Not Coming to a Theater Near You

The History Boys / UK / 2006

Like a Dead Poets Society whose Mr. Holland is replaced mid-term by a younger, more cynical and challenging teacher, making his “inspirational” method seem bland by comparison. As the pupils prep for Oxford, the homoerotic nature intrinsic in all-boys academies is not left for later camp-value interpretation, but explored and exposed (and eventually embraced), making the uplifting joy-of-learning moments more, well, complicated.

by Teddy Blanks | Source: 35mm Prinnt
04 Dec 2006 10:55 AM | Comments (4)

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1. tom / 4 December 2006 / 8:38 AM / URL

   I’m astounded that nobody seems to have a problem with the molestation subplot in this movie… The entire thing felt to me like a poisonous apology for dirty old men, who really just need a bit of love. If it’d been The History Girls the film would never have got made. Double standards.

2. leo / 4 December 2006 / 9:16 AM / URL

   I think there are probably quite a few variations on The History Girls out there, Half Nelson and PSH’s subplot of The 25th Hour being only the most recent and most sensitive of what I would imagine is a rather long and storied cycle of female-male/May (if not February)-December romances. Cf. also Woody Allen, from about 1992 onwards.

   But, yes, it is a little suprising that Bennett’s homosexual version is so uncontroversial, and I can’t at all attribute it to Bennett’s subtlety and intelligence on the point, palpable though I think that is. The two recent films I mention above both work because they pity the older men involved, portraying them as rather pathetic, flawed individuals. And while I think Bennett makes the same gesture towards Hector, he also shows that his empathy runs far deeper. So, on the one hand, Tottie berates Hector for his stupidity, but Hector also gets the opportunity to say that teachers will always be turned on by their students, and this is perhaps an inevitable, even integral part of the relationship.

   As wildly incredible as I find this latter point, I do think it fits with the film’s larger themes — namely, that generalization as a widespread institutional practice fails to account for, even effectively kills, the nuance of the individual case or experience. Thus, for the film, making the sweeping statement that an erotic relationship between student and teacher is always wrong fails to account for the fact that, here anyway, the students are about 17 or 18 (or older?) and therefore able to make their own decisions.

   But then again, as cleverly as this point is often made — the scenes of Hector teaching and soliloquizing are particularly masterful for both writer and actor — I’m not convinced it’s a point worth making. Also, I think the film makes enough sweeping statements of its own (that headmasters are fascists, that all 17-year old boys are mature enough to suffer a little ball-fondling without trauma, that male teachers invariably desire their male students sexually) to ultimately discredit itself.

   All this said, I wish the film had been better directed (and better written) in order to explore these themes further. The result is a rather tepid film in place of a more vital one, a TV-film rendition that allows a more banal, bathetic reaction than I think Bennett had in mind.

3. tom / 4 December 2006 / 2:20 PM / URL

   I agree mostly… I think my main problem is in Bennett and Hytner’s rather blithe treatment of a serious subject… your average fondler isn’t a rotund, avuncular Santa type, and your average victim isn’t a bullish, self aware post- adolescent on a fast track to personal fulfilmment (does such a beast even exist outside Bennett’s fantasies?). I just find it odd that, in a world where any hint of impropriety involving minors (and they are still minors) is rightfully pounced and frowned upon, this film still manages to pass itself off as some kind of English Dead Poet’s Society without so much as a batted eyelid.

   The 25th Hour reference is well chosen, but there the implicit criticism just seemed so much sharper. Here, the writing and acting are so warm and fuzzy the whole thing just seems like a merry lark between exams. I don’t know, perhaps i’m overreacting, it just left me feeling rather discomforted.

4. Teddy / 5 December 2006 / 7:31 AM / URL

   There’s a moment when one of the boys half-jokingly says, “So, do you think we’re scarred for life?” and the other agrees that they probably are. It is the only real acknowledgment from the otherwise too-aware teens of what’s really going on with Hector. The movie almost lets the behavior go by otherwise unchecked, until the motorcycle accident, which I took as mostly metaphorical – but now that I think of it, despite the jovial mood beforehand, isn’t the fact that the students want to “reward” their teachers’ job-well-done with sexual favors/grope-allowances enough evidence of the psychological damage done by the bizarre situation? The movie may seem to celebrate it, but then it kills off it’s Santa-like aggressor in a bike crash, like, a minute later.

   Also – what do you do at the funeral of a teacher who, along with being inspirational in the classroom, had fondled all of his students’ genitals on their rides home? Probably what this movie does: remember the achievement and sweep the vice under the carpet.