Bill Marsh can teach your child to swim. In fact, he may be better at it than anyone else.
If you think that’s no big deal, consider this: “In the United States, drowning is the leading cause of preventable death for children ages 1 to 4 years.” This statistic was cited in Swimming lessonthe Oscar-shortlisted short documentary that follows Marsh in the swimming pool as he teaches a new class of children. For young children, the 8-day process can be painful – at first.
“They’re hysterical, then they throw up, then they cry, then they run out of the pool,” says Rashida Jones, the director and actress who directed the documentary with fellow actor Will McCormack. -exit. McCormack, Jones, and producer Emily Arlock all included their children in Marsh’s program.
Directors Rashida Jones and Will McCormack
Courtesy of Sam Jones and Will McCormack
Jones’ son participated in the class in August 2020. “There was definitely high drama,” she recalls. “We had a kid who cried the whole class and never stopped crying, but he learned how to swim while he was crying, and I was fascinated by the process. And then Will and the producer Emily had their kids in the class, and we were kind of obsessed with Bill’s teachings, and his wisdom that goes beyond just the application of swimming.” That’s what Emily said, “You guys should make a documentary.” We said, “Yes, absolutely.”
McCormack adds: “It’s really a testament to a great teacher that we found ourselves fully present in this experience. Something that seemed like it should be ordinary, mundane, ordinary suddenly became extraordinary.”
Swim coach Bill Marsh with some of his young students
Le Train train
There is a built-in narrative structure to the chapter – beginning, middle and end. At first, many children look for any excuse to abandon the lesson before they even stick their toe in the water. But Marsh remains firm, and never gives in to the appeals, no matter how emotionally charged they may be. Parents can monitor remotely, but are not allowed to interfere.
“Hurtful,” McCormack recalls, as he had to watch from afar. “It’s human nature to want to prevent your children from feeling pain, but that’s not possible… This is the first moment in your life that your child is going through tremendous pain and suffering, and you have to know that they’ll get through it and they’ll be okay, and they’ll make it to the other side. It’s really hard, but it’s part of the letting go process.
Whatever is necessary to get a child to dive—holding his breath underwater, rising to the surface and moving his arms to stay afloat—Marsh finds a way to do it, demonstrating an uncanny ability to perceive each young person’s needs and emotional state.
“His love for what he does — it’s not like ‘I love kids!’” Jones notes, and he’s not like a clown. “He’s interested in connecting with the depth of each individual’s soul and the beginning of their journey in this life.”
“He treats the kids with dignity and respect,” McCormack says. I think it does this by acknowledging that any feeling you want to have in this experience is a good thing. This is terrifying. Well, you’re doing something you’ve never done before. It could kill you. It’s wet and cold, and all those feelings, whatever your feelings are, are fine, but he’s very firm and very gentle, and he says, ‘We’ll do it anyway.’
King, a young student, in a “swimming lesson.”
Le Train train
Beautiful photographs – both below and above the surface – show children gradually mastering a skill that could save their lives. From the intense terror and wailing comes a wonderful feeling in the child: Hey, I did this!
“The first time, my son felt uncomfortable going under the water and was crying, and then he came up and looked at Bill,” Jones recalls. “He gave him a little kiss on the cheek. He was so grateful to him for sticking by him.”
While it is not a hub Swimming lessonThe documentary provides, in a subtle way, what could be called a social lesson.
“Parenting philosophies change all the time based on where we are culturally and politically and all of those things,” Jones points out. “I remember teaching a class in college and there was something about how, before World War I, children were supposed to be seen and not heard. And then people started losing their children in alarming numbers. And so everyone started clinging to their children and coddling them and treating them differently.” We constantly see these cycles – the parents of the baby boomers in a certain way, and then Generation X – we drank from [garden] Hoses and no one knew where we were. And then millennials were given awards for everything. There are all these patterns that emerge. But to me, what Bill does is he crystallizes something that doesn’t seem like it’s part of any fad, which is that there’s an inherent strength and determination that we’re born with, and we need someone to make things safe and acceptable to move forward through this and overcome our fear to get to the other side of this because This is the only way we will go to point A, survive it, point B, feel good about ourselves, and C, create a pattern in which we can deal with things. This is the beginning of a long life of facing a challenge and deciding how to overcome it or not, or move away from it.
Swimming lesson Provided by Los Angeles Times ShortDocs, American Documentary/POV Shorts, and Documentary+. Making the Oscars shortlist highly competitive increases its visibility.
“It’s just a nice shorthand — sorry, no pun intended — to get people to watch this movie because ultimately we want people to swim and we want people, whatever that little fear is, that even if you’re an adult and you’re like, ‘You’ve decided you’re never going to swim,’ maybe it will inspire you. “This movie and outside the pool, maybe it will inspire you to feel more determined in the next difficult thing you have to try in your life.”
“We hope the film reminds people, as Bill says, that we are a lot stronger than we think we are,” McCormack says.
