Mr.

Holland’s Opus
1995, produced by Ted Field, Robert W. Cort, and Michael Nolin, Directed by Stephen Herek, released
by Hollywood Studios.

Joshua Curd

EDUC 2301

Spring Semester
The basic plot is that frustrated composer finds fulfillment as a high school music teacher. Glenn

Holland is a musician and composer who takes a teaching job to pay the rent while, in his 'spare

time', he can strive to achieve his true goal - compose one memorable piece of music to leave his

mark on the world. Iris Holland is Glenn’s wife and the mother of their son Cole. Cole was

actually born deaf, a fact that devastated Holland due to his intense love for music and how he

wouldn’t be able to show his son music the way he wanted to do. The overall portrayal of Cole

as the one with a disability is that of being a victim and the person, though he is not in the movie

as much as the other main characters so it is hard to get a read on how his life generally was like

outside maybe one or two scenes with his dad. They also had several time skips so Cole is

radically different each time we see him. He was a victim in the way that his father was always

neglecting him somewhat due to how much he was doing for the students of his school rather

than putting a bit more attention of his son’s wants and needs, leading to several tense scenes of

dispute between the two that Glenn actually needs his wife to translate a lot of his son’s sign

language due to not taking the time to learn it as properly as his wife due to his job. After a

couple of these scenes Glenn actually takes time to really try and connect with his son and even

helps him understand the feeling of music at one of his concerts through a handy accommodation

he provides in the form of lights that changed with the music to indicate how it might sound, the

two finally reconnecting.

After researching how deaf people interact with society after watching the movie, I can

say that is actually a very well done performance on the part of the actor’s performance and the

director’s instructions. They were even able to replicate how someone would be able to roughly

vocalize some of the basic pronunciation of words when they are older and have a proficient

grasp of their language, though they still use sign language alongside the words they do use so
that there is no misconception on what they are trying to say. This was later in the movie when

Cole was out of college at around age 28 so it is safe to assume that he was able to gradually

work up to that point throughout his life, especially after going to a college with hard of hearing

students specifically in mind. I also found a lot of the frustrations that the parents had with trying

to raise Cole before he could properly communicate with through sign language was very real. In

fact, Cole’s behavior when he becomes incredibly frustrated at his parents not understanding

what he wants is just as accurate, especially with how young he was. The movie was didn’t view

deafness as some horrible condition that ruins your life, but just as another struggle of life that

Cole was able to have at least somewhat of a handle on his circumstances by his teenage years

where he was able to use sign language proficiently.

Glenn is of course Cole’s father and while he loves Cole, he did happen to neglect him by

choosing to focus on the kids of his school over trying to bond and be there for his son. For

Glenn’s son to be almost totally deaf (at least 90% if I remember correctly) is heart breaking as a

musician, since he can never truly share with him the joy that is music. He even brings up a

comparison of his son to the famous pianist and composer Ludwig Van Beethoven, who had also

become deaf later in his life. However unlike Cole, Beethoven was not born deaf so he was still

able to hear in his head what the music he was creating would sound like when he played it while

Cole would not have that advantage. The two are able to reconnect due to Gleen putting in more

time to understand his son. Cole’s mother Iris was the one to first discover his disability as a

baby when he actually slept through the sounds of loud sirens coming from fire trucks. She was

also Cole’s main family support for a majority of the movie and had learned sign language just

as much as Cole so that she would be able to talk with her son. She only got frustrated once with

Cole during the movie and that was when he was still very young and confused with how no one
could understand what he wanted, before they were able to consult professional help to aid the

family with his disability. Both parents acted pretty realistically in regards to their son when you

consider both of their personalities, making the movie that much more believable in my opinion.

In my opinion, I believe this movie excelled with how it portrayed someone with a

hearing impairment and that it was able to make how Cole was at least somewhat victimized

very believable. The movie didn’t try to exaggerate the condition for story telling purposes and

was able to show off a character that reacted very believably to their situation in life. Would I

recommend this movie to other future teachers? I would in a heartbeat, and not just because of

how they portrayed Cole’s disability. The lengths that Glenn went as a teacher to make sure his

students succeeded and how passionate he became about teaching them over time was

inspirational to me as a someone who is studying to become a teacher myself one day. I still have

a long way to go but I hope that I can be half as good an influence as Glenn was in this film

towards his students. It also showed certain ways to attract the interests of your students by using

something they enjoy as a learning device. I had actually watched this movie in high school and

it was just as good as it was 2 years ago so please, you owe it to yourself as a teacher to watch

this movie.