Visualizing Words: The Adaptation of Intruder in the Dust From Novel into Film

Clarence Brown’s film Intruder in the Dust is a fantastic rendition of William Faulkner’s novel of the same title. Juano Hernandez delivers a powerful performance as Lucas Beauchamp. In my opinion, I think the film’s spotlight is centered on Lucas instead of Chick from Hernandez’s stand alone performance. This is a significant difference from the novel because in the film the world we perceive is not mediated through Chick’s dominating, narratorial consciousness. From novel to film, the focal emphasis has shifted from a white to a black racial perspective.

Chick Mallison is played by Claude Jarman Jr. Even though Jarman is a young actor and his acting skills may not have developed fully at the time, his performance of Chick is weak. At times it appears as though he is uncertain if he is on the correct filming set, which is a harsh criticism but honest nonetheless. What adds insult to injury is the outperforming of a white character by a black character. Hernandez’s Puerto Rican ethnicity, however, makes this a little less hard to swallow for the white audience. If he was an African American actor residing in the US then public reactions to the film-especially in the South because Southerns were apprehensive about having a film about lynching made on location-may have taken a turn for the worst. This is one of the many hints in the film of the race relations in the then current sociopolitical context of the American South.

Another example of the race relations that leaks through in the adaptation from novel to film is evident from Elzie Emanuel’s performance of Aleck Sander. In the novel, Faulkner depicts Aleck Sander as possessing practical intelligence, which is apparent from his closeness to nature, his ability to improvise when there is only one shovel present by using a plank of wood to dig with in the graveyard scene, his handling of the horse, Highboy, his ability to spot a mule coming towards them in the dark of night, and his knowledge of the presence of quicksand. Faulkner juxtaposes Aleck with Chick who posses intellectual intelligence. However, both characters compliment each other because the intelligence that one lacks is supplemented by the other. In this sense, they may be interpreted as alter-egos of each.

On the other hand, in the film, Elzie Emanuel was forced to perform Aleck Sander in the stereotypical manner of the comic, coon figure with bulging, bug eyes and dialogue that implies his dim-wittedness. Aleck’s give-and-take relationship with Chick in the novel becomes a give-and-give relationship in the film because of his subservient role as Chick’s black servant. This is apparent in the graveyard scene where Chick calls the shots and Aleck does what he is told in a passive, servile manner. Brown establishes the postion of Aleck’s social status in relation to Chick in the flashback sequence at the start of the film that recalls Chick’s African-American cultural experience at Lucas’s house after in fell into the creek. In this scene, Chick attempts to transform Lucas’s moral deed into a financial deed that is fulfilled by a monetary transaction when he offers Lucas money. Lucas refuses to subvert the decency of his hospitality by refusing to accept Chick’s money. Chick fails to realise the lesson-some deeds cannot be paid for- Lucas is trying to teach him. Chick retaliates by attempting to exercise his power over Lucas from his position in the racial hierarchy of the white hegemonic society of the South. Chick does this by dropping the coins he has offered Lucas. There is a close-up of Chick’s white hand as he drops the coins on the floor. The camera follows the trajectory of one of the rolling coins with a close up of it, which conveys the dramatic intensity of the moment. Lucas responds by demanding Aleck Sander to pick up the coins and to return them to Chick. It is in this shot, when Aleck is in a state of genuflection-a position of deep respect for a superior-that Chick’s superior status over Aleck becomes visually solidified in our memory.

The significance of the recurrent motif of hands in the film also reinforces Chick’s relationship to Aleck, which in many ways is a microcosmic depiction of America’s race relations. The close-up shot of Aleck’s black hand positioned above Chick’s as he places the money in to Chick’s hand suggests his aforementioned servile role and Aleck’s give-and-give relationship with Chick, but it may also be interpreted as suggesting the economy of slavery and black subjugation. The rise and development of the South may be attributed to slavery. Slave plantations were a capitalist enterprise, which were highly profitable. Owning slaves in the South was an advantageous strategy because slaves were used as field hands to pick cotton, the staple crop of the South and while cotton was not being harvested they were used to grow corn, which further supplemented their wealth. Therefore, the act of a black character putting money in the hand of a white character is reminiscent of the Antebellum South when slavery generated money.

