‘Paterno’ Depicts Penn State’s Most Powerful Men in the Throes of Moral Crisis

Atsushi Nishijima, HBO

Within the first 10 minutes of Paterno, a new film about the child sex-abuse scandal that rocked Pennsylvania State University six years ago, the camera pans to the bowels of Beaver Stadium. It is in these shadowy tunnels that Barry Levinson, the film’s director, introduces three Penn State administrators who are bracing for the arrest of Jerry Sandusky, a former Nittany Lions assistant football coach, whose decades of sex abuse came to light in 2011.

Paterno is principally concerned with the fall of the late Joe Paterno, the legendary Penn State football coach, whose legacy was tarnished by allegations that he, along with others at the university, covered up Sandusky’s crimes and allowed him to prey on more young boys. The culpability of the ball coach, played by Al Pacino, is a central and vexing question for the film, which premiered Saturday on HBO.

But Paterno is secondarily occupied with how Penn State’s top brass handled the Sandusky case, and it is in these moments that one of higher education’s darkest cautionary tales comes into dramatic focus. Seldom do the machinations of college leaders, whose private emails, secret files, and public-relations statements help to propel the action in Paterno, make for such cinematic fodder. The result is a rare examination of university leadership under pressure, where miscalculations and acts of self-preservation beget a profound human toll.

From that first shot below Beaver Stadium, Levinson presents Graham B. Spanier, Penn State’s former president; Timothy M. Curley, the former athletics director; and Gary C. Schultz, a former vice president for finance and business, as tortured members of a cabal who are slowly realizing that their past decisions could leave them legally vulnerable. They knew something about Sandusky and boys — how much remains a considerable debate — and the film introduces these men as they surmise the implications of that knowledge.

“You’re not taking a fall, Gary,” says Spanier, who is played by Tom Kemp. “I will make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Looming over the scene is the knowledge that none of these men will make it out of the Sandusky scandal unscathed. Spanier was convicted, in 2017, of endangering the welfare of children. Curley and Schultz both pleaded guilty to that charge.

Sandusky was convicted, in 2012, on 45 counts related to child molestation.

The charges against the three administrators hinged on their decision, in 2001, not to report to authorities that Sandusky had been spotted in a Penn State locker-room shower with a young boy. A similar report, in 1998, was investigated, but it did not lead to criminal charges.

A Secret Pact

Questions about who at Penn State knew what and when about Sandusky continue to divide the university and its governing board. After criminal trials, grand-jury testimonies, and two outside investigations — one conducted by Louis J. Freeh, former director of the FBI, and a counter-investigation commissioned by the Paterno family — debate persists about the degree to which university officials were responsible for Sandusky’s not being brought to justice sooner. Levinson’s film zeroes in on whether Paterno, so singularly focused on football, ignored evidence or repressed knowledge of Sandusky’s misconduct.

While Paterno comes off as aloof, confused and naïve — “What is sodomy?” he asks his family — the film’s tortured conscience resides in the character of Schultz, played by Murphy Guyer. As news of Paterno’s firing plays out on a television, Schultz is pictured in his home, clutching a glass of dark liquor, before lapsing back into a memory of 2001.

Atsushi Nishijima, HBO

The flashback is the film’s mechanism for introducing the contents of a now-infamous email, in which Schultz, Curley, and Spanier sealed a pact that prosecutors would later argue allowed Sandusky to abuse more children. In the email, which was central to the prosecution’s case against Spanier, the former president agreed with Curley’s suggestion that Penn State not report Sandusky’s showering incident to authorities, but rather to the Second Mile, a charity that Sandusky had founded and used to groom victims.

In the film, Spanier’s email is closely paraphrased by Curley, who describes the plan over the phone to Schultz, who is clearly conflicted.

“Graham says the only downside is if Jerry doesn’t get it and this happens again, then we’re vulnerable for not having reported it,” says Curley, who is played by Steve Coulter. “But we can deal with that down the road.”

During Spanier’s criminal trial, in 2017, Schultz appeared on the verge of tears while describing this decision, which he called “a mistake.” They should have reported Sandusky, as originally planned, to Pennsylvania’s Department of Public Welfare, Schultz testified.

In the dramatized phone call between Curley and Schultz, Curley asserts that Paterno has agreed with the plan not report the 2001 incident, adding that Paterno knew about the 1998 investigation. Those assertions are sure to rile up the Paterno faithful, who have questioned how much the coach knew about the 1998 incident and argued that Paterno fulfilled his duties by reporting the 2001 incident to Curley and Schultz.

Even so, there is evidence that Paterno was kept abreast of the 1998 investigation. In an email during the period, Curley told Schultz that “coach is anxious to know” about the case. During Spanier’s criminal trial, Curley confirmed that he was referring to Paterno.

Levinson, whose directorial credits include Wag the Dog and Diner, says he did not set out to render a verdict on the coach.

“I’m not following an agenda or trying to tell the audience to take a certain side in regards to Coach Paterno,” Levinson said in news release. “The film lays out the elements of the story and leaves you to make your own judgment. There are times when you may feel one way, and times when you may feel a totally different way, and I think that’s what makes the piece so compelling.

“Joe Paterno was known as an honorable man, an educator, a humanitarian — so trying to make sense out of what happened is, for me, the most fascinating aspect of the story,” he continued. “What did he understand? What did he not understand?”

A Bruising Portrayal

For a university that has struggled to put the Sandusky scandal behind it, Paterno feeds the narrative that the Penn State’s leadership prioritized reputation management over the welfare of children. That is a portrayal that offends supporters of these men, and some at Penn State pre-emptively dismissed the film as unfair.

The portrayal of Spanier is not central to the film, but it is bruising nonetheless. Paterno takes time, for example, to cast doubt on Spanier’s critical decision at the outset of the crisis to issue a statement of “unconditional support” for Curley and Schultz. The president was widely criticized for the statement, which appeared preoccupied with circling the wagons around his colleagues. The film puts this critique in the mouth of its titular character, who grouses to Spanier that the statement is “a stupid thing to say.”

More cutting is what Paterno says of the president after he leaves the room.

“Oh boy. Box of rocks,” Pacino says with gravelly contempt. “He wants to be everybody’s friend. He’s gonna get himself fired. Watch.”

This scene plays on a recurring suggestion that Spanier, who became a national figure in his own right over the course of a widely admired 16-year presidency, was hubristic and naïve. At its heart, Paterno is preoccupied with these themes, casting the most powerful men at Penn State within a parable about the human capacity for rationalization and the consequences of unchecked power.

Jack Stripling covers college leadership, particularly presidents and governing boards. Follow him on Twitter @jackstripling, or email him at jack.stripling@chronicle.com.