The History Boys" reunites the team behind the award-winning play -- playwright Alan Bennett, director Nicholas Hytner and the key cast members of the London and Broadway stage version.
November 20, 2006 (Press Release) --
"The History Boys" reunites the team behind the award-winning play -- playwright Alan Bennett, director Nicholas Hytner and the key cast members of the London and Broadway stage version -- for a film where precious little has been done to accommodate the change in medium.
Performances border on the theatrical. Perhaps they should rename this "The Histrionic Boys" as Hytner fails to get his over-rehearsed actors, especially the younger ones, to take their stage performances down a notch or two for the camera. But if you liked the play and the compelling ideas Bennett kicks around, the movie makes for an intellectually invigorating couple of hours.
This is a very English play. The truths here may be universal, but the specifics belong to no other country. So audiences for the film version may be limited to Anglophiles and admirers of Bennett's witty way with words. Throw in a classroom scene entirely in French -- first-year French will make the hilarious scene completely accessible, though -- and you do get a film that screams "art house."
The story takes place at an all-boys grammar school -- the British equivalent of an American public high school -- in Yorkshire in 1983. Here a class of eight smart history students has achieved such success on the A Levels that the headmaster (Clive Merrison, far too over the top) pushes them to apply to those twin holy grails of British higher education: Oxford and Cambridge.
Their no-nonsense history professor, Mrs. Lintott (Frances de la Tour), and flamboyant, Falstaffian English instructor, Hector (Richard Griffiths), have led the clever lads to this level of achievement. However, the headmaster hires a young history grad named Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore, who somewhat resembles Stephen Colbert) to coach them in ways to improve test scores and give them polish and edge for their interviews.
Over the next few weeks, as the relationships among students and teachers come into sharper focus, the movie examines the process and purposes of education itself. Is it to pass exams, or is it to encourage a desire to learn?
Bennett's achievement is not so much to take sides as to let the three teachers and their charges to have their say. The motorcycle-riding Hector, whom Bennett describes in his stage directions as "a man of studied eccentricity," glories in the richness of language and has his lads memorize great swaths of poetry. On their own, the boys memorize old movies -- tearjerkers are the preferred choice -- and old songs.
Source: http://www.yahoo.com
Performances border on the theatrical. Perhaps they should rename this "The Histrionic Boys" as Hytner fails to get his over-rehearsed actors, especially the younger ones, to take their stage performances down a notch or two for the camera. But if you liked the play and the compelling ideas Bennett kicks around, the movie makes for an intellectually invigorating couple of hours.
This is a very English play. The truths here may be universal, but the specifics belong to no other country. So audiences for the film version may be limited to Anglophiles and admirers of Bennett's witty way with words. Throw in a classroom scene entirely in French -- first-year French will make the hilarious scene completely accessible, though -- and you do get a film that screams "art house."
The story takes place at an all-boys grammar school -- the British equivalent of an American public high school -- in Yorkshire in 1983. Here a class of eight smart history students has achieved such success on the A Levels that the headmaster (Clive Merrison, far too over the top) pushes them to apply to those twin holy grails of British higher education: Oxford and Cambridge.
Their no-nonsense history professor, Mrs. Lintott (Frances de la Tour), and flamboyant, Falstaffian English instructor, Hector (Richard Griffiths), have led the clever lads to this level of achievement. However, the headmaster hires a young history grad named Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore, who somewhat resembles Stephen Colbert) to coach them in ways to improve test scores and give them polish and edge for their interviews.
Over the next few weeks, as the relationships among students and teachers come into sharper focus, the movie examines the process and purposes of education itself. Is it to pass exams, or is it to encourage a desire to learn?
Bennett's achievement is not so much to take sides as to let the three teachers and their charges to have their say. The motorcycle-riding Hector, whom Bennett describes in his stage directions as "a man of studied eccentricity," glories in the richness of language and has his lads memorize great swaths of poetry. On their own, the boys memorize old movies -- tearjerkers are the preferred choice -- and old songs.
Source: http://www.yahoo.com
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