Over and over, Paterno and significant members at Penn State appear to have chosen football over the immediate welfare of helpless kids. When informed, Paterno did not act, and Sandusky would stay on as his assistant coach for the ensuing 22 seasons. The rumors about Sandusky, in fact, had gone back to at least 1976. The final scene provides illumination to a question asked of Paterno at various points throughout the film. Paterno begins to understand the repercussions of his ignorance in slow reveals, like the use of his magnifying glass over Sandusky’s retirement agreement or rewatching the 1999 Alamo Bowl, Sandusky’s last game as a Penn State coach. Throughout the bulk of the film, questions arise about precisely what he knew, and when, quartering significant doubt even within his relatives who dared not directly accuse the patriarch of his evident impropriety. In Levinson’s view, Paterno fully understood his power within the Penn State structure, and he believed it an immovable force. When the Penn State board of trustees squelches his weekly press conference, Paterno has an interesting response: “Without my permission?” It suggested the board had gone rogue, not that Paterno’s accountability and increasing liability should be in question. In one scene, we see the exacting measure of Paterno’s heft and unchecked hubris. Pushing the strength of college football on America aside, in consideration of his influence on Penn State, Levinson shows a man betrayed by his conviction. However, first one has to understand Paterno’s reverence and power as a teacher, an iconic figure, and institutional leader. In the outcry leading up to and following the film’s release, a good number of observers believe the blame should be spread in different and deserving directions-from university officials including McQueary to officials at Second Mile charity, and child welfare employees.
Levinson forces the viewer down a path with Paterno, using the coach lying in a cramped MRI machine as his examination tool to guide the film down into its layers. Paterno would contact athletic director Tim Curley, who brought in Gary Schultz, a school vice president who oversaw campus police, which none of the men called. McQueary isn’t taken to task in the film, for not immediately addressing the situation, and for instead telling Paterno. On that day, assistant coach and former player Mike McQueary came to Paterno’s residence shaken by something he witnessed in the football team’s shower room: He saw Sandusky with a young boy, both naked. The base of the story centers around what occurred (or what didn’t) in the days after March 1, 2002. Sandusky served under Paterno for 30 years starting in 1969 and was convicted on 45 counts of sexual abuse from 1994-2009 in 2012.
PATTERNO HBO SERIAL
It runs through the arrest of former longtime assistant coach and convicted serial rapist Jerry Sandusky, to the game after Paterno’s ouster. It does not attempt to traverse the life of late Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno (notably played by Al Pacino), instead choosing to chronicle two weighty weeks in the fall of 2011, beginning with the Nittany Lions squeaking by Illinois for the (then-record) 409th victory of Paterno’s illustrious career. Why are we talking about Joe Paterno?” It’s a loaded question without straightforward answers, and the film dives into the ambiguities.
In Barry Levinson’s scorching HBO drama Paterno, a minor character asks a question that would seem rhetorical at the surface: “A crime against children happened.
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