Movie Notes: The History Boys

From the old blog, originally posted 29 December 2006:

Most movies are trash, but not all, as witness The History Boys. It was well worth the drive to Scottsdale yesterday. Anyone serious about the humanities, from either side of the lectern, should enjoy it. It  has much of what I look for in a movie: plenty of wit and intelligence; good dialogue; subtlety and the sort of ambiguity of which real life is replete; little 'action': no race & chase, smash & crash (except for a small bit near the end that had a reason for being there); no special effects of the sort that the crapsters of HollyWeird serve up to satisfy the adolescent needs of the sensation-addicted and stupefied; no gratuitous sex and violence, though there is sex, mainly of the homosexual sort; and perhaps most important, no attempt to manipulate the thoughts and emotions of the viewer. Instead, an entertaining raising of questions and posing of problems.

My favorite line was a quotation from A. E. Housman: "All human knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human  use."

Near the end there is the reasonably pessimistic suggestion that the humanities are dead, at least at the universities. But Hector the humanist's call to "Pass it on!" also comes through. It brought a tear
to this curmudgeon's eye, and a thought to his head: if the universities become inhospitable to the transmission of high culture, then the job will have to be done in venues like this.