Halfway through “Harvard Beats Yale 29-29,” the score is still in the Bulldogs’ favor: Yale 22, Harvard zip.
The two teams arrived at Harvard Stadium undefeated. But Yale was ranked 16th in the nation and was the overwhelming favorite.
And one of the more impressive things about Kevin Rafferty’s documentary tale of the 1968 match between the Ivy League rivals is that, contrary to giving the store away with the clever title, he only builds curiosity.
How the heck is Harvard going to avoid a rout, let alone pull off a legendary upset?
Of course, Rafferty’s film is more than an underdog yarn. (The director will be at a screening at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Starz FilmCenter.)
The year was among the nation’s most rending. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April. Robert Kennedy was killed in June. The clash of police and protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago was a civic disaster.
Sports journalists are now becoming appropriately cagey about declaring the meaning of big games in times of big worries.
Yet Rafferty uses interviews with the former players, most now in their 60s and nearly all of them touchingly philosophical, to reveal the cultural issues buffeting their campuses, but not necessarily their locker rooms.
The style is distinctly old school. Static talking-head shots are broken up with broadcast footage of The Game. Still, the suspense in the final act rivals many fictional sports flicks.
Though it was clearly a decision, what’s missing are interviews with students not on the teams: the fans.
A Yalie says that on game days, future Wall Streeters and furious campus activists put aside their differences to root for the Bulldogs. It would have been nice to hear that from the guys filling the stands.
It’s an absence, but a minor one — because the men who do speak are thoughtful and compellingly humble. Pat Conway left Harvard his junior year and returned after service in Vietnam. His interview and comments by teammates about the returning vet are a sweet and bitter reminder of how at odds young Americans were.
One former player is especially recognizable: Actor Tommy Lee Jones was a Harvard guard.
He shares a funny story in the driest way imaginable about his college roommate, Al Gore.
There’s also a brief, if secondhand, appearance by Meryl Streep.
“Harvard Beats Yale 29-29”
Directed by Kevin Rafferty. photography by Rafferty. Not Rated. 105 minutes. Opens today at the Starz FilmCenter.
