Father, Son, and Silver Screen: David Gilmour’s The Film Club

With the Oscars just around the corner, here’s a wonderfully curious memoir of a father, his son, and their shared love of film.

A few years ago, Canadian novelist and occasional CBC arts commentator David Gilmour was faced with a family crisis. His teenage son Jesse was struggling with school and with life. A deal was struck. Gilmour would let his son leave school on condition that they watch three films together, at home, each and every week. Running the gamut from classics to popcorn, these films – or more accurately, the shared experience of watching them together – prompted discussion where there had been no discussion and generated inspiration to fill a void.

The Film Club is David Gilmour’s memoir of this period in his life. Written with a novelist’s attention to detail and a film buff’s ear for dialogue, this is a gripping tale of a father and son and the desperate desire to get a loved one’s life back on track, to inspire and be inspired by.