School Ties

SPOILERS 

The northeast corridor. 1950s. Jukeboxes. Greasers. Preps. Harvard. Privilege.

Welcome to Robert Mandel's School Ties.

A rising senior - smart and athletically talented - David Greene, gets the chance to attend his last year of high school at a prestigious boarding school to help the institution's football team to win against their rival, St. Mary's. This opportunity also gives him a real shot at attending Harvard. David comes from a working-class family, so this experience is a cultural shock. As he says, "It's rather hard to get into Harvard from podunk public school."

As he settles into his new school, makes new friends, finds romance and leads the team to victory, he hasn't told his new friends one thing: He's Jewish. As they lightly make Jewish jokes, he grits his teeth. Then, one of the boys, Charlie Dillon, finds out he's Jewish - the then would-be starting quarterback before David came along - and outs him. After the "outing" he is treated differently. His friends at the boarding school don't talk to him; he enters his dorm room to find a Nazi sign hanging above his bed -- he challenges whoever made it to fight him (since that's how things were settled back in his hometown), yet the perpetrator never shows up. "Cowards!" David yells. None of his supposed friends, save for his roommate, wants anything to with him because of him being a Jew.

Later, during winter finals, one of the teachers suspects someone has cheated on his history exam. He calls the class out, but no one confesses. He then lets the class decide to bring forth the cheater, if not he will fail all of them - making a horrid imprint on their college applications. As the class mauls over who did it, Charlie blames David. David denies this accusation (he saw Charlie cheat during the test, but didn't say anything). Head prefect, Rip, asks both to leave and lets the remaining class to vote by ballot. Before the vote, the anti-Semites rear their ugly heads, voicing their disdain for David founding their bases against him because he "lied" about being Jewish (David didn't lie, he just didn't tell them). David's roommates calls the anti-Semites bigots; they say "So what?" by the accusation because their hate for Jews run deep. "He's a Jew." As the next day approaches, both David and Charlie appear before the class. Rip announces the results: David was voted as the cheater. David agrees to show up before the head master and history teacher on Monday morning to confess.

On Monday, David waits outside the head master's quarters with a pensive yet sad look on his face. He knows he was framed and his voting was due to hatred on his religion. Charlie, being born into a privileged background and being relatively popular with the student body, has clout on his side that never was present on David's behalf. He, Charlie, is a Dillon. David is not - he is a Greene. Charlie's father is educated, well-traveled and worldly. David's father is a working-class man; the most traveling in the Greene clan belongs to now deceased grandpa Greene, who came to America for a better life. David enters the head master's quarters, where he stands in front of the men that decide his future. Unknowing to David, Rip is there, confessing that he saw Charlie cheat. Rip apologizes to David for his lack of courage to stand up for him. Charlie is expelled and David is clear of all charges. 

My Thoughts

I really liked this. I'm pretty much a sucker for settings like this - prep school boys facing dilemmas that call upon old, traditional virtues for guidance. Some follow these virtues while others do not. This greatly reminded me of The Emperor's Club and bit of The Dead Poet's Society. Do teachers and the values of institutions like those depicted in each movie mentioned still exist? I bet, but they'll be a rarity. Values coming from the Latin motto will empty due to failure of true self-examination and moral rigor; in its place it's a hedonistic modern day liberal soul. It's cousin, the amoral libertarian is always close by, appealing to the "as long as you don't hurt anyone" to "why do you care?" cards.

One thing that appeals to me is that the settings are completely different from my own high school days. The northeast is vastly different from the Midwest, which is vastly different from the West. A public high school is different from a prep/private; a northeastern prep school is different from a magnet and parochial. Though one country, and easy to generalize, the US of A hosts different regional cultures, virtues and mindsets depending on where one is geographically. Kids from the Midwest will be different from kids from the northeast, as well as kids from the West and South.

Quotes like these standout -

On missing Rosh Hashanah,

Dr. Bartram: Was it worth it? Breaking a tradition just to win a football game?
David Greene: Your tradition or mine, sir?

to getting caught cheating,

Mr. Gierasch: Be seated, gentlemen. It appears that someone in this class cheated on yesterday's history exam. Today is Saturday. Your next class is on Monday. Therefore, we are faced with a rather bleak situation. If the guilty party does not come forward, or is not identified by then, I shall be forced to fail the entire section.
Chris Reese: Isn't that unfair, sir? Only one of us cheated.
Mr. Gierasch: We have all been dishonored by this person and I will not tolerate it.
David Greene: How can you be sure that someone cheated, sir?
Mr. Gierasch: I would prefer to keep the evidence to myself for the time being.
Rip Van Kelt: Can't you just throw out the old test and give us a new one?
Mr. Gierasch: And pretend that no one cheated? But someone did cheat. Whoever did this has robbed you of your honor. If I ignore it, he will have robbed me of mine as well. I leave it in your hands, gentlemen.

 to the school's honor code,

Dr. Bartram: The honor code is a living thing. It cannot exist in a vacuum.

Also the movie's tagline - "Just Because You're Accepted Doesn't Mean You Belong" In some ways this is true. One has to learn how to fit into a given culture. In David's case, being Jewish in a time when Jews were looked down upon. And just because the setting is in an academic atmosphere, being a conservative on a college campus (Berkley, Swathmore, Bowdoin, Brown) is the new Jew. Yea, I said it.

My favorite scene is the lake scene, where David and Charlie share a moment that reveals the expectation put on the latter, which he knows he cannot achieve through his own right unless it's given through connections. "If you get into Harvard, you'll deserve it," says Charlie. In some way it has a tinge of John Knowle's "A Separate Peace."

Location where the majority of the movie takes places it stupidly gorgeous. Middlesex School, today a co-ed boarding school, in Massachusetts was used.

Besides Brendan Fraser's spotty acting (overall he did fine) the entire ensemble was good. Camera angles and movement weren't nothing special, really "movie standard." Costumes, from the looks of it a quick online glimpse for its time period, seemed accurate enough. I'm not sure if the way the sexual tension between the teenagers portrayed were anyway accurate, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone at a dance actually did put balloons between the two sexes to makes sure there was enough space in between the two. The script, at times was clever, and what is said is biting, especially when it comes to observing religious practices and facing true, real bigotry. The pacing was well done giving the viewer's mind no time to wander.

Truly, the don't make them like they use to.

School Ties - B -