Fork Union Military Academy is in Fork Union, Virginia, about an hour west of Richmond. (Photo by Sparkyhardwood via Wikimedia Commons)
What movie director likes a joke in every movie he sees? Alexander Payne, that’s who.
The Academy Award-winning filmmaker of the current holiday hit, “The Holdovers” (as well as “Election” and “Sideways”), recently told The Associated Press: “… Antonioni has humor in him. Even Kurosawa. You gotta have humor.” He was referring to the celebrated directors Michelangelo Antonioni (“Blow-up” and “The Passenger”) and Akira Kurosawa (“Seven Samurai” and “Rashomon.”).
Fair enough, but Richmond moviegoers are being caught unawares – jolted even – when “The Holdovers” targets a respected, 126-year-old prep school located just up the road in rural Fluvanna County.
Alexander Payne. (Photo by Harald Bischoff via Wikimedia Commons)
The joke comes early in the film, which is set at Barton Academy, a prestigious Massachusetts boarding school for boys. The fictitious campus is actually an evocative composite of five Bay State schools. It was shot at Groton, Northfield Mount Hermon, Fairhaven, St. Marks and especially Deerfield Academy. The year is 1970. The movie opens on the snowy eve of Christmas break. Students suffer through final classes and attend a holiday chapel program but are also abuzz with anticipation as they pack to leave.
All but five guys, that is.
For one reason or another this quintet is held over during the two-week break. Ye-Joon Park (played by Jim Kaplan) is too far from his home in Korea. Angus Tully (a lead played by Dominic Sessa) has a mother and new stepfather who want their space. Adding to the students’ woes is the realization that filling in in loco parentis will be the academy’s curmudgeonly and pompous classics teacher, Paul Hunham (played by Paul Giamatti). Of course, this Scrooge is as vexed as his five charges about being stuck on campus. Another holdover is a school cook, Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who’s grieving her son who was killed recently in Vietnam.
Adding to the entitled students’ misery is the fact that they must encamp in the infirmary to conserve energy (this is, after all, the environmentally conscious ’70s).
At Movieland on Arthur Ashe Boulevard on a recent Sunday, a friend and I settled in the half-filled theater with other patrons who skewed middle-aged and older.
The joke – at the expense of a Virginia educational institution – comes when one of the five holdovers, bully Teddy Kountze (played by Brady Hepner), takes offense at an indiscretion by his equally irritating schoolmate: “Angus, I don’t want to end up in Fork Union because of your mistake.”
Say what?
The Richmond audience was stunned at first and finally erupted in laughter.
Some minutes later, Ye-Joon asks Angus: “What’s Fork Union?”
Angus, his nerves frayed, snaps: “It’s a military school in Virginia where I’m going if I get kicked out again.”
Dominic Sessa, Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph in a scene from ‘The Holdovers.’ (Photo courtesy Universal Pictures)
Soon thereafter, in a joyous, only-in-Hollywood plot twist, four of the holdover students are swept off campus for the holidays. Unable to reach his honeymooning mother for permission to leave the grounds, Angus is stuck with his Latin-quoting teacher and the no-nonsense cook. Suffice it to say, things go south for the tempestuous anti-hero and sole left-behind.
Near the end of the film, it’s the new year and classes have resumed. But Angus is called to the headmaster’s office to face the music about a certain transgression. Teacher Hunham, softening somewhat, asks the head-of-school what awaits the ornery Angus. He replies: “His parents want to withdraw him and enroll him at Fork Union.”
Later, I asked my companion if this was product placement, often a means to financing independent films. Despite the fact that Miller, “the champagne of bottled beer,” was mentioned, we agreed that Fork Union’s financial support would be too strange.
The film was released in October.
“Going to Fork Union is often seen as punishment,” said Richmonder Daniel Guilliams, a U.S. Army veteran. He also reminded me that the draft was ramping up in 1970-71 as the Vietnam conflict was escalating.
John Ball, a Richmonder and graduate of Hampton Roads Academy, an independent prep school in Newport News, said that while the threat of Fork Union loomed over some classmates, one of his friends who transferred there thrived.
I contacted Kate Goad, Fork Union’s director of advancement communications, and she said she has no knowledge of the academy’s association with the film: “We didn’t know about it until the movie was out and we started hearing from a number of people.”
In the years since its founding in 1898, Baptist-affiliated Fork Union school has produced two U.S. senators, 117 players in the National Football League and even Lloyd Dobyns, a highly respected NBC reporter and correspondent. And let’s not forget the inestimable John J. Wicker Jr. The academy’s president from 1930 to 1945, was elected to the Senate of Virginia, helped establish the American Legion, and was the visionary founder of the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond.
So, does Angus Tully eventually enroll at Fork Union?
C’mon. That would require a spoiler alert. See the movie.
Fork Union Military Academy is in Fork Union, Virginia, about an hour west of Richmond. (Photo by Sparkyhardwood via Wikimedia Commons)
What movie director likes a joke in every movie he sees? Alexander Payne, that’s who.
The Academy Award-winning filmmaker of the current holiday hit, “The Holdovers” (as well as “Election” and “Sideways”), recently told The Associated Press: “… Antonioni has humor in him. Even Kurosawa. You gotta have humor.” He was referring to the celebrated directors Michelangelo Antonioni (“Blow-up” and “The Passenger”) and Akira Kurosawa (“Seven Samurai” and “Rashomon.”).
