Good film, apart from Crawford's character

It's a theme that is repeated in Good Will Hunting as well. Young male genius outsider is recognized by a member of the academic establishment. This insider is less capable than the protagonist and becomes incredulous or envious of the young man's genius and attempts to crush what he "cannot understand." I think it's pretty obvious who GVS identifies with, which leads me to conclude he probably thinks very highly of himself--hence the pretentious and self-indulgent movies he makes. Uh oh, and now my "criticism" has misread his art. I hope he doesn't read this and decide to lock himself in an apartment, making home movies that will never see the light of day.

F Abraham Murray did a great job as the protagonist. Here was a man who has built his life's career on literatory knowledge. He would have even been a great writer with a biography about Forrester if Forrester has not spoken to the publishers. We do not know how far the blacklist goes with Crawford as Forrester was not happy about being written about.
I would say from Crawford's attitude that Forrester's wishes re privacy would not have been much of Crawford's concern.

Now - in his declining years he is the Professor of a prestigious college. He is very class orientated with and associated himself the Upper Refined classes and looked down upon the lower class. To him Jamal was only brought in for basketball and that should be where he stayed.

He has the respect of the Board, and the other students and he means to keep that respect and position of authority by all means.

I believe that FAM did a great job of a multifaceted very unlikable character.
Marc

Walk Quietly throughthis Earth
Leave nothing but Smiles and Pawprints

You might be surprised.

I went to high school in an upper-middle class college town. The high school was very highly ranked academically and had a lofty academic reputation.

I took an advanced placement English class from a woman who could have been Crawford's twin sister.

She was arrogant, pompous, totally caught up in her own image of herself as an arbiter of intellectual excellence, and continually engaged in ego-pumping exercises designed to prove her own brilliance in comparison to the students.

I don't know if she was also a failed novelist, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me.

She demanded students pay her homage in intellectual terms. Just like Jamal in "FF," I knew I was as smart or smarter than she was, so I refused to play along.

She responded by punitively piling massive amounts of additional work on me, saying "this will happen all the time in college so you better get used to it."

I said "screw it" and quit going to class. I showed up for the final exam and got a high 3.5 on the grade curve (despite missing half the class) and she said, "it doesn't matter if you got a 4.0 on the final, you flunk beceause you walked out of my class."


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4) You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.

The world is filled with people like these and you will find them in all kinds of places. And yes people in real life act like that. Even worse. They will go out of their way to make life difficult for you because they are jealous of you. Abraham's character is pretty reserved in comparison. He is using the means to of what is available to him.

The CB Association

http://chrichtonsworld.blogspot.com/