Independent Films, Film Profiles

The Paper Chase

The Paper Chase is a 1970 novel, as well as a 1973 film based on the novel and a television series based on the movie.Written by John Jay Osborn, Jr., a 1970 graduate of Harvard Law School, the book tells the story of Hart, a first-year law student at Harvard, and his experiences with Professor Charles Kingsfield, the brilliant, demanding Contracts instructor whom he both idolizes and finds incredibly intimidating.The story centers on Hart, a brilliant young law student from the U.S. Midwest who attends Harvard Law School and becomes obsessed with one of his teachers, Professor Charles W. Kingsfield, Jr. Hart becomes an expert on Kingsfield's subject, Contracts; he reads everything about the subject, including all of Kingsfield's papers, most of which are not on the reading list. He goes so far as to break into the law library to read Kingsfield's original law school notes. Hart becomes such an expert that Kingsfield asks him to contribute to a paper.At the same time he begins a relationship with a woman named Susan Field who turns out to be Kingsfield's daughter. Susan stands aloof from the law-school rat-race and is able to dismiss all the things Hart cares about the most.At the end of the term, Professor Kingsfield really means something in his students' lives, but he still doesn't know their names. For him, the class is only a group of people, simply names on a paper. He doesn't even recognize the protagonist, Mr. Hart, after several encounters and classroom debates.After much effort preparing for the final exam, Hart's grade is delivered to him, but he simply makes a paper airplane out of his final report card, and sends it sailing into the Atlantic Ocean without looking at it.