So what does it prove that he can recognize quotes from books? Even a monkey can memorize or recite or identify linguistic entities.
It would have been much more substantive if they had had a debate on literature.
Literature is about ideas not words. Words are just linguistic cues but they signify something more important.
That scene degraded any meaningfulness the movie may have earned up to that point.
I think the OP misses the point. Even if an APE can recite simple phrases, one cannot quote such complex ones. But even then, it is only an easy feat if you are fed the quotes in advance. This exchange shows that Jamal had actually read those books and remembers the particular lines. THAT is not simple. I am fifty years old and relatively well read (only I focus less on literature than on other subjects), and I think I recognized only one of those quotes and couldn't say who the author was.
But the OP is right in that quoting lines is not intellectually challenging - having a debate on literature would be. But the point of this exchange was not to show how brilliant Jamal was, but to show how unchallenging and small-minded the professor was. Crawford is a *beep* professor and an intellectual bully with inferiority complexes. The whole point of this exercise for his was to establish that he is superior to the "stupid" students. So yes, it was a meaningless exercise, but the fault was his, and the point of the scene was to both show what a jerk he is, and to set up this confrontation and conflict between him and Jamal. Jamal's point was not that quoting a few lines was so impressive; he was demolishing Crawford's pretentions. It was like saying, "Hey, I am a 16 year old ghetto kid, and you still can't best me with your "superior" knowledge." That is what so infuriated Crawford, that his veneer of superiority was demolished by the kid he had the LEAST respect for and most wanted to humiliate. Instead that kid utterly humiliated Crawford.
Oh he can more than recognise them - he understand them And he can recall the inference that they were written in.
His jibe to Crawford regards to 'blushing' was a direct attack on Crawford credibility as in "Why are you blushing - are you afraid of me?"
These are also a lot of the classic books - ones that Jamal would seem to have little interest in reading.
It very akin to a new student attending a class - having already read all of the course material AND about to make his own judgement on. Literature is ones of those area where understanding it is not cut and dried like chemistry (Heck - look at religion and the interpretation of ONE book)
Crawford want to lord his knowledge over the students. To show them how little they know and how much he knows. And he is a Bully which is very apparent in the way he teats his students - they are merely vessels for him to pour his knowledge into - nothing more. And Jamal has just upset everything.
Consider also the way that Crawford taunts student Coleman about not knowing the writer of a passage (written by Coleman) and is about to launch into humiliating him in front of the class when this black kid interferes. And not only interferes but fights back and wins!!!!
Sure it may not have been guns or lightsabres but it was a very tense and defining fight. And Jamal won.
Walk Quietly throughthis Earth
Leave nothing but Smiles and Pawprints
Also adding on....
Jamal was about to say "cmon professor" when Crawford says get out. Perhaps Jamal was going to say along the lines of "Give me something more challenging than memorizing a few lines" But Crawford was too pissed by then
BTW- where did Jamal go when he was thrown out of the room? The office? Library? Home?
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