In a similar vein, the hand motif is also indicative of Chick’s relationship to Lucas. In the second jail scene when Chick returns to Lucas’s cell to talk to Lucas alone, there is a close-up shot of Lucas’s black and Chick’s white hands clutching either side of the cell door. The rapid cross-cutting of the camera angles from inside and outside of the cell obscures one’s ability to differentiate between either one. This camera work implies the disintegration of the divisions between captivity and freedom and guilty and innocence. Therefore, despite being outside the cell, Lucas is imprisoned also because he is in a psychological prison constructed and imposed on him by the racist society he lives in.

Also the camera only displays certain parts of Lucas and Chick which implies that they can only see and understand each other to a certain extent. The cell door that divides them and disrupts their comprehension of each other could be interpreted as a physical representation of the social mores and codes preventing proper race relations.

Furthermore, Lucas’s prison does not only serve the purpose of incapacitation for societal protection. Instead, the prison cell protects him from societal retribution by means of lynching. This inversion of the main method of criminal punishment and justice suggests the perversion of justice in this society as innocent people are imprisoned to protect them from the guilty people who are free to orchestrate a lynch mob outside. Critics contend that the deflation of justice is conveyed at the start of the film from the flat tire of the sheriff’s car. This is evident in the film from the shot of Crawford Gowrie standing under the tree with a lit match in hand after Chick, Stevens and the Sheriff arrive at the prison. The cut to the inside of the prison establishes a juxtaposition between both. It is also apparent when the lynch mob has gathered outside the prison and Crawford approaches with a Jerry can of petrol in hand.

The stand-off scene between Crawford and Miss Habersham is wrath with a high level of dramatic intensity as the preceding camera shots focused on the Jerry can in Crawford’s hand and the trail of petroleum spilling from it as he approached the prison entrance. This trail of petrol that leads back to its source-the petrol pump-may be interpreted as the consequences of Crawford’s actions. In order to intimidate Miss Habersham, Crawford splashes petroleum at her feet, and strikes a match-a recurring action, which is visible in practically every shot of him in the film. The camera focuses on Crawford as he holds the lighting match in hand. If he ignites the petrol that would burn the prison and Miss Habersham then his actions would backfire on him, and the fire he ignited would burn back to its source, causing an uncontrollable chain reaction of events that would culminate in his own death by lynching for committing the unforgivable act of unlawfully killing an innocent, white woman. However, the fire of the match, which may be interpreted as Crawford’s masculinity or his source of power is extinguished by Miss Habersham.

Consequently, the climax of the film also differs significantly from the novel. The novel culminates with Crawford’s suicide, which has been interpreted by critics as an evasion of the law. The film, on the other hand, attempts to emphasize that justice prevails while the sub-text of the film suggests otherwise, as evident from the aforementioned, second jail scene. The filming of Crawford Gowrie in the backseat of the Sheriff’s car-the same position of Lucas Beauchamp at the start of the film- demonstrates not only the cyclical structure of the film, but also the cyclicality of the history of America’s race relations as society realizes that those who were thought to be innocent are guilty and vice versa.

 

Reliving the Jazz-Age and Ethnic Passing: Boardwalk Empire and Martin Scorsese (01 February 2011)

Boardwalk Empire is the title of a new, American television series, screen-written and produced by Terence Winter who is the producer of The Sopranos, that premiered on the new Sky Atlantic channel tonight. What captured my attention most about this television series from its trailer is the fact that it is considered to be the most expensive pilot episode of television history, which is probably due to Martin Scorsese directing the first episode.

I am a big fan of Scorsese’s movies and we also discussed some of his work in class. We examined his depiction of Irish-American ethnicity in his latest gangster film The Departed(2007). I also chose to write an essay on Scorsese’s handling of the themes of identity and ethnicity in the post-9/11 context of The Departed. My in-depth research into the topic of Irish-American identity and ethnicity, from reading the critics like Diane Negra who discusses the formation and application of Irish-American identity and ethnicity pre-and post-9/11, provided me valuable knowledge that is applicable to other texts dealing with Irish-Americans such as Boardwalk Empire.

