A Very Special Look at April Showers
Below is a blog post by my former English teacher and mentor, Paula Reed, about April Showers. Paula saw the film and chose to write about it of her own accord, in fact she didn’t share this post with me until just recently. She has been a huge influence in my life, as I’m sure she’s been to countless others, and I’m pleased to be able to share her thoughts will all of you. Paula still teaches at Columbine High School and is a writer of several novels, the next coming in February 2010 I believe. You can learn more about Paula and her work HERE
By Paula Reed
Last night I broke a cardinal rule of mine. The rule is simply this: I do not read books, watch TV shows or movies, or listen to songs about school shootings. This is frustrating to people who want my opinion about particular ones, but this is a boundary I usually keep quite faithfully.
Until a former student who is now in the film industry made an independent film on the subject.
So I downloaded April Showers from iTunes when the movie became available there. (It’s available on Netflix next month.)
I think the movie is thoughtful and well done. Andrew Robinson, the writer/director/former-student-of-Paula’s-for-four-years, changed enough details to keep this from being “the Columbine movie.” There is no centralized place where most of the murders occur; they are spread throughout the building. Still, much of it resonates with my memories. I thought it was slow in places, but that may very well be me. It was, to me, unrelentingly sad, and that slows things down in real life as much as movies.
Andrew has said there are no directly parallel characters, but I know who is an amalgamation of whom. One character has no human parallel, but he is certainly symbolic of the survivor guilt one feels in that situation. It was strange watching Tom Arnold play a blend of Dave Sanders and my former ACE partner—whose name I will not mention out of respect. (My partner was in the computer lab with Andrew when everything happened.) It was really odd watching an actress playing Andrew’s speech coach and saying what I said at Rachel’s funeral, verbatim.
Many of the changes are kindnesses. In the span of a few minutes, Sean (who most definitely parallels Andrew) tells a boy (Nick) that his friend is the killer, and the boy essentially accuses him of lying. Then Sean’s speech coach tells him that April (Rachel) is dead. In actuality, Andrew told me about Rachel, and in a moment of pure emotional stupidity, I accused him of lying. In my life, I have been truly ashamed of my actions on two occasions. That was one of them.
Nick clearly represents Brooks’ experience in the whole ordeal, though not remotely Brooks himself, and the relationship between Sean and Nick bears little resemblance to that between Brooks and Andrew. (Brooks’ name I use because it has been highly publicized anyway.) I have to give Andrew kudos for that. Brooks was on my team for four years, Andrew for three (I recruited him from my freshman English class). The two were rivals in many ways. They were both up for the “team ego” award at one point, so you can imagine the clash there. I thought Andrew presented Nick’s situation well, and he left no doubt of Nick’s innocence for the viewer. I appreciated that, because I loved Brooks just as I loved all the kids from that team. I still do. I always will.
I also appreciated the fact that, at the end, when he dedicates the film to everyone who has lost his or her life in a school shooting, he included shooters who died. I give him full marks for not going for the politically correct path. He knew Dylan. They were in theatre together, one an actor, the other a techie. How could he not include him? And if he included Dylan, how could he exclude any of the others? They were all loved by someone. They were all losses.
Funny. Just the other day, my students were working on outlines. Not one of those incredible teaching days. Just an ordinary one. Still, as I walked around helping kids and listening to their conversations, I was compelled to think about how very much I love all of them. Then the seniors came in that afternoon to take their finals before they bid adieu to high school, and I hugged every one of them. I couldn’t help but think how fortunate I am. My job, minute by minute, day by day, is to love. It doesn’t get any better than that. And my gift is that I can and do love every one of them. Even the kid in ACE who is currently behaving like a complete dork and having a temper tantrum every time we ask him to work (which is—alas—every day). I say this is my gift without the slightest trace of bragging. As I have told more than one bright, arrogant student—the proper response to a gift is not pride. It is gratitude.
I am grateful.
One of Paula’s co-workers, a fellow teacher, wrote the following response.
I also wanted to let you know that we finally got April Showers through our Netflix queue. Wow–powerful stuff. Reading, even a powerful first-hand perspective like yours, always puts a layer of abstraction between us and the reality of it. And while some aspects of film-making do the same thing, it’s still awfully powerful to *see* this kind of thing. As Nick’s father admits, we can’t even imagine what it’s like–but this film went a long way toward putting us there, especially as teachers, identifying both with the teacher-figures and seeing our own students in there. Wow. Anyway, I did want to thank you for bringing that to our attention some months ago as well as giving us added depth through your perspective on it–it was like a special feature that wasn’t included on the disc! — John
Keywords: A Very Special Look at April Showers, Paula Reed, Brooks Brown, Columbine, Columbine High School, Dave Sanders, Rachel Scott, iTunes, Netflix, April Showers, School Shooting,
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September 23rd, 2009 at 2:33 pm
I can’t express enough how touched I was reading Paula Reed’s account of all that has impacted her since Columbine and watching April Showers. She has my greatest respect for being able to overcome her own personal conviction not to view such stories then redirect her thoughts to share with us her most difficult experiences from these events. I have followed Andrew Robinson’s making of the film from beginning of Production to now and am still learning about it. Ms.Reed certainly added a most striking and meaningful amount of information regarding the students at Columbine in 1999 that perhaps some who viewed the movie may not have realized or understood. If any of those people out there that originally questioned Andrew’s motives for making the film still have any doubts, this should put that all to rest. I must also say that Ms. Reed is extremely brave and of commendable fortitude for bringing us her story. She exemplifies the true nature of what excellence in a teacher or parent should be.
Dan
November 13th, 2012 at 11:32 am
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