Footnote.
Earlier this month, I saw an incredible movie, Footnote. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, something that must have been an easy choice given how wonderful the script and filmmaking are. (Minor spoilers follow!) Here is a synopsis of the film from Sony Pictures Classics:
“FOOTNOTE is the tale of a great rivalry between a father and son. Eliezer and Uriel Shkolnik are both eccentric professors, who have dedicated their lives to their work in Talmudic Studies. The father, Eliezer, is a stubborn purist who fears the establishment and has never been recognized for his work. Meanwhile his son, Uriel, is an up-and-coming star in the field, who appears to feed on accolades, endlessly seeking recognition.
Then one day, the tables turn. When Eliezer learns that he is to be awarded the Israel Prize, the most valuable honor for scholarship in the country, his vanity and desperate need for validation are exposed. His son, Uriel, is thrilled to see his father’s achievements finally recognized but, in a darkly funny twist, is forced to choose between the advancement of his own career and his father’s. Will he sabotage his father’s glory?
FOOTNOTE is the story of insane academic competition, the dichotomy between admiration and envy for a role model, and the very complicated relationship between a father and son.”
The film reminded me of my very first introduction to academia. When I was four or five years old, my mom, then a graduate student in theology, took me with her on an errand to one of her professor’s office hours. Like her, he had a small child, and we both loved Legos. That day, the professor presented me with the biggest tub of Legos I have ever seen. It was as tall as I was. Enamored with this Santa Claus-esque man, I wanted to know more about him. As we were leaving, I asked my mom who he was and what he did. “He’s a thinker doctor,” she said, “He gets paid to think.” (Translation: philosophy professor). My eyes got wide, I’m sure, and those words would stick with me until present day: he gets paid… to think. He must be really smart, I thought. I’m sure I also thought that I would never be smart enough to be a “thinker doctor” or get paid for my thoughts. Twenty years later, I’m eager to challenge my mind through an academic life.
“Footnote” struck a chord in me. It’s the type of film that stays with you, gnaws at you, the kind that you need to chew on for a long time. It was a powerful statement about academic success and the importance of academic flexibility, but also a poignant story of a family that has been pulled into their patriarch’s work and the consequences that follow. The father, Eliezer, has only been cited once in his entire decades-long career. His greatest dream (that he treasures secretly within himself) is to be recognized for his work, so when the call comes that he won the prize, he awakens as if from a deadened sleep. His son, Uriel, has received many accolades for his own work, which is theoretical as opposed to his father’s more scientific, exact methods. Eliezer is extremely stubborn and unwilling to compliment his son’s work or accomplishments because he disagrees with Uriel’s methods. Eliezer’s stubbornness and refusal to express pride in his son’s work only worsens after he wins the coveted prize. Uriel desires Eliezer’s approval as a father, if not an academic, and, when Eliezer wins the Israel Prize, Uriel makes huge personal and career sacrifices to ensure not just his father’s happiness, but his father’s feeling of success. This was the moment Eliezer had secretly been waiting for. Who was Uriel — or the decisions committee, which Eliezer’s arch-nemesis chaired — to say that his father’s work wasn’t good enough to have won the prize or that he didn’t deserve it after decades of dedication to his field? And so, Uriel defends his father’s right to the prize.
Eliezer sends his work to the wind after a heart-wrenching development in his academic career occurs.
The film ends on a thought-provoking note. Ever since, I’ve been thinking about many of the issues the film addresses. In addition to examining issues such as inter-departmental competition, familial father-son conflicts, and the sacrifices we make to achieve our dreams, one of the biggest questions the film raised is what makes an academic successful? Is it the number of awards he has? Can he be considered successful if he has never (or scarcely) been cited by his peers? Is success in the eye of the beholder? Is it determined by a mix of all of these, or none of these? Footnote also raises the question of academic stubbornness. Does sticking to one method, and one method only, set one up for failure (or lack of recognition) later on? I’ve always been of the conviction that academic flexibility — willingness to explore work that uses other methods than your own — is of paramount importance as a scholar. These questions have been strangely fun to think about over the past few weeks and as I prepare for graduate school.
I’d like to close with these encouraging words Eliezer spoke to one of his students (they are, the film says, some of his favorites):
Your paper is good, “only the new things are not correct and the correct things are not new.”
