I notice that Mr Hollands's Opus is on at the unsociable time of 3.25am Saturday night/Sunday morning, Channel Four, this weekend (14th May). I haven't seen it before but it looks interesting, about a composer who starts a job as a music teacher, and his pupils are unresponsive so he introduces jazz and rock into the lessons. I thought it would be worth videoing, and posting here in case anyone else wanted to try it as well. Let us know what you think of it too!

I remember seeing this film when it first came out. I went with a friend and almost walked out half-way through. It is very sickly sweet, but we got to the point where the "touching" bits seemed hysterically funny and ended up stifling our giggles until the end. I don't remember it having anything very interesting to say about teaching music.

I enjoyed watching this when it came out about ten years ago. It's inspiring in a way as it shows a little of the power of music to transform lives. It's worth videoing and watching.

I liked it too. Of course it's a bit on the saccharine side, every now and again - it's the genre of the film, really isn't it? But you could say the same of the 'Captain my Captain' scene in Dead Poet's Society - but that doesn't stop it from being a good film.

As a teacher (well, a uni lecturer) I do recognise that sense of life being made up of a series of brief contacts with people who you can influence for good or ill. That's the way a narrative of your teaching life gets built up I think.

Well I guess life would be very dull if we all enjoyed the same things.

I prefer 'Les Choristes' often advertised as the Chorus. It's in French with subtitles but the music is heavenly.

I was thinking of this as I read the earlier posts in the thread !

I enjoyed it enormously - so many messages as well as the wonderful music.

I remember watching this years ago and feeling empathy with the guy - I started classroom teaching thinking I could make my classes love classical music like I did, that I'd be able to enthuse them and excite them.....and left classroom teaching 12 months later, totally disillusioned......

Awwww I LOVE this film! It's really good - definately worth videoing!!!

Don't you just love S4C?

I love this film!!! As well as the teaching side of it, his son is also deaf, so it brings around the issues of music and the hard of hearing. It's a very touching film and has me in tears every time I watch it!!!!!

Its on channel four, not BBC4!

There's another film , based on a real teacher, with Meryl Streep playing the part of a violin teacher in New York who takes groups of kids from inner city schools. The final concert scene was actually quite realistic, for once. I hope someone will remember the name of that movie - as music ones go, it was really enjoyable.

It's called Music of the Heart (1999).

S4C - it's great!! The best bit about it is that when you realise you've missed the damn film on C4, you get it (usually) a week later on S4C (but for some reason that only applies to terrestrial, as S4C Digidol stops broadcasting at midnight )

Oh, thanks John - I knew someone would know