The Boardwalk Empire series is set in the Prohibition era, which is a period of American history we discussed in class last term. We examined the depiction of immigrants and the immigrant experience in Jacob Riiss’s and Lewis Hine’s photography, and the representation of Irish-American ethnicity in James Cagney’s films The Public Enemy(1931). We also discussed his performance in Angels With Dirty Faces(1938) and Yankee Doodle Dandie(1942). In a similar vein, Boardwalk Empire is also relevant to my research of American society and the immigrant experience because it deals with Irish-Americans immigrants in Atlantic City.

Boardwalk Empire is an adaption of a chapter from Nelson Johnson’s novel Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times and Corruption of Atlantic City. Enuch “Nucky” Thompson, who is based on the historical criminal kingpin, Enoch L. Johnson, is performed by Steve Buscmi who also acted in The Sopranos. This allegorical descendant of Tony Soprano is and will not be the only echo from the series. Unlike The Sopranos, however, the leading villain is not Italian-American, but instead is an Irish-American gangster who is performed by an Italian-American actor with part-Irish ancestry.

Ethnic passing appears to be a recent trend in Scorsese’s filmography as we also see in The Departed, Billy Costigan, an Irish-American state trooper who goes undercover to infiltrate Frank Costello’s mob, performed by the Italian-American actor, Leonardo DiCaprio.

Another of Scorsese’s films that will contain ethnic passing is The Irishman, which has been confirmed as a future release. The Irishman is an adaptation of Charles Brandt’s I Heard You Paint Houses. Robert De Niro, an Italian-American actor, will play the leading role of the mob assassin, Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran who is believed to have committed 25 or more mob murders, and allegedly killed Jimmy Hoffa, an American labour union leader and author. Joe Pesci and Al Pacino will also star along side De Niro. Scorsese, De Niro and Pesci previously worked together on a trio of gangster movies, Raging Bull(1980), Goodfellas(1990), and Casino(1995), while De Niro and Pacino only shared screen time in Heat(1995) and Righteous Kill(2008).

With that in mind, race, ethnicity and immigration are central concerns of Boardwalk Empire. As a democratic, Nucky Thompson’s power stems from his reliance on the black peoples’ vote. The writers emphasize this in order to convey that Nucky is not a racist, unlike other whites, which may be read as an attempt to deconstruction the history of negative race relations between the Irish-American and African-American communities.

Immigration and ethnicity are conveyed through the multi-ethnic geography of the world of Boardwalk Empire. Atlantic city is an Irish ethnic enclave, New York City is a Jewish ethnic enclave, and Chicago is an Italian ethnic enclave, but things are not as simple as this as the plot reveals.

Margaret Schroeder is an Irish-American immigrant who is undoubtedly one of the best characters on the show. Her rags-to-riches story of rising from nothing is clearly meant to portray an American Dream with a nightmarish streak.

Although the social history of Boardwalk Empire may not be 100% accurate, the true beauty of it is its authentic re-envisioning and perfect replication of a long-gone, pivotal era of American history that is brought back to life with remarkable cinematography. From what I have seen so far, The Sopranos has been reborn. It may be a different era but the rules are the same.

“We Shall Remain”: Documenting the Native American Experience

While carrying out online research for my thesis topic, American literature and the EN6016, Research Skills module, I discovered a very interesting documentary series titled “We Shall Remain” on the PBS website, which provides a contemporary rendition of Native American history.

Not only is this documentary series useful for providing a historical context for the Native American literature I am reading, but the PBS website also contains other webpages on American literature and film that are relevant to taught section of my course.

One website that is a part of the PBS website and is certainly worth mentioning is The American Novel. This website discusses the evolution of the American novel by covering a temporal trajectory of about 200 years. It also provides an in-dept discussion of about 50 authors and novel, along with acknowledging the literary movements they influenced or inspired.

What is particularly remarkable about this website is its easy-to-use interface. Everything is clearly laid out so navigation is simple. The website also divides its categories into 4 sections: ‘Literary Timeline’; ‘Six Novel Ideas’; ‘My Favorite Novel’; ‘Elements of the Novel’; and ‘Top Novel Lists’.

