{"id":460,"date":"2010-01-12T11:01:06","date_gmt":"2010-01-12T11:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/i-saved-latin-what-did-you-ever-do"},"modified":"2019-07-07T11:33:28","modified_gmt":"2019-07-07T11:33:28","slug":"i-saved-latin-what-did-you-ever-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/01\/12\/i-saved-latin-what-did-you-ever-do\/","title":{"rendered":"I saved Latin. What did you ever do?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rushmore<\/em> (1988) was the second full-length film directed by Wes Anderson, and like his first film Bottle Rocket<\/em>, it was co-written with Owen Wilson. The story revolves around 15-year-old Max Fischer (played by Jason Schwartzman) who attends the socially selective school Rushmore on an academic scholarship, and who at the beginning of the story is being told that he will be expelled if doesn’t improve his grades, which are low on account of the extraordinary number of clubs and societies Max is involved in. Max becomes friendly with businessman Herman Blume (Bill Murray) who has become disillusioned with most everything around him.<\/p>\n

Herman Blume: What’s the secret, Max?<\/em><\/p>\n

Max Fischer: The secret?<\/em><\/p>\n

HB: Yeah, you seem to have it pretty figured out.<\/em><\/p>\n

MF: The secret, I don’t know… I guess you’ve just gotta find something you love to do and then do it for the rest of your life. For me, it’s going to Rushmore.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Finishing off the trinity is the first grade teacher Ms Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams), with whom Max becomes infatuated first (showing off to her with his play, convincing the school board to make Latin compulsory, and the building of a fish tank) the direction of his affection soon being joined by Mr Blume.<\/p>\n

The stories of Max and Mr Blume run as parallel coming-of-age stories, meaning also that the failure of adolescence is not unlike the failure of adulthood. This analysis is not meant to imply that Max’s struggle is pointless (as if one only overcomes the pangs of adolescence by falling into the insanity of seniority) nor is it to imply that Blume’s ennui is pathetic (as if the boredom of the middle-aged is a petty reincarnation of teenage apathy). Rather: Rushmore<\/em>‘s story is of an age-less coming-of-age story, it tells of two people who are at points of their lives where something<\/em> is needed. By having the two protagonists share this vague existential need, the movie effectively divorces the concept of coming-of-age from being tied down to a particular period of life. Thus we are left with a poignant movie of people who are at different stages of their lives, each suffering from that nameless malady, that<\/em> perennial and aimless desire, who find each other, and as a consequence help each other through.<\/p>\n

External links:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott Tobias has a few words over at the AV Club<\/em><\/a>, which also hosts an interview with Wes Anderson<\/a> conducted around the time of the release of Rushmore<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rushmore (1988) was the second full-length film directed by Wes Anderson, and like his first film Bottle Rocket, it was co-written with Owen Wilson. The story revolves around 15-year-old Max Fischer (played by Jason Schwartzman) who attends the socially selective school Rushmore on an academic scholarship, and who at the beginning of the story is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159,90,197,85,166],"tags":[87,86],"metadata":[],"class_list":["post-460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-blog-posts","category-film-review","category-no-trip-to-cleveland","category-wes-anderson","tag-rushmore","tag-wes-anderson"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1577,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2009\/12\/26\/theyll-never-catch-me-because-im-fucking-innocent-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":460,"position":0},"title":"They’ll never catch me… because I’m fucking innocent","author":"Pala","date":"December 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Bottle Rocket (1996) was Wes Anderson's first feature film, apparently co-written with Owen Wilson who also acts here, alongside his brother Luke Wilson. In brief the film plot begins with Anthony (L. Wilson) leaving (but appearing to escape for the sake of his friend) from a mental hospital, joining up\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":461,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2009\/02\/18\/hell-of-a-grave-wish-it-were-mine\/","url_meta":{"origin":460,"position":1},"title":"Hell of a grave, wish it were mine.","author":"Pala","date":"February 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: In February 2009, Shai starts his rich blogging career with a\u00a0blog\u00a0dedicated to reviewing\u00a0Wes Anderson films. Of the five posts written between February 2009 and April 2012 and dedicated to this topic, four are written on the blog and one is found in Shai\u2019s Google Drive, perhaps written there\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1210,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2012\/04\/24\/twilight-as-directed-by-wes-anderson\/","url_meta":{"origin":460,"position":2},"title":"Twilight as Directed by Wes Anderson","author":"Pala","date":"April 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: One of Shai\u2019s unique talents was writing stories in the style of famous authors. In the story below, retrieved from his Google Drive, he convincingly imitates a vampire genre, Twilight-like movie script, as if it were directed by Wes Anderson. Scene 1: A fixed camera shows the following:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1576,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/01\/25\/son-of-a-bitch-im-sick-of-these-dolphins-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":460,"position":3},"title":"Son of a bitch, I’m sick of these dolphins.","author":"Pala","date":"January 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"In which famed aqua-documentary man Steve Zissou (Bill Murry) goes to find the \"jaguar-shark\" that ate his friend; joining him is his possible son (neither of them is sure either way it seems) Ned Plimptom (Own Wilson), amongst many notable others. Steve Zissou: I was hopin' to go out in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":68,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/01\/10\/strike-zone-tng\/","url_meta":{"origin":460,"position":4},"title":"Strike Zone (TNG)","author":"pastfarpoint","date":"January 10, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Strike Zone by Peter David the fifth novel in the TNG series. The plot involves the Kreel (who apparently are the most hated enemy of the Klingon due to their [thickly laid on] dishonourable nature) discovering an ancient stash of weapons, attacking the Klingon, etc., the Enterprise is called in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Detail from \"Strike Zone\" cover","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/strike_zone_cropped.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1074,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2017\/06\/20\/modern-jewish-past-times-story-ideas\/","url_meta":{"origin":460,"position":5},"title":"Modern Jewish past-times, story ideas","author":"Pala","date":"June 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Parallel story of Saul and Shabbatai Tzvi to create a single narrative that turns the conversion of the latter into an act of secret heroism, frame the whole story as being told by Monsieur Chouchani as a commentary to the story of Isaac\u2019s celebration by his father, to a street\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/padotI-7q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460"},{"taxonomy":"metadata","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/metadata?post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}