The History Boys - Learn for Life
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The History Boys - Learn for Life |
| Original title | The History Boys |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2006 |
| length | 109 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 0 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Nicholas Hytner |
| script | Alan Bennett |
| production | Nicholas Hytner, Damian Jones , Kevin Loader |
| music | George Fenton |
| camera | Andrew Dunn |
| cut | John Wilson |
| occupation | |
|
student
Teacher
| |
The History Boys - Learning for Life is a feature film by British director Nicholas Hytner from the year 2006 . The tragic comedy is based on the award-winning play The History Boys by Alan Bennett , who also wrote the screenplay for the film version, and has been produced by Free Range Films , the BBC , DNA Films, the Royal National Theater and the UK Film Council . The film premiered in Great Britain on October 6, 2006, while it opened in German cinemas on May 17, 2007.
action
The film is set at Cutler's School, a fictional private grammar school in Yorkshire . A group of elite students with the professional focus history are preparing under the guidance of teachers "Hector" (General Studies), Mrs. Lintott, "Totts" (story), and Irwin after the A-level entrance exams at Oxford and Cambridge before . The principal hopes that they will all get an Oxford scholarship and that this will improve the school's reputation.
The fat older "Mr. Hector ”- a nickname - conveys to students that it is necessary to get a feel for what you are doing. For example, they play famous scenes from literature and film in class. You need to memorize and recite poems and songs. He thinks that a comprehensive education is important not only for school, but for life. The headmaster of the school is not happy with Hector's methods but is intimidated by him. When he introduces Irwin to the students, they are in the process of reenacting a scene in a French brothel for which Dakin, who plays a suitor, has taken off his pants. Hector pretends they were playing a scene in a Belgian hospital during the First World War. The aim of the lesson is to speak only French. The rector agrees, but speaks poor French and is at a disadvantage compared to Hector, while Irwin is very good at the language.
After class, the married Hector sometimes takes a student on his motorcycle to "grope" him on the way. The students accept this as an annoying but common nuisance. They have developed their tactics so that he does not “go too far”, which they freely share. He only spares the homosexual poser, although he offers himself several times as a passenger. In the opinion of his classmates, Posner is still "too young".
Irwin is reportedly an Oxford graduate hired by the principal to prepare students for the entrance exams. He advocates a different teaching method: it is important to him that the students learn to think in a differentiated and distanced way and that they succeed in impressing the examiners with original ideas. Cheating and bluffing are also allowed. General education serves him only as a fund for original introductions and "nibbles" to garnish and enhance essays. The director promises the ambitious but restrained Irwin a permanent position.
Students are impressed with Irwin's intellect but still have affection for Hector, even if confused by his teaching methods. The shy posner confesses to Irwin his homosexuality and his affection for classmate Dakin. Meanwhile, Hector is watched by a student pilot, as he immorally touches a student who is riding on his motorcycle at a red light; she reports this to the director. He wants to avoid a scandal, but forces Hector to agree to early retirement. In addition, he now has to share his hours with Irwin. Since Dakin is having an affair with the young school secretary Fiona, the students know about it. Hector breaks down crying in front of the class.
After the successful A-Levels and the interviews, each student receives an Oxford scholarship, including the rough rugby enthusiast Rudge, whose father worked as a porter in Oxford. He is offered a place to study after the interview, while everyone else has to wait for their letter. Her family background is shown in short scenes. At Oxford, Dakin investigates and finds that Irwin never studied the Corpus Christi .
After celebrating her success, Dakin urges Irwin to suck his cock, even though he is straight himself, provoking him to admit his homosexuality. He also lets the sham with the Oxford studies blow up. Irwin admits that he “only” studied in Bristol and that he only attended Oxford as part of his teacher training. Dakin then asks the principal to explain the difference between Hector's offense and his own continued groping the secretary, whereupon the latter, cornered, withdraws Hector's early retirement. Hector drives home happy and takes Irwin with him in the back seat of his motorcycle. On the way home there is an accident in which Hector dies. The voice from the off speculates that this could be due to a driving error by the inexperienced Irwin, who breaks a leg in the accident and suffers brief amnesia - he no longer remembers his coming out to Dakin.
