The myth of the noble savage.
This shows
up in literature a lot. The noble savage is someone from a supposedly simpler
society / culture. He meets someone from a modern society. The noble savage is
not educated but will say lots of things that are true to make the person from
the modern society realize his life is empty or that the person from the modern
society really isn’t so smart.
In The
Breakfast Club, I think the janitor is doing a version of the noble savage.
My father
said: “Do not try to understand them. And do not try to make them understand
you. That is because they are a breed apart that makes no sense.”
Collective
society v. individual society.
In a
collective society, people want to be a part of a group. In an individual
society, people are comfortable being alone. Americans (American myth) like to
tell you they are individuals. I think they are more collective though.
In The
Breakfast Club, we can see the teacher trying to force these kids, who are
different from each other, into a collective organization. The teacher is on a
power trip. He tells the students to explain to him who they are. So, he is
putting them in a defensive position. The students have a good point. Even if
we tell you who we are, you won’t listen.
You have
cliques. One guy is from the athlete clique. We call that “jock.” The pretty
girl is from the princess or cheerleader clique.
Weirdo
clique.
Geek / Dork
clique: He studies a lot.
Rebel
clique.
Five cliques
represented in this movie.
Idiom: “You mess with the bull, you get the
horns.”
Themes:
1.
Power
tripping teachers
2.
The
boredom of education / school
3.
Questioning
authority / ridiculous people in positions of power
4.
The
normal weirdness of teachers, because they can’t be fired and they are not
dealing with people their own age / teachers losing perspective
5.
The
ridiculous behavior of teachers
Cookie
cutter school: they all look the same
Cookie
cutter house: ditto
Collective
versus individual
They treat
the students like they are from a cookie cutter. They all need to look and
behave the same, to fit in, etc.
Mr. Rogers
is famous for being square. Square or goody two shoes is someone who is not
cool.
The director
is John Hughes. Most of his movies were in the 1980s and usually about
teenagers coming of age. Growing up and learning life’s lessons. The movies are
normally set in Chicago in the suburbs and about middle class people. They are
about normal things. When life is too normal and repetitive, we say mundanity.
I wanted to
show My Private Idaho, directed by Gus van Sant. Van Sant also does coming of
age movies, about young adults. It is based on Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I.
I heard this
story about a janitor working in the lab at the University of Toronto during
WWII. He had a grade ten education. While he was cleaning, he would look at the
experiments. He invented modern radar. They tested his IQ and he got 197.
Matt Damon
and Ben Affleck wrote the screenplay for this movie. They won an Oscar.
Robin
Williams won best supporting actor. Minor role. He usually is in comedies. He
doesn’t do dramas so much. He committed suicide in 2015.
The Boston
accent is very flat. Usually in America, we curl our accent.
Boston is
full of Irish immigrants or the ancestors of Irish immigrants.
Pulp Fiction
paid homage to A Clockwork Orange with the driving scene.
Good Will
Hunting pays homage with the fighting scene. Look at how the music does not
match the violence in both instances.
Match cut
takes you from one scene to a different shot and place by showing two similar
things.
Above are the class notes. I am behind on the marking of your assignments. But, we need to do some work. Answer the following questions for this movie's assignment. You cannot actually answer the first question as the film has not revealed it yet. That means you can hand this in next Monday.
1. What do you think is causing Will Hunting angst?
2. Please give a paragraph biography on Robin Williams. If you cut and paste (plagiarize), I will know it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWKbfoikeg
