It’s funny how art so often imitates life. Unless you’re Larry Summers.

As I considered the former Harvard University president and treasury secretary’s fall from grace, I couldn’t help but be reminded of “The Blue Angel.” This 1930 film tells the story of a stern but respectable teacher at a boys school. He is confronted with a problem: Many of his students forsake their studies to frequent a nightclub called the Blue Angel, which features an alluring cabaret performer played by Marlene Dietrich.

The professor visits the club and becomes infatuated with the much younger Dietrich. Eventually, he falls in love and marries her. She is unfaithful, and the sordid nature of their relationship ruins his teaching career, as well as his once impeccable standing in the community. Depending on your point of view, the professor becomes either a figure of derision or a tragic victim.

Which echoes elements of the real-life story of Summers, a wunderkind who began attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at age 16 to pursue economics. In his late 20s, he became one of the youngest tenured professors in Harvard’s history. His career ranged beyond the academic: During the Bill Clinton administration, he was selected to be treasury secretary, and he was also a major financial adviser to Wall Street.

In 2001, Harvard selected him as its president. His tenure was controversial, but his reputation emerged relatively unscathed. Following his presidency, he was named to a distinguished teaching post at Harvard. He became director of the National Economic Council and was one of the most respected counselors to the Democratic Party.

Then came Jeffrey Epstein. A full accounting of the late Epstein’s malevolence and contraventions of the law is not possible here. Suffice it to say, he was poison for any public figure found to be associating with him.

In 2003, a Harvard Crimson article described a “special connection” between Summers and Epstein that predated Summers’ Harvard presidency. Flight records indicate that Summers flew on Epstein’s plane multiple times. Epstein had exceptional access to Harvard, but the relationship between the two did not draw much public attention until late last year, when documents released by Congress revealed frequent emails between the two men before Epstein’s 2019 arrest.

The details of the emails are particularly damning. An ongoing theme is Summers’ request for Epstein’s advice in pursuing a possible tryst with a younger woman outside his marriage. At one point, Epstein calls himself Summers’ “wing man.” He continued to have ties with Epstein even after the latter’s first guilty plea in court. There are other embarrassing exchanges between the two, and Summers has since characterized his relationship with Epstein as “a major error in judgment.”

But the damage is done, as Summers’ career is beginning to resemble that of the professor in “The Blue Angel.” In fact, Summers would have been much better off falling in love with Dietrich’s nightclub chanteuse.

In addition to whatever harm Summers has done to his family through his Epstein association, his career and his public persona have been irrevocably damaged. He is no longer a contributor to Bloomberg News, and the American Economic Association has barred him for life, prohibiting him from membership or speaking at any events. He has stepped away from a string of roles — including at OpenAI and Yale University’s Budget Lab — and has taken leave from teaching and leadership duties at Harvard.

The tragedy of “The Blue Angel” is not that the professor falls, but that he never believes he will. Summers’ story carries the same lesson. Intelligence does not excuse judgment. Status does not suspend consequence.

And reputations, once broken, do not return to their former shape.

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Dr. Cory Franklin is a retired intensive care physician and the author of “The COVID Diaries 2020-2024: Anatomy of a Contagion as It Happened.”

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