Focus

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There are more than 15 million people living with learning disabilities in the United States. For teenagers already struggling with the normal stresses of adolescence, the combination can be paralyzing. Made while the filmmaker was in high school himself, Focus dramatizes the feelings of a withdrawn, depressed student with untreated, possibly undiagnosed learning disabilities. In an acting tour de force, Levenson embodies each of the multiple voices battling to control his behavior and demanding his return to participation in schoolwork and in life. One character is professional and 'reasonable,' one hostile and aggressive, another passive and almost silent. As they argue over the teen's lack of connection, one faint voice manages to say, 'He needs help. He's depressed,' but the cry for help is shrugged off.

Are these the young man's inner voices or the real voices of the people in his life: parents, teachers, school counselors, peers? Students and not only those with learning disabilities will bring their own experiences and feelings to the discussion of this brief, provocative trigger film. When the student 'wakes up,' he finds himself in the middle of a lecture on motivational theory, where the instructor is describing an experiment on 'negative reinforcement.' Sent to the principal's office, he packs his books and leaves in an ongoing cycle of discouragement and frustration.

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Main credits

Levenson, Anthony (screenwriter)
Levenson, Anthony (film director)
Levenson, Anthony (actor)
Rotman, Seth (film director)

Other credits

Assistant director, Seth Rotman.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

film; video; DVD; VHS; documentary; learning disability; learning disabled; teen; teenager; teens; high school; behavior; adolescence; depressed; depression; voices; multiple voices; counselors; motivation; "Focus"; The Fanlight Collection

WEBVTT

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[music]

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Mother of God! Alright. We\'ve

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got to do something about this now. This is
really pissing me off. What is he doing on the

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floor? Get up for God\'s sake! Look, I know things
aren\'t going well at the moment, but I... No

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kidding. Excuse me? Well anyway, like
I was saying, it\'s up to us now.

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I mean we just really have to get after him and get
him on the ball. Yeah, right. Like there\'s any use on

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that. Look, we\'ll be lucky if
we get him to do enough to

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just get by here. Right. Fine. So
just get by and get them on the

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ball. No! He\'s lazy, all right? Someone needs
to come along and give him a good kick to the

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ass to knock the stupid out of him. Well,
anyway, we just need to get this show on

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the road. Really? Did you just say,
get this show on the road? What?

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Jesus Christ! What did I do? Look,
just cut it out with this cliché crap,

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all right? What the hell is he talking about?
I think we have more important things to do

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here today than to discuss any phrases I\'m
not used to do in my vernacular. Fine!

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Just don\'t be such a pretentious ass.
Jesus Christ! Just cut out the God

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damn metaphor or cliché crap. Well maybe
if you were to try to explain things

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to our friend than a more dignified man, then we
might be getting some place by now. And if this

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one would say anything every now and again,
it would make me a little happier, too.

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[sil.]

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He, he needs

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help. He is depressed. Yes,

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thank you. Alright. Fine. getting back to things
here. He probably doesn\'t know how to spell

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dignify. Much less understand what it means.
And in fact you\'re the one who\'s probably

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messing him up all time with your little
verbal maggots. You\'re all crazy. Yeah. Okay.

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Fine. But feeling I\'m lying from chicken soup for
the mother retarded soul\'s gonna do the trick.

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Oh, look. You\'re all missing the point
here, all right? He\'s just lazy.

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He needs discipline. That\'s all. And the
kid might even better off if we didn\'t

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do anything. Yeah. It\'s a good
point but it coming from you,

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it\'s just funny. What, what the hell is that
supposed to mean? It means that whenever

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there\'s a question of doing anything productive
around here, I always seem to be the only one not

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opting for nap time. Shut up! Just shut up!
I don\'t have patience for this

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crap anymore. I\'m leaving. Wait.
Where are you go... what are you?

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[sil.]

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Well, I hope you\'re happy. What?
Like this is all my fault? Well,

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I can\'t see it in the other way.

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Because I\'m responsible, right? Shoot!
I might as well be. Why don\'t you just

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give up on him, too like he did?

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[sil.] Oh,

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fine! The two of us can\'t
either do a better job anyway.

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[sil.]

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well I guess that\'s it.

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[sil.] You\'re coming,

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too?

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[music] Fine! Soothe yourself.

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[music]

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Welcome back, Anthony. maybe you can focus

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a little bit better if you go down
to the principal\'s office again.

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[sil.]

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All right. We can get back to our lesson.

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There\'s a classic ah, experiment where they

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were experimenting with the difference
between a positive and negative

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reinforcement on motivation. The experiment went like
this. There was a monkey and they put the monkey in the

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cage. They run aside with a wall in
between. And they put a banana over

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here on the other side so that the
monkey would be positively ah, motivated

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to go get that banana as a reinforcement.
So the monkey climbs over

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and gets the banana and then climbs back
over. The next time, they put the banana in

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and they turn on, I like to call grid,
on this side. So when the monkey

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goes to climb over, he gets a shot. And what do
you think the monkey did? Of course he climbs

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back over. The negative reinforcement
brings him back over to the other side.

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And so he\'s, he\'s on the other side.
Then the next time what they do is

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they ah, turn on... they put the
banana in here and the monkey climbs

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over, and they turn on the shark around this side, and the
monkey climbs over and they turn on the shark around this

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side. So now, no matter where
the monkey goes, there\'s no

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place it can get away from that negative reinforcement. so
when they put that banana in there, what do you think the

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monkey does? It lies down.

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He does nothing. Motivation
is being completely

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extinguished. Can you imagine?
It just lies there and dies.

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Of course, human beings doesn\'t
work exactly this way coz

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human beings have conscious thought,
they have will and they can use their

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minds have the positive and
negative reinforcements.

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[sil.]

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