It must be tough to get through Harvard Law School. Everybody says so. And I have a friend who was flunked out. Too dumb to make it. The poor guy had to go on and get a doctorate in history from Columbia. I'm sure Marine Corps boot camp is harder but it only last a few months, not a few years.
Timothy Bottoms is a first-year law student at Harvard. He must deal with three issues. One is his class in contract law, given by the stern, brilliant, Socratic Professor Kingsfield -- John Houseman, in a career-making role. Everyone is having trouble with the class because Houseman, though a thorough egghead and friend of presidents, is a supercilious and abrasive teacher. Bottoms adores him.
The second issue is Bottoms' far-fetched love affair with the peachy Lindsay Wagner. He spends a few minutes walking her home when they first meet. The next night he knocks on her door and before we know it they're taking a breather in the sack. What a gal. She turns out to be Kingsley's daughter but it hasn't got much to do with the story except that, after all her experiences with lawyers -- her father, her estranged husband -- she's become contemptuous of rational, organized life and enjoys spontaneity. This sets up a nicely joined conflict with Bottoms and his agenda, because if he intends to get through his relentless and demanding schedule, there's not much room left for the improvised life.
Probably the most dramatic and well-written issue is that of the study group that Bottoms joins. It consists of six bright and industrious young men. Bell is the cutting and selfish one who refuses to release his notes to the others, as promised. He's too good for the others so he quits. Another guy quits. A third guy, who has a photographic memory but a cognition block, and who is saddled with a pregnant wife too, almost commits suicide before he leaves school. The interplay between the six members of the study group is pretty interesting.
The movie takes us through Bottoms' tribulations from the beginning of the first semester to the end. What a Herculean task it is. People bite their fingernails to the bone and run around in a frenzy. It must take not only drive but personal pride to so thoroughly discipline one's self. Thymos, the Greeks might have called it -- spiritedness coupled with the desire to be recognized. A Harvard law degree makes you part of a brotherhood. It opens doors. All true, and all understandable.
Yet there's some quality about this movie that seems adolescent. The story comes across as one of those autobiographical adventures dealing with the conflicts and achievements of one's youth, and in fact the writer, John Jay Osborn Jr., was a graduate of Harvard Law. (And the "John Jay" is no accident.) The movie begs for an appreciation of all the trials Bottoms undergoes in pursuit of that ancient magic.
It's the kind of thing that's hard to write without the loss of some dignity because it can't help looking a little self-congratulatory. And, after all, the protagonist makes it through with an A on his finals, whereas the blockhead with the photographic memory tries to shoot himself. It's tough alright. But you want to hear MY sob story? At a semi-fancy graduate school -- oh, not HARVARD -- but "that other place" in New Haven and still another place, I was enrolled in a program in which classes began at eight in the morning, six days a week, and ran until four in the afternoon. We collapsed doing homework at our desks at about one in the morning, and the assignments were still incomplete. In the movie, somebody tries suicide before quitting. I simply gave up the scholarship and quit the program. Emotional maturity means, among other things, the ability to keep your spiritedness and your physical appetites harnessed by reason. The Greeks said that, too.
I swear, there's a scene in which Bottoms and his buddy creep into "the red set room", the sanctum sanctorum, a depository in which all the notes and rough drafts of all previous Harvard law students are kept locked away. Bottoms has a brief, reverent speech about the passing on of wisdom, the beatitudity of it all. And it's filmed more breathlessly than Keir Dullea's dismantling of HAL's electronic brain in "2001." Well, it's still an interesting movie and mostly believable too. God knows that Parris Island and Camp Pendleton have had their share of movies about initiation rites. So let's have one for Harvard Law. Harvard was the first university established in the United States. Next up: a tense exploration of the trials of a law student at William and Mary, university number two on the list.
Timothy Bottoms is a first-year law student at Harvard. He must deal with three issues. One is his class in contract law, given by the stern, brilliant, Socratic Professor Kingsfield -- John Houseman, in a career-making role. Everyone is having trouble with the class because Houseman, though a thorough egghead and friend of presidents, is a supercilious and abrasive teacher. Bottoms adores him.
The second issue is Bottoms' far-fetched love affair with the peachy Lindsay Wagner. He spends a few minutes walking her home when they first meet. The next night he knocks on her door and before we know it they're taking a breather in the sack. What a gal. She turns out to be Kingsley's daughter but it hasn't got much to do with the story except that, after all her experiences with lawyers -- her father, her estranged husband -- she's become contemptuous of rational, organized life and enjoys spontaneity. This sets up a nicely joined conflict with Bottoms and his agenda, because if he intends to get through his relentless and demanding schedule, there's not much room left for the improvised life.
Probably the most dramatic and well-written issue is that of the study group that Bottoms joins. It consists of six bright and industrious young men. Bell is the cutting and selfish one who refuses to release his notes to the others, as promised. He's too good for the others so he quits. Another guy quits. A third guy, who has a photographic memory but a cognition block, and who is saddled with a pregnant wife too, almost commits suicide before he leaves school. The interplay between the six members of the study group is pretty interesting.
The movie takes us through Bottoms' tribulations from the beginning of the first semester to the end. What a Herculean task it is. People bite their fingernails to the bone and run around in a frenzy. It must take not only drive but personal pride to so thoroughly discipline one's self. Thymos, the Greeks might have called it -- spiritedness coupled with the desire to be recognized. A Harvard law degree makes you part of a brotherhood. It opens doors. All true, and all understandable.
Yet there's some quality about this movie that seems adolescent. The story comes across as one of those autobiographical adventures dealing with the conflicts and achievements of one's youth, and in fact the writer, John Jay Osborn Jr., was a graduate of Harvard Law. (And the "John Jay" is no accident.) The movie begs for an appreciation of all the trials Bottoms undergoes in pursuit of that ancient magic.
It's the kind of thing that's hard to write without the loss of some dignity because it can't help looking a little self-congratulatory. And, after all, the protagonist makes it through with an A on his finals, whereas the blockhead with the photographic memory tries to shoot himself. It's tough alright. But you want to hear MY sob story? At a semi-fancy graduate school -- oh, not HARVARD -- but "that other place" in New Haven and still another place, I was enrolled in a program in which classes began at eight in the morning, six days a week, and ran until four in the afternoon. We collapsed doing homework at our desks at about one in the morning, and the assignments were still incomplete. In the movie, somebody tries suicide before quitting. I simply gave up the scholarship and quit the program. Emotional maturity means, among other things, the ability to keep your spiritedness and your physical appetites harnessed by reason. The Greeks said that, too.
I swear, there's a scene in which Bottoms and his buddy creep into "the red set room", the sanctum sanctorum, a depository in which all the notes and rough drafts of all previous Harvard law students are kept locked away. Bottoms has a brief, reverent speech about the passing on of wisdom, the beatitudity of it all. And it's filmed more breathlessly than Keir Dullea's dismantling of HAL's electronic brain in "2001." Well, it's still an interesting movie and mostly believable too. God knows that Parris Island and Camp Pendleton have had their share of movies about initiation rites. So let's have one for Harvard Law. Harvard was the first university established in the United States. Next up: a tense exploration of the trials of a law student at William and Mary, university number two on the list.