The ‘Six Novel Ideas’ section is exceptionally useful for any scholar of American literature as it uses six themes as a lens in order to discuss the American novel. The six themes are: American Dream, Melting Pot, The Colour Line, Crisis of Faith, Violence and The Forbidden. By exploring the American novel in this manner, it makes it very easy to draw thematic links and connections between other novels that share the same themes, which is what I am expected to do as a student of American literature and film.

The ‘Elements of the Novel’ section is also useful for building an in-dept knowledge of a novel or author as one can take an entertaining, interactive quizz that tests one’s knowledge of, as the title suggests, elements of the novel.

The aforementioned website is only one example of what the PBS website has to offer. Other interesting and educational website explore topics such as the American Civil War, slave narratives, American photography, ‘The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow’, and the Vietnam War, to name but a very few because there is a comprehensive list of program title from A-Z that can be viewed here.

Here is the rest of episode 1:
Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Part 6:

Part 7:

Part 8:

Part 9:

Part 10 (Credits):

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (02 December 2010)

****SPOILER WARNING*****READ NO FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE NOVEL AND PLAN TO READ IT.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is like no other book I have read to date. Foer transcends the boundaries of his medium by including unusual narrative devices such as images, blank pages, different type sets, absence of punctuation, circling of words in red, codes, items from the story such as business cards and receipts, and an ingenius, 12-page flip book at the end of the book. Although some critics would disagree, I think all these visual stimuli contribute to what is written in the book and in some instances they substitue what cannot be said or expressed in words. Foer’s literary artistry and ingenuity is one of the many reasons why I adore this book and why I struggled to put it down once I commenced reading it. I read this book from cover to cover in one sitting, which is something I normally don’t do, and as I approached the end of the book I didn’t want it to end because I had become fully sutured into Oskar Schell’s world.

Oskar Schell is a unique, humorous and gifted nine year old boy from New York whose father, Thomas Schell, died in the World Trade Centre terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The treasure hunt expedition game that Oskar and his Dad used to play when he was alive continues after his death as Oskar embarks on a mission to find the lock for the key he discovers inside a vase, sealed in an envelope with the word ‘Black’ written on it. Oskar is convenced his father has left him this clue to solve, but in reality this game is a figement of Oskar’s infantile imagination, which becomes a journey of self-exploration and discovery as he attempts to accept and come to terms with the trauma of lossing his father. This game his imagination constructs becomes a means of transcending grief and maintaining a connection with his father, whose death haunts his consciousness. Oskar keeps a journal and the pictures he takes and adds to it are included in the novel.

However, the trauma of 9/11 and Thomas Schell’s death is not the only trama in the novel. Oskar’s grandparents are both survivors of the Dresden Bombings of WWII and their love affair is reunited when they meet in America. These two alternate story lines run parallel throughout the course of the novel but they eventually merge at the end, with a startling revelation that Oskar’s grandfather hadn’t left and had been present in his grandmother’s house all along. Oskar’s grandfather’s withdrawal from the world, and his psychosomatic speech loss are symptoms of his trauma. His inability to communicate implies the inability to express trauma which is a contentious topic among critics of trauma fiction.

Some scholars of trauma studies consider trauma fiction to be a paradox because if the experience of a traumatic event cannot be expressed in language or representation then how can it be narrativized in fiction? (Whitehead 3). This is where critics of Foer’s novel come down hardest on his work. However, Anne Whitehead in her book, Trauma Fiction contends that trauma theory provides new methods of conceptualizing trauma, and suggests that the focus is shifted to why the past is remembered.

Consequently, Trauma studies is an area of research I am interested in. I think Foer conveys Oskar and his grandparents’ trauma well through the utilisation of narrative devices like the few pages of code that represent what Oskar’s grandfather has dialed into the phone dial in an attempt to comunicate without language. The difficulties with representing trauma with language is suggested by the blank pages in the novel that Oskar’s grandmother creates by forgetting to put the typewriter ribbon in before she commences typing. As well as that, I think Foer’s amalgamation of humour and sadness counterbalances each other to create an emotional engaging novel that takes the reader on a memorable, roller coster journey with a unexpected, cathartic climax.

