Ugh- I’m glad I missed this. The story of the teacher taking out their misery on their students makes me sad and angry. Especially when it’s disguised as comedy.
Forgive me if I missed a mention elsewhere, but I haven’t seen anyone bring up the racial dynamics portrayed in this movie. It’s set in Boston in the 1970’s yet no one in the white spaces they visit, (a bowling alley, working class cafes and bar, a high end restaurant, a white woman’s home and private party), comment negatively about a black woman participating. By 1976 there was rioting in Boston over desegregation of schools. There was an iconic picture taken during the rioting of a group of white boys spearing a Black man with the metal end of a pole flying the American flag. The poor man was on his way to work when he was attacked. This picture was especially meaningful because it was taken in Boston during the bicentennial. Boston was notorious in the Black community as an unsafe place.
That two white characters in the movie welcome Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s character and treats her with respect I can find believable. There are special people everywhere. I can not find it believable that the only character who is unwelcoming to her social inclusion is a snobby student and that everyone else in the white community sees nothing odd in her presence.
Erasing the existence of racism keeps the focus on the boy and teacher’s issues I guess. It also absolves the audience of reckoning with our past and current problems.
Yes, as someone who remembers this period it was really odd, almost an alternate history as if we never entered the Vietnam war or Nixon wasn’t President. If they had dealt with the Racism of the period it would have been something that gave depth to Giamatti’s character and more poignancy to his behavior and struggles. I had a teacher in High School who seemed a martinet yet who also did real work for civil rights before becoming a teacher and had one of the best relationships with the Black students of our teachers. I often think about what the dynamic with him was. Giamatti reminded me of him a little. Exploring this would have been interesting.
Hi. Noah, I appreciate your clarity [and that of your commenters] in illustrating the ways the movie doesn't appear to know itself in the world we share. I had a mensch of a boss for years who told me that if one wanted to hire someone as a part of a work team, take them out to lunch and watch how they interact with people who are serving them. Great advice, I'd say!
I thought Paul was a pitiable person, having been a student at the school, and then a teacher. His life traveled all the way from point A to point A. His supposed sacrifice at the end set him free, a barely early retirement, perhaps to finally experience life. Still solitary, but he was on his way to a larger world, with no timetable. While Angus was condemned to stay at the school, he was saved from something somewhat worse.
The slight adjustments didn't make either of them better people. They each had a chance to change course. Whether or not they succeed is where the film leaves us. Maybe they'll still be jerks, maybe they won't.
this is definitely what you're supposed to come away with!
the problem is that the scene with the waitress makes it clear that the *movie* doesn't really understand *why* Paul is a jerk in the first place. That scene is supposed to show him changed for the better—but he's still bullying people he has power over. It's just that the film doesn't care about the waitress, so the bullying isn't supposed to count.
Besides my other thoughts, the scene with the waitress served to show that he was exactly the person he was at the beginning. That was the point.? Missed opportunities to be a marginally better person, despite his disappointing existence. He still wasn't taking any cues or self reflection to adjust himself.
He only changes his behavior right at the end, seemingly unplanned, his character finally does something decent for another human, and even he seems surprised.
Not redeemed, not special, not even selfless, a moment of compassion for the fate of a young man.
see, the problem is that the film doesn't realize the scene with the waitress is a problem. Mary approves of how he treats the waitress, and she's the moral voice of the film.
and the significance of the scene is supposed to be that he is now allowing Angus to drink; before not letting him drink was him being a martinet. and then they all have fun making cherries jubilee, and the waitress is just insulted and made to look ridiculous; you never see or care about her again.
Paul is supposed to become a better person, and one sign of that is the way he bullies the waitress, who is supposed to be the kind of martinet Paul was before. the film is not aware of the difference between Paul's power over his students and the waitress' relationship with her customers. (and the film doesn't really understand paul's power over his students either.)
You're correct about Mary's part in that scene. It was incongruent and tin eared. And yes, this, and other aspects of the script may well have relied upon an audience having a much kinder understanding of the two men, and their supposed evolution during the film.
Yet no, I really wasn't warm or fuzzy about the characters or their trajectory.
If they improved, and that's questionable, those developments occurred only after the film ended.
If the audience was being manipulated to think otherwise, then the film was a failure.
Yet he treats Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s character with respect and as a peer though she works in the kitchen. He even reprimanded a student who doesn’t want her to eat with them. There’s some complexity to his responses.
his treatment of Mary is supposed to show he's a good person, but the film doesn't realize the scene in the restaurant contradicts it. because it's poorly written and a fundamentally cynical enterprise, imo.
If you want to read an essay that shows you everything that is wrong with Hunham's approach to the classics, you couldn't do much better than Louis A. Ruprecht's "Why The Greeks?" in Arnason & Murphy's Agon, Logos, Polis.
Ugh- I’m glad I missed this. The story of the teacher taking out their misery on their students makes me sad and angry. Especially when it’s disguised as comedy.
