Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 7-August-05
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

The protagonists of most teacher movies seem like Olympians of their profession, natural-born motivators who are tougher and more compassionate than the average person and have a knack for earning students' trust. The interesting thing about Goodbye, Mr. Chips, a classic of the genre, is that the hero is not this sort of person at all. In many ways he is as childlike as his pupils, but he gains their respect through a lifetime of dues paid and lessons learned.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips spans more than 60 years at a British prep school called Brookfield, beginning around 1870. Robert Donat stars (in an Oscar-winning performance) as a Latin don named Chipping, who begins his career as a fresh-faced young man in his twenties. Reserved by nature, he is initially shy around his colleagues and unskilled at managing a classroom of rambunctious boys. When his passivity almost gets him sacked, he hits upon a formula of weak-willed discipline to acquire the stature (if not the affection) that he needs to get by.

The movie progresses from Chipping's early days quickly, allowing only a cursory understanding of how he passed into his forties as a lonely bachelor and somewhat marginal member of the Brookfield staff. In the blink of an eye, the hero is a mustached, middle-aged nobody passed over for head of house because his talents don't extend from the academic to the personal. But at the well-timed insistence of his friend the German teacher (Paul Henreid of Casablanca), Chipping takes the first daring step of his life and heads to Austria for a holiday. On a mountaintop, like a gift from the gods, he meets Katherine Ellis (Greer Garson), who is beautiful, vivacious, and exactly what every virgin scholar needs.

The central part of the film, covering the courtship and marriage of the couple, is really about the lessons that the teacher himself must learn to become a better role model and a better man. For the first time ever, the newly christened "Mr. Chips" makes a connection with the people at his school as they flock to the side of his lovely wife. He begins to regard himself as an important influence in his students' lives, and his self-esteem rises accordingly. From then on, he is a mentor and friend to such a large number of boys that he becomes an institution unto himself.

The end of the film emphasizes the passing of the nineteenth century to the twentieth, as World War I grips England, technology advances by leaps and bounds, and traditions of scholarship are threatened by modern trends. This, too, is a notable part of Chips' significance: he is the last of a dying breed. The boys of Brookfield take comfort in his white hair and encyclopedic memory as much as the ivied walls of their hallowed campus. When all is said and done, Mr. Chips stands out not by speaking to kids in their own vernacular or softening tough hearts with tougher love. Rather, he shows how the best lessons may be discovered and passed on to others even in the quietest corners of the world.

Copyright © 2005 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.