Word: hectors
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...1980s, a group of bright young students have been singled out for special tutoring with an eye to getting them into either Oxford or Cambridge, which would greatly enhance school's prestige. Or so, at least, its cranky and clueless headmaster believes. He places an eccentric teacher named Hector (Richard Griffiths) in charge of their tuition, then adds a newcomer to the faculty, a man named Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore...
...obvious conflict in The History Boys, which Alan Bennett has adapted from his well-received play, is between two pedagogical methods. Hector is a man who believes simply in learning for learning's sake. At one point he quotes the poet, A.E, Housman thus: "All Human Knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use." In his classes the boys sing classic show tunes, for example, or act out scenes from sentimental films like Now, Voyager or Brief Encounter. French is taught by having some of the lads act out an encounter between a prostitute...
...find something good to say about Stalin. Or even Hitler. The point is simply to get into a good college, by whatever means possible, and not be distracted by the delights of learning for its own sake. He represents results-oriented modernism. For him, as opposed to Hector, joy in a well-parsed Hardy poem or the rewarding sobriety of a morally serious examination of the Holocaust is simply irrelevant to setting forth on the only correct path: good school, good contacts, good career, good money...
...probably guess who's going to win the struggle for these young souls. And once the film begins to unfold you will with equal ease see the chink in Hector's armor. He is a gay man, given to groping his students when he gives them rides home on his motorcycle. The kids are entirely unshocked by this behavior. As far as they're concerned its just part of Hector's wayward charm. Not so the headmaster, when the teacher is caught out. He's never much liked Hector's classroom style and the question of whether the teacher will...
...that's not really its main point. What Bennett most wants to show us is that Hector's homosexuality is preferable to the more closeted variety practiced by the extremely smooth Irwin. Bennett is also arguing, in his quiet and very civilized way, that especially in the context of an English public school almost a quarter of a century ago, homosexuality was not a very big deal. Bennett, who is an openly gay writer, accepts it as a part of life - particularly as a part of life in English public schools - something the boys come to terms with in essentially...