Anyway, last night I watched the movie The Paper Chase. Released in 1973, The Paper Chase tells the story of James Hart (played by Timothy Bottoms) who is a first year student at Harvard Law School. Most of the movie focuses on Hart's sort-of relationship with Professor Charles Kingsfield (played by John Houseman). I say "sort of relationship" because Hart seems almost obsessed with Kingsfield at times in the movie. However, Hart rarely speaks in class because he is intimidated by Kingsfield. Hart's obession leads him to break into a special section of the Harvard law library to find the archived class notes of Kingsfield when law professor was a student at Harvard. However, instead of stealing the notes or copying them and using their content to his advantage in some way, Hart just reads them with a kind of dewy-eyed awe.
The two rarely speak to one another in the film but Hart seems willing to do almost anything, including blowing off a weekend get away with his girlfriend, in order to impress Kingsfield. Hart doesn't sleep for the entire weekend while he does some research for Kingsfield who then doesn't accept Hart's work because it's late. There is no indication that Kingsfield is trying to teach Hart something through this experience. He just seems to want to be mean to everyone with whom he interacts.
Hart's girlfriend is played by Lindsay Wagner. We later find out that Wagner's character Susan is actually Kingsfield's daughter. She is estranged from her husband who is backpacking through Europe to find himself while the legal proceedings have begun on their divorce. I had no idea that Lindsay Wagner had a film career. I came of age in the 1970's watching her run really fast and listen to sounds far away as the Bionic Woman. Of course, now I think of her as the person who is always trying to sell me a Sleep Number bed. Overall, I think Wagner gives a pretty good performance. Sometimes she seems a bit detached but I think that might just be her character.
Houseman is wonderful as the old crusty law professor. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role. His character reminded me of a few professors I had in college. He is aloof and condescending. Most of his lines are in the classroom in which we see him belittle students at every turn. He seems irritated that he has to teach. It's almost as if he sees it as his personal responsibility to pass along the wisdom of the ages to a woefully unworthy new generation of future lawyers. For example, Kingsfield says this to a a classroom full of students: "You teach yourselves the law, but I train your minds. You come in here with a skull full of mush; you leave thinking like a lawyer." I wonder if a professor could conduct a classroom like this today without opening himself and the University up to a lawsuit.
Parts of the movie have not aged well. Some of the dialogue sounds really strange to my ear. This was especially true in the student study group scenes. If students really spoke to one another in this way at Harvard Law School in the 1970's, it would really explain a lot of societal problems today. On one hand, they are young men trying to best one another in an extremely competitive environment. Yet, some of their behavior verges on the bizarre and can only be explained by someone in the mental health field. There's a scene in which one of the students brings his outline of one of the law courses lectures. It's hundreds of pages long making me wonder if he wrote down every word of every lecture rather than make an outline. The students had agreed to share their notes with one another to help them prepare for their final exams but this student acts really strange and protective of his precious notes. He says he wants to publish them. He ends up throwing a tantrum and storming out of the room. He calls everyone pimps. It's just weird to me. Maybe that was the way people talked then but it all seemed strange to me.
One of the main themes of the movie is supposed to be Hart's choice between his law education and, as an extension, impressing Professor Kingsfield and trying to keep his relationship with his girlfriend. One teaser line for the movie is: "You have to choose between the girl you love and the diploma you've worked for all your life. You have 30 seconds." Yet, it doesn't seem like that big of a choice for me. While they try to make the point that law school is difficult, it seems absurd to think that law students can't have significant relationships and be successful in their academics. I was not even convinced when the one married student character is under a lot of stress and eventually drops out after trying to commit suicide. I think he had other issues or was not cut out to study law at Harvard. It just seemed like a false choice to me.
The other thing that was puzzling to me about The Paper Chase is the relationship between Susan and her father. They seem estranged. I can't recall a single bit of dialogue that the two have in the film. There's a scene where they are walking down a hallway and they pass Hart. No one speaks. It was weird. While we can guess that having Kingsfield as a father was not a cake walk, we never get to find out any real details. It hard to know if Susan even really cares about her father.
I guess I kept wondering why Hart cares about either of these people. Susan needs to get her act together. I'm not sure jumping into another relationship right away is the wisest thing to do while she still is, at least legally, married to her husband. Kingsfield is just plain mean. I don't understand why Hart wants to even be around this grouchy old man. Along with this, Kingsfield's role is to teach Hart not be his buddy.
In the end, the only person I really cared about in the film is Hart. However, I never doubted that he would pass the class and eventually become a lawyer. He is smart and seems pretty balanced with the exception of his obsession with Kingsfield. I also never doubted that he could be in a relationship with Susan if he wanted to be. Even when they broke up, I didn't really care. I thought there were much better women out there for Hart.
In the end, I guess I liked The Paper Chase but I didn't really love it. I know a lot of critics rave over the film. I thought parts of it dragged on and it was really slow. I also thought there were some scenes that we could have done without. I know it was also probably scandalously cutting edge for it's day. Today it seems pretty tame.
What The Paper Chase did remind me of was my days as a student in the College of Architecture and Planning at Ball State University. In a similar way that the movie depicts, the architecture program was highly competitive. Students dropped out like flies. Professors expected a lot. The architecture building was open 24/7. All-nighters were a way of life. There was a lot of pressure to shine and do whatever it took to excel. While I have a lot of good memories of those days, I also feel as if I missed out on a lot during my college years because of the demands of the program. I always wondered if there wasn't a better way to educate architects that didn't cause them be walking zombies for five years.
I think this was the kind of educational environment The Paper Chase was trying to describe. However, just knowing that it's about Harvard Law School, I already get that. Harvard's reputation, whether accurate or not, is that this is a serious school for seriously smart and successful people. Not everyone can get into the school and not everyone can make it once they get in.
We once had a volunteer group of Harvard students volunteer with Habitat for Humanity when I was in Tennessee. Just getting to know these students for that week, I was highly impressed. They came with great attitudes and did a lot of good work. I remember thinking to myself that if the future of our country were in these students' hands, that was just fine with me. They were amazing people who I knew were going to lead the way in their fields of study and make a huge impact in the lives of people for generations to come.
I hope you are having a great weekend. Thanks for being a part of my journey!
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