Fair enough, but Richmond moviegoers are being caught unawares – jolted even – when “The Holdovers” targets a respected, 126-year-old prep school located just up the road in rural Fluvanna County.
Alexander Payne. (Photo by Harald Bischoff via Wikimedia Commons)
The joke comes early in the film, which is set at Barton Academy, a prestigious Massachusetts boarding school for boys. The fictitious campus is actually an evocative composite of five Bay State schools. It was shot at Groton, Northfield Mount Hermon, Fairhaven, St. Marks and especially Deerfield Academy. The year is 1970. The movie opens on the snowy eve of Christmas break. Students suffer through final classes and attend a holiday chapel program but are also abuzz with anticipation as they pack to leave.
All but five guys, that is.
For one reason or another this quintet is held over during the two-week break. Ye-Joon Park (played by Jim Kaplan) is too far from his home in Korea. Angus Tully (a lead played by Dominic Sessa) has a mother and new stepfather who want their space. Adding to the students’ woes is the realization that filling in in loco parentis will be the academy’s curmudgeonly and pompous classics teacher, Paul Hunham (played by Paul Giamatti). Of course, this Scrooge is as vexed as his five charges about being stuck on campus. Another holdover is a school cook, Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who’s grieving her son who was killed recently in Vietnam.
Adding to the entitled students’ misery is the fact that they must encamp in the infirmary to conserve energy (this is, after all, the environmentally conscious ’70s).
At Movieland on Arthur Ashe Boulevard on a recent Sunday, a friend and I settled in the half-filled theater with other patrons who skewed middle-aged and older.
The joke – at the expense of a Virginia educational institution – comes when one of the five holdovers, bully Teddy Kountze (played by Brady Hepner), takes offense at an indiscretion by his equally irritating schoolmate: “Angus, I don’t want to end up in Fork Union because of your mistake.”
Say what?
The Richmond audience was stunned at first and finally erupted in laughter.
Some minutes later, Ye-Joon asks Angus: “What’s Fork Union?”
Angus, his nerves frayed, snaps: “It’s a military school in Virginia where I’m going if I get kicked out again.”
Dominic Sessa, Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph in a scene from ‘The Holdovers.’ (Photo courtesy Universal Pictures)
Soon thereafter, in a joyous, only-in-Hollywood plot twist, four of the holdover students are swept off campus for the holidays. Unable to reach his honeymooning mother for permission to leave the grounds, Angus is stuck with his Latin-quoting teacher and the no-nonsense cook. Suffice it to say, things go south for the tempestuous anti-hero and sole left-behind.
Near the end of the film, it’s the new year and classes have resumed. But Angus is called to the headmaster’s office to face the music about a certain transgression. Teacher Hunham, softening somewhat, asks the head-of-school what awaits the ornery Angus. He replies: “His parents want to withdraw him and enroll him at Fork Union.”
Later, I asked my companion if this was product placement, often a means to financing independent films. Despite the fact that Miller, “the champagne of bottled beer,” was mentioned, we agreed that Fork Union’s financial support would be too strange.
The film was released in October.
“Going to Fork Union is often seen as punishment,” said Richmonder Daniel Guilliams, a U.S. Army veteran. He also reminded me that the draft was ramping up in 1970-71 as the Vietnam conflict was escalating.
John Ball, a Richmonder and graduate of Hampton Roads Academy, an independent prep school in Newport News, said that while the threat of Fork Union loomed over some classmates, one of his friends who transferred there thrived.
I contacted Kate Goad, Fork Union’s director of advancement communications, and she said she has no knowledge of the academy’s association with the film: “We didn’t know about it until the movie was out and we started hearing from a number of people.”
In the years since its founding in 1898, Baptist-affiliated Fork Union school has produced two U.S. senators, 117 players in the National Football League and even Lloyd Dobyns, a highly respected NBC reporter and correspondent. And let’s not forget the inestimable John J. Wicker Jr. The academy’s president from 1930 to 1945, was elected to the Senate of Virginia, helped establish the American Legion, and was the visionary founder of the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond.
So, does Angus Tully eventually enroll at Fork Union?
C’mon. That would require a spoiler alert. See the movie.
My parents threatened me with Fork Union when I was growing up, and I threaten my teenage son with the same prospect to this day.
In addition to the plethora of athletes who have passed through Fork Union. Kevin Plank (Founder and CEO of Under Armour) attended FUMA as a post grad.
My, times have changed. Today, a threat to transfer a child to Loudon County public schools is all it takes.
It was a better than average movie that I recommend.
You forgot to mention that the school also has 2 Heisman Trophy Winners. Vinny Testaverde and Eddie George. Very few schools on any level can say they have 2 or more Heisman winners.
Love it, relate to it and lived it for a year as a postgraduate athlete at Greenbrier Military School in Lewisburg W.VA. We played FUMA and it was an incredible game. Most players in the Va. Military League were sent there by colleges. The discipline in all aspects of life was intense and gave me the preparation to attend William & Mary on football scholarship and more importantly deal with the academics.