Resolved
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Resolved
Plot
Filmmaker Greg Whiteley presents two sides of the current state of high-school debating in this documentary. Matt Andrews and Sam Iola are two students from Highland Park High in Texas who are stars of the school's debating team. Highly rated in nationwide competition, Andrews and Iola are gifted practitioners of a debate style known as "the Flow" -- rather than focusing on a few salient points and supporting them with strong oratory, "the Flow" depends on students amassing a huge amount of factual material and delivering it as quickly as possible, with the sheer bulk of data telling the tale. However, Andrews and Iola also come from a wealthy and well-funded school where they're given the time and resources to collect the information necessary to make "the Flow" work. Meanwhile, Louis Blackwell and Richard Funches represent Long Beach, California's Jordan High, where, with their coach Dave Wiltz, they've turned their back on "the Flow," a system they believe rewards time, money, and rote memorization over genuine talent in presenting an argument. Coming from a primarily African-American high school in a low-income neighborhood, Blackwell and Funches show great linguistic skill and a knack for logical argument, but can their gifts for the fundamentals of debate pay off in a competitive atmosphere that's been dominated by "the Flow" in recent decades? Resolved was screened as part of the 2007 Los Angeles Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, RoviCast
Jane Pauley; Sam Iola; Matt Andrews; Louis Blackwell; Richard Funches; Jon Brushke; Dave Wiltz; Juan Williams; Samuel AlitoCredit
Sean Donnelly - Animator, Erin Whiteley - Associate Producer, Brad Barber - Associate Producer, Tiffany Haynes - Associate Producer, Jeanne Whiteley - Associate Producer, Greg Whiteley - Director, Greg Whiteley - Editor, Brad Barber - Editor, Tom Runquist - Editor, Sheila Nevins - Executive Producer, Peter Krause - Executive Producer, Lisa Vick Kraus - Executive Producer, Mark Clark - Executive Producer, Sarah J. Clark - Executive Producer, Marc Stanley - Executive Producer, Wendy Stanley - Executive Producer, Andy Waters - Executive Producer, Liz Waters - Executive Producer, Joby Talbot - Composer (Music Score), Rob Kaplan - Musical Direction/Supervision, Craig Romney - Musical Direction/Supervision, Tristan Whitman - Cinematographer, Liam Dalzell - Cinematographer, Greg Whiteley - Producer, Josh Wilkinson - Sound/Sound Designer, Greg Whiteley - Screenwriter, Brett Hinton - Re-Recording Mixer, Nancy Abraham - Senior Producer| Resisting Paradise (2003 Film), Resisting Life (2006 Film) | |
| Resolving Human Conflicts (1983 Film), Resonnances (2006 Film) |
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Resolved (film)
| Resolved | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Greg Whiteley |
| Produced by | Greg Whiteley |
| Written by | Greg Whiteley |
| Starring | Sam Iola Louis Blackwell Richard Funches Matt Andrews |
| Cinematography | Tristan Whitman Liam Dalzell Brad Barber Greg Whiteley |
| Editing by | Tom Runquist Greg Whiteley Brad Barber |
| Release date(s) | June 23, 2007 (Los Angeles Film Festival) |
| Running time | 91 min |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
Resolved is a 2007 documentary concerning the world of high school policy debate. The film was written and directed by Greg Whiteley of New York Doll fame.[1] The film captured the "Audience Award" title at its debut on June 23, 2007 at the Los Angeles Film Festival.[2] The film was produced by One Potato Productions.[1] The film made its television debut on HBO in the summer of 2008 and subsequently received 2 Emmy Nominations: one nomination for Best Documentary; the other for Editing for the 2009 Emmy Awards held in September, 2009. In July 2009 it was released on DVD by Image Entertainment.
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Contents
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Plot
In today's world of high school policy debate, successful debaters fly through academic research and facts at a pace of 400 words per minute by utilizing a strategy known as the spread. As a result of the spread, the ability to understand a round of policy debate by a lay person has decreased significantly since the spread's development during the 1960s.[3] With debate rounds now filled with specialized jargon, the accessibility and value of a debate round in increasing public discourse has also decreased. Today, high-powered rounds at national competition and the Tournament of Champions are contested almost exclusively by wealthy students of noteworthy private schools.
Resolved begins by focusing on the careers of Matt Andrews and Sam Iola, the former a stand-out rising sophomore and the latter a rising senior famous within the policy debate community.[2] The team of Iola and Andrews hails from Highland Park High School, a recognized national debate power from Texas and located in one of the state's wealthiest communities, where students are expected to attend college after graduation. From there, Whiteley shifts his focus to Louis Blackwell and Richard Funches of Jordan High School in Long Beach, California. By contrast to Highland Park, Jordan High's debate team is underfunded, and the school is a public high school with only 12-18% of its students going on to a four-year college.[3] In an underdog style victory, the team of Funches and Blackwell capture the California state championship.
Once the team from Long Beach has won the state championship while playing by the conventional rules of modern policy debate, the team is introduced by their coach Dave Wiltz to Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. From there, the team from Jordan High changes their debate strategy, arguing against the current strategy used in high school debate, and using Freire's work to show the oppressive nature of the spread and the structure of debate as a whole. Along these lines, Jordan High's team chooses to read slowly and focus on persuasion rather than pure quick argumentation.
At the end of the documentary, however, they are defeated by a "traditional" team- Rahul Hirani and Tim Jurka from Saint Francis High School (Mountain View). The judge defends his decision by stating that the Jordan High team convinced him that the structure of debate is flawed, but then the debaters went on to use the very structure of debate to continue to defend their arguments. Thus, their arguments were not consistent. They attempt to qualify for the tournament of champions, but this loss effectively curtails this dream. Moreover, one of the debaters is suspended, further ending any hope to this chance.
In addition to the social message, Resolved involves commentaries from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, Jane Pauley, and Juan Williams.[3]
Cast
- Louis Blackwell
- Richard Funches
- Jon Bruschke
- Matthew Andrews
- Sam Iola
- Samuel A. Alito
- Jane Pauley
- Josh Lucas
- Juan Williams
- David Wiltz
See also
References
External links
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