “Those kids can’t learn.”…I think the system has made a lot of people act out of self-interest. ‘I send my kids to private school. My kids are okay – stick my head in the sand.’ That’s why I start the movie with the idea of betraying the ideals I thought I lived by.”

Waiting For Superman Photo credit: Paramount Pictures

“Waiting For ‘Superman’” tackles education by following several children who want to learn but are falling victim to a system that is simply failing them. When they started the film, Guggenheim originally interviewed about twenty children but cut that number down to six or seven after only one day of shooting. He says, “A lot of it is just ability of the kids to talk about what they’re going through. Some kids are really great but they can’t and then you get a kid like Anthony who’s an open book. Same with Daisy. But there’s no “secret process.” Anyone who made this film would have been drawn to the same people.”

Some of those people are heartbreaking and when a young girl named Bianca saw herself in the film from the Oprah audience, it brought everyone, including Guggenheim to tears. One might think that to accurately tell a story this big that a director would have to divorce himself from the emotion of the piece, but the opposite is true. Davis says, “I think when you disconnect and become cold and calculated to the story then you become lost and cynical. I’ve seen the movie hundreds of times…I was at the screening last night and I always come in for the last half hour and watch the lottery and I get very emotional. It’s weird: I still want each kid to win. I hope I never get cut off. And, at Oprah, seeing Bianca watch her not get to go to her own graduation was a whole ‘nother level. She’s seeing the world look at her. You can’t help but hope that she doesn’t feel like there’s something wrong with her. The world that we’ve created for her, not only is it cruel, but kids have this way of saying “maybe there’s something wrong with me” and that’s heartbreaking.”

The film alternates between the very personal and sometimes-heartbreaking stories of specific children, the overall problem, and the people trying to fix it. Before it’s even nationally-released, “Waiting For ‘Superman’” has made waves. Guggenheim was on Oprah Winfrey last week with supporter Bill Gates and officials like New York Mayor Bloomberg are preaching education reform. But it’s still a taboo subject.

Waiting For Superman Photo credit: Paramount Pictures

“I think there’s definitely a taboo,” says Davis. “I’m speaking not as an expert but an observer of things. There’s a taboo of criticizing teachers and criticizing unions because everyone holds teachers up to this high level – we know they’re the solution. But we really have been in denial about doing the hard work of really thinking about how do you develop teachers; how do you manage them; how do you assess them. And we’re just starting to do it. All of this debate is proving that we’re starting to do it. But there is a taboo thing, which is also there in criticizing the unions. That was the hard part in making the movie. I believe it unions. I’m a leftie. The taboos are there for good reason but we’re not going to fix our schools unless we get past them and push through them.”

Oprah’s support, a John Legend single, Bill Gates power — the film has some very high-profile friends. “It’s huge,” says Guggenheim. “It’s essential. My presence in the film doesn’t sell the film. The kids are the things that move people while they’re in the theater. But having these names gets the audience TO the theater. That’s the big challenge. I know that the film works. Once people are THERE then the film works but it’s very difficult to get people to the theater. It’s just media right now. Part of it is the nature of documentaries. I have three kids. My wife and I have busy lives. When we have the one night together, we want to escape from our problems and not face them.”

So what do we do when it’s time to face the problems with education?

Waiting For Superman Photo credit: Paramount Pictures

“The first step is to be informed; be aware of the situation. People think their schools are better than they are. So the film is a wake-up call. So the first step is to see the movie. When you pledge to see the movie, you get a couple to give to a teacher. It’s a little step but when people take the first step then the second step is easier and usually bigger. Go to the website and hit the button action and hit Chicago and there’s actually a physical campaign manager for Chicago with a phone number, email. You have to think very local and very wide. Go in and help a kid. Mentor a kid. Go ask what you can do. Go meet your principal. On a broader level, understand that big choices are happening every day. Know your school board member. Are they fighting for reform or the status quo? All of that you can find on our website.”

“I really believe there’s a revolution going on. There are low-performing charters and they should be shut down but the high-performing charters are proving that they can go into the cities and take 90% of kids to college. They really have broken the sound barrier. That’s happening in Chicago. Just for people to go to one of those schools and see it is mind-blowing. This is POSSIBLE. And it’s hard not to say that I want to get on-board.”

Get on-board with “Waiting For ‘Superman’” when it rolls out across the country in October, opening in Chicago on Friday, October 1st, 2010.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com