The film ends with the funeral service for Hector, at which the former students sing for him. In a sort of trailer, Mrs. Lintott reports on the future careers of the graduates. After graduation you will become a tax attorney (Dakin), building contractor (Rudge), justice of the peace (Crowther), school director (Akthar), officer (Lockwood), journalist (Scripps), Timms owner of a cleaning chain and Posner becomes a history teacher. In the classroom and in dealing with the students, he takes the same approach as Hector, but refrains from sexual harassment. Irwin has given up teaching and works as a television journalist.
subjects
The coming-of-age film mixes comic and tragic elements. He deals with the special problems of the English education system, growing up in boarding schools for boys and their male-dominated atmosphere. Women, like Mrs. Lintott, play a marginal role. An art teacher appears briefly and presents the students - intentionally or by chance - with works by gay artists, which the students immediately address and discuss using the example of Michelangelo 's statues of women (“men's bodies with tits”).
The scenes mostly take place within the school, only on a class trip to Fountains Abbey and during the exams in Oxford the scene changes.
background
Posner's role with his unrequited desire for Dakin and his later development into an adult go back to the experiences of the author Bennett.
History of origin
The theater production on which the film is based premiered on May 18, 2004 at London's Royal National Theater and was a great success with both audiences and critics. In early 2005 the production went on tour through Great Britain, Hong Kong , Wellington (New Zealand), Sydney and finally to Broadway in New York , where the piece won six Tony Awards . The film adaptation, which was manned by the original theater crew, started in US cinemas one month after its UK release in November 2006.
Reviews
"It (the film) has a flow and an intimacy that the often clumsy theatrical version lacked."
"An exuberantly unconventional but faithful film version of Alan Bennett's masterful theatrical hit about education, performance class, sexual intercourse, love, death, memory and the often equally fantastic thing we call history."
Awards
The History Boys - Learning for Life could not build on the great success of the play, which in Great Britain had received the prestigious Laurence Olivier Award in three categories. Leading actor Richard Griffiths and supporting actress Frances de la Tour were nominated for the British Academy Film Award in 2007, where they lost out to future Academy Award winners Forest Whitaker ( The Last King of Scotland ) and Jennifer Hudson ( Dreamgirls ) had. The tragicomedy was also nominated in four categories for the British Independent Film Award in 2006 (Frances de la Tour for Best Actress, Alan Bennett for Best Screenplay and Samuel Barnett and Dominic Cooper for Best Young Actors).
Pop culture processing
In the British-American comedy television series Episodes , the actor who plays "Mr. Hector" from The History Boys , Richard Griffiths , embodies the fictional actor Julian Bullard, who in turn plays in the fictional British comedy series Lyman's Boys , who is in Episodes for the American Series market is to be adapted, playing the headmaster of an English boarding school. In the second episode of Episodes , Julian Bullard has to do an audition with the director of the American broadcaster that wants to adapt the series for the American market, during which he is rejected by the dictatorial broadcaster as "sounding too English". Matt LeBlanc , who was later cast for the role and played his alter ego in Episodes , confronts the writers of Lyman's Boys with the fact that the Lyman's Boys are a copy of The History Boys , which they vehemently but not very convincingly negate. Matt LeBlanc comments on this with the words: "So it's History Boys meeting you saying it's not History Boys ."
Web links
- The History Boys - Learning for life in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Official website for the film (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for The History Boys - Learn For Life . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2007 (PDF; test number: 108 778 K).
- ↑ cf. English-language film review from November 22, 2006 at time.com
- ↑ cf. English-language film review from December 8, 2006 at suntimes.com ( memento of the original from April 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