Forgive me if I missed a mention elsewhere, but I haven’t seen anyone bring up the racial dynamics portrayed in this movie. It’s set in Boston in the 1970’s yet no one in the white spaces they visit, (a bowling alley, working class cafes and bar, a high end restaurant, a white woman’s home and private party), comment negatively about a black woman participating. By 1976 there was rioting in Boston over desegregation of schools. There was an iconic picture taken during the rioting of a group of white boys spearing a Black man with the metal end of a pole flying the American flag. The poor man was on his way to work when he was attacked. This picture was especially meaningful because it was taken in Boston during the bicentennial. Boston was notorious in the Black community as an unsafe place.
That two white characters in the movie welcome Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s character and treats her with respect I can find believable. There are special people everywhere. I can not find it believable that the only character who is unwelcoming to her social inclusion is a snobby student and that everyone else in the white community sees nothing odd in her presence.
Erasing the existence of racism keeps the focus on the boy and teacher’s issues I guess. It also absolves the audience of reckoning with our past and current problems.
Those are all good points. There's no mention that her son might have faced racism at the school either. It's a weird, post-racial 70s.
Yes, as someone who remembers this period it was really odd, almost an alternate history as if we never entered the Vietnam war or Nixon wasn’t President. If they had dealt with the Racism of the period it would have been something that gave depth to Giamatti’s character and more poignancy to his behavior and struggles. I had a teacher in High School who seemed a martinet yet who also did real work for civil rights before becoming a teacher and had one of the best relationships with the Black students of our teachers. I often think about what the dynamic with him was. Giamatti reminded me of him a little. Exploring this would have been interesting.
I think there are also some signals in the movie that Giamatti's character might be gay, but they sort of sprint away from those.
That said Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s performance was very, very good and deserving of accolades. It’s the screenplay and directing I have problems with.
Hi. Noah, I appreciate your clarity [and that of your commenters] in illustrating the ways the movie doesn't appear to know itself in the world we share. I had a mensch of a boss for years who told me that if one wanted to hire someone as a part of a work team, take them out to lunch and watch how they interact with people who are serving them. Great advice, I'd say!
I thought Paul was a pitiable person, having been a student at the school, and then a teacher. His life traveled all the way from point A to point A. His supposed sacrifice at the end set him free, a barely early retirement, perhaps to finally experience life. Still solitary, but he was on his way to a larger world, with no timetable. While Angus was condemned to stay at the school, he was saved from something somewhat worse.
The slight adjustments didn't make either of them better people. They each had a chance to change course. Whether or not they succeed is where the film leaves us. Maybe they'll still be jerks, maybe they won't.
this is definitely what you're supposed to come away with!
the problem is that the scene with the waitress makes it clear that the *movie* doesn't really understand *why* Paul is a jerk in the first place. That scene is supposed to show him changed for the better—but he's still bullying people he has power over. It's just that the film doesn't care about the waitress, so the bullying isn't supposed to count.
A bully, even a middle aged bully, can be pitiable, yes?
My point was that they were not changed people at the end, they were only left with the option to change in the future.
Besides my other thoughts, the scene with the waitress served to show that he was exactly the person he was at the beginning. That was the point.? Missed opportunities to be a marginally better person, despite his disappointing existence. He still wasn't taking any cues or self reflection to adjust himself.
He only changes his behavior right at the end, seemingly unplanned, his character finally does something decent for another human, and even he seems surprised.
Not redeemed, not special, not even selfless, a moment of compassion for the fate of a young man.
see, the problem is that the film doesn't realize the scene with the waitress is a problem. Mary approves of how he treats the waitress, and she's the moral voice of the film.
and the significance of the scene is supposed to be that he is now allowing Angus to drink; before not letting him drink was him being a martinet. and then they all have fun making cherries jubilee, and the waitress is just insulted and made to look ridiculous; you never see or care about her again.
Paul is supposed to become a better person, and one sign of that is the way he bullies the waitress, who is supposed to be the kind of martinet Paul was before. the film is not aware of the difference between Paul's power over his students and the waitress' relationship with her customers. (and the film doesn't really understand paul's power over his students either.)
Well, this audience noticed!!
You're correct about Mary's part in that scene. It was incongruent and tin eared. And yes, this, and other aspects of the script may well have relied upon an audience having a much kinder understanding of the two men, and their supposed evolution during the film.
Yet no, I really wasn't warm or fuzzy about the characters or their trajectory.
If they improved, and that's questionable, those developments occurred only after the film ended.
If the audience was being manipulated to think otherwise, then the film was a failure.
Yet he treats Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s character with respect and as a peer though she works in the kitchen. He even reprimanded a student who doesn’t want her to eat with them. There’s some complexity to his responses.
yes...because she's a main character!
his treatment of Mary is supposed to show he's a good person, but the film doesn't realize the scene in the restaurant contradicts it. because it's poorly written and a fundamentally cynical enterprise, imo.
Yes, there’s a difference between complexity and inconsistency
If you want to read an essay that shows you everything that is wrong with Hunham's approach to the classics, you couldn't do much better than Louis A. Ruprecht's "Why The Greeks?" in Arnason & Murphy's Agon, Logos, Polis.