I don’t know if Charlie’s silence here today is right or wrong; I’m not a judge or jury. But I can tell you this: he won’t sell anybody out to buy his future!
One of the most interesting, movies that I've seen undoubtedly is 'Scent of a Woman'. The movie primarily deals with Charles Simms, a poor student on a scholarship, with an upmarket school. While the rich kids head off to Switzerland to ski, Charlie takes a job attending to an irascible blind Colonel ( rtd ) Slade who makes his life tough, amidst trying to commit suicide on an out of town visit. The run up to the story is that Cahrlie's class fellows have played a prank on the school's headmaster Mr.Trax & the HM is desperate to find the culprits and bring them to book.His honor is at stake!
His ACE! Charlie Simms who has seen the pranksters, while putting in overtime at the library. Even when Charlie is offered a bribe ( scholarship to Harvard )bullied, coerced and threatened with expulsion he refuses to divulge the names of his classmates and is eventually saved by an inspiring speech by the blind Colonel, who turns up to save the boy acting as his 'in loco parentis'or local guardian, which is a lie.The Colonel labels Charlie to have great integrity!
The question however remains......
1.Was the HM right in offering to buy the truth?
2.Was Charlie right in protecting the guilty?
3.Was the Colonel right in defending Charlie's right in remaining silent?
4.The poor HM received no support from his faculty. Did they make a right decision is exonerating the whole crowd?
5. Why was the enquiry held in the slipshod manner that it was?
These are ethical questions that each one of us must answer for ourselves..... Unfortunately like much of life they fall in a twilight zone where interpretation is the key and definite answers are difficult to zero in upon.
It’s actually somewhat ironic that Colonel Slade, a military man, praises Charlie’s decision to stay quiet. Slade is presumably a graduate of West Point, where the famous Honor Code says: “A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do.” In other words, if you know one of your fellow students has done something wrong, you have a duty to snitch. If you don’t, you’re just as guilty as they are.
The Colonel like most military men goes for the jugular straight away and leaves poor TRax devastated. The HM does not stand a chance in weathering the kind of oratory that is unleashed at the scool by the Colonel.He gets Charlie off the hook, but was he right, in doing so? Does he send the right message to young students?
Colonel Slade is inspiring and I had a faculty who spoke much like him.....biting sarcasm amidst brilliant English.........who was a little like Slade, brilliant, burnt out and frustrated.The Colonel is frustrated as his career has been stymied by blindness. The burntout man now hits out blindly at everyone that he meets and leaves a trail of broken relationships in his wake. Whom does he hurt most? Those who love him most, just like many of us!
Why is the movie called 'Scent of a Woman'. Apparently, the Colonel ( a ladies man ) can identify the Scent that a woman wears from a distance, with accuracy.( Does it help- I'm in the dark!)
While that is an amazing feat, what do you guys feel about the ethics of the piece?
Speech
Prank
6 comments:
The speech by Al Pacino is one of my favorite. Oratory skills exhibited by Pacino are marvelous and the encouragement it enthuse in me is unparalleled except for one more speech which is Mark Antony's speech: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;.. the effect of the delivery is magnanimous.. at least as far as I am concerned.. glad to know u share my tastes...
I watched the movie in 1993 on board.
The movie is great and Al Pacino amazing not withstanding the fact that it left many questions unanswered.
Should a movie concern itself with maorality ?
I would answer in the affermative.
What is your take?????
well movies are a reflection of the society we live in.. it can reflect anything that is part of the society.. Morality, equity, slander everything should be portrayed and as far as unanswered questions are concerned we dont have answers for a lot of questions and thus scent of a woman is very close to life...
this is my take.. do give me a feedback..
It is like the chicken & egg......which comes first. Do movies ape life or vice versa, is a debate which has gone on for a while now.
In a real life situation, I do not think Charlie would have got off that easily.
Also, personally, I feel that Charlie should have blown the whistle...........
There are many folk like Col.Slade and that part is real.
I know this comment is coming a little late(one year isn't too late, is it?). But I could not stop myself from sharing my opinion on Colonel's speech that has been mentioned in this interesting post. To be honest, when I watched the movie for the first time, it raised the same questions in my mind that have been raised in the original post. Was it right on young chap's part to protect his mischievous friends ? Was Colonel right in defending Charlie? Was it justified to challenge the way things were handled by the authority? But when I watched the movie again, I realized something else. I felt that the outstanding speech delivered by Colonel was not just aimed at bailing the young man out of trouble, but was meant to hint at those aspects that often authority ignores while categorizing someone as innocent or guilty. Any person can make mistakes, break rules, may be knowingly or unknowingly.But what we decide to do with that person's future is something more important than labeling him or her as a renegade. I was reminded of a painful incident by this movie. When I was about ten, studying in school, one fine day, a boy aged twelve or thirteen, was dragged to the dais during morning assembly and was humiliated in presence of every one by the Principal. The boy had committed the 'crime' of stealing his class fellow's pen. And the next day he was expelled from school. The authority did not think once about boy's future while doing so. Charlie was caught in a similar situation. He was 'guilty' of not revealing the name of pranksters. What HM was worried about was punishing the guilty to send a strong message to other kids. He was willing to jeopardize the boy's future in order to deliver 'heartless' justice. This approach is exactly what the Colonel attacked when he rubbished the spirit that the institution claimed to protect. More than anything else, every educational institution has an obligation to take care of the future of young men and women, who begin to come to terms with a life full of dilemma and choices. I think 'destroying' a bright future is a bigger crime than not revealing the name of some pranksters, who are just acting their age...
Harkirit,
Nice to see you on my blog at last......
I agree with you 100 %.Punishment & reward are meant to shape behavior, not destroy people.
Unfortunately, in our country we often get mixed up and go after soft targets ( like kids, the weak, uneducated etc ) while letting the big fish get away because it may not be convenient to take them on.
The bottomline is that, punishment is meant to get a person to lead a better life and hence protect society, and not to magnify the problem by scarring him/her for life...................
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