Word: butlers
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...Prince's sense of duty, Trinity College at Cambridge?his next stop, by family decree?opened up his personality. Charles is a slow but dogged study; his bachelor's degree from Trinity was only an undistinguished "second class, division two"?a sort of gentleman's C. But Lord Butler, master of Trinity, praised the student Prince for what was, in fact, a considerable accomplishment: he was the first member of the royal family ever to earn a degree. Not only had Charles taken time out for state visits abroad and his elaborate investiture as Prince of Wales...
Benji's real father abandons his family at some point previous to the opening of the narrative, leaving his wife, Sweets (Cicely Tyson), to fend for herself. Sweets meets Butler, who soon becomes the bread-winner for the family. Benji refuses to accept Butler as a father despite the latter's conciliatory advances. If this relationship provides the framework for comprehending the machinations of Benji's character, then the other individuals furnish the embellishment necessary to reach that understanding...
...light of these previous successes, Winfield's appearance in Hero is somewhat disappointing. As Butler, Winfield's behavior oscillates between tenderness and violence, and his relationship with Benji throughout the movie is uneasy...
...title implies, there are no absolute heroes in this movie; each character has major faults (Butler his harshness, Benji his self-righteousness). By the same token, however, there are no villains. Nelson's attempt to censure "the system" seems unjustifiable in his context, as the individuals who make up that system in the film, ranging from teacher to dealer, are, on the whole, very humane...
...this film purports to be a well-rounded study of character development, it fails after a certain point: while Benji and Butler come to a closer understanding of one another and learn to adjust to each other's differences, there is a certain reservoir of tension between them that can never be resolved, not even in the film's closing shot of their final embrace. If, on the other hand, the film tries to represent a 'slice of life,' a sampling of the ghetto experience, then it succeeds. The unrefined and somewhat static nature of the characters can only...