Dir. Nanette Burstein
Nanette Burstein’s American Teen is an interesting documentary because of the style it uses to tell the story of five real high school teenagers. People view most documentaries as completely detached form their subject, offering an objective view of the events they are documenting. This is very rarely the case. Even in the documentaries that appear to be completely authentic, you can bet that parts of it were manipulated to get to the end result. With American Teen, Nanette Burstein has disposed with any pretensions of authenticity by clearly staging many elements of her documentary. The result is a surprisingly rewarding film that still manages to capture essence of the lives of her subjects.
American Teen specifically focuses on the lives of four teenagers at a midwestern high school. Each of the fills a specific type, although we learn that they are each far more interesting than that. Hannah is the liberal artist who feels out of place in this town and dreams of going to the big city for college. Colin is the popular basketball player, who wants to earn a scholarship so he can get out of town. Megan is the spoiled rich girl, hoping to please her family by getting accepted at Notre Dame. Jake is the band geek who is very awkward in social situations.
The best documentaries capture real life events that are more interesting than what we'd see in a fictional film on the same subject. For example, Jeffrey Blitz's wonderful Spellbound followed eight students as they competed in the national spelling bee. It was far more exciting and interesting than the fictional Akeelah and the Bee, which was mired in cliche's that had nothing to do with real life. American Teen is an interesting case, because it arrived at the Atlanta Film Festival with an ad campaign comparing itself directly to the popular 80s film The Breakfast Club (although that has curiously been dropped for the theatrical release). The clever poster even shows each of the characters in the same poses as the well known poster from the earlier film. It’s easy to see why Burstein chose this comparison as the underlying themes are similar, particularly the exploration of stereotypes and their effect on high school life.
It’s clear that many of the sequences are manufactured. For example, Burstein will have a shot of someone staring out a window, and it’s doubtful that she just sat there waiting all day for that moment to come up. A relationship between Jake and a cute girl that he likes seems to have been pushed along by Burstein. Colin’s basketball skills seem to have been exaggerated. He’s presented as a big star, but there is little evidence on film to support that fact. A fifth character, popular basketball player Mitch, seems to have been added as a main character after the fact and we never really get to know him well.
However, none of this really hurts the film. Despite all of the interference by the director, American Teen still captures an authentic look at high school life. It’s hard not to root for Hannah as she navigates some major highs and lows throughout the school year. She’s a winning personality, and it’s easy to see why she becomes the emotional center of the documentary. It says a lot about how things have changed since the 80s that the Molly Ringwald character was the central focus of The Breakfast Club, and now it’s the Ally Sheedy character that takes center stage.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of American Teen are the very real moments that it manages to capture amidst all the staged situations. At one point, a character treats his girlfriend so poorly at a party, and breaks up with her in such a humiliatingly mean fashion that he must have forgot the cameras were there. However, what will stay with me for a long time is the startlingly cruel behavior displayed by Megan throughout the film. I think only Daniel Waters could conceive (screenwriter of Heathers) could dream up a character so mean. Burstein may have staged many of her shots, but her film manages to capture a truth that few other documentaries have been able to approach.
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