Works Cited

Whitehead, Anne. Trauma Fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2004. Print.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBkvw6LGxSo.%5D

Gold by Name but None by Nature: Michael Gold’s Jews Without Money.

Although Jews Without Money (1930) is classed as a proletarian novel, I think its admirability is not due to its proletarian nature. This novel is a tribute to the ability of people, in this case especially Jews, who transcend their circumstances in order to create a life for themselves.

Jews Without Money is a pseudo-autobiographical, fictionalized account of Michael Gold’s growing up in the Lower East Side, his conversion to communism that ends with a temporal leap to his present vision of how to liberate oneself from social injustice and poverty. The novel does not contain a coherent narrative, but rather a series of impressionistic snapshots or vignettes of the Jewish immigrant experience, their daily struggle for survival in the inhospitable environment of America. Although their is an absence of subsistence, there is not an absence of community as they band together in order triumph over their conditions, which suggests that materiality does not define their humanity, but rather their spirit.

What is most remarkable about Gold’s novel is his lurid depiction of the conditions of poverty and the underbelly of New York City’s ethnic neighbourhood. Gold captures it all from the criminals, prostitues and gangs to the vile, infestation of bed bugs in the tenements of the Lower East Side. Subsequently, the vivid picture Gold paints has attracted accusations of sensationalism from critics of the novel.

As the tile of the novel suggests, Gold’s objective is to deconstruct the stereotypical image of the rich Jew by narrativizing the poverty-stricken conditions that the majority of Jewish immigrants grew up in.

Call It Spectacular: Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep (16 November 2010)

Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep is a remarkable book, depicting a realistic chronicle of the Jewish immigrant experience in America, through the infantile eyes and stream-of-consciousness of David Schearl. With two intertwining stories, the novel immerses the reader deep in the world of New York’s immigrant ghettos, and David and his family’s daily struggle with attempting to acclimatize to their harsh and foreign milieu.

David’s first experience of America becomes a microcosmic specular reflection of every immigrants’ experience, which we as readers become part of. Reading this book is a willful, submission of one’s mind to the literary mediumship of David’s consciousness, which at first feels peculiar as one readjusts to a puerile perception of the world, but the further one reads the more one becomes enveloped in his state of consciousness. David’s struggle with America, its streets, languages and people become our struggle because as readers we are immigrants or tourists in the foreign world of David’s consciousness. We are reading this novel in our familiar tongue of English, but it is narrated from the perspective of a foreign narrator, who is attempting to comprehend the foreign language and world of America, in Yiddish. Roth turns the scales, by positioning the English-speaking reader in the role of a foreigner, akin to David.

The language of David’s stream-of-consciousness is poetic English, while spoken English is portrayed with a Yiddish inflection. In the Introduction to Call It Sleep, Alfred Kazin claims that “Roth caricatures the terrible English […] in order to bring out the necessary contrast with the Yiddish spoken at home” (xv). This is true to a certain extent, but if we analyse Roth’s use of English closely then an alternative reading may be formed. The language of David’s stream-of-consciousness is Yiddish, but it is translated and written for the reader in English. Therefore, it could be interpreted as not legitimate English or David’s English because he is not communicating his thoughts in English. They are translated into English for us, while the English dialogue in the text is not translated and is spoken in English with a Yiddish lint.

This interplay with language provides a glimpse of the struggle Roth and many other writers of immigrant texts face when attempting to convey a multi-lingual world with a mono- or bi-lingual means of expression. The difficulties of this is also implied further from the semantic ambiguity of the bilingual punning of David’s name, which means different things in Yiddish and Hebrew. In Hebrew, David means ‘beloved’, while in Yiddish David means ‘scissors’.

This role-reversal of native and foreigner is one of the outstanding accomplishments of Roth’s novel, which also evokes the use of these two binaries in American society. Can an American be considered a true native of America, if they are merely descendants of European immigrants who invaded the native land of the indigenous people? Are Americans not all in the same boat (pardon the immigration-connoting pun), with regards being foreigners and immigrants? I find this concept particularly interesting because my research interests include Native American literature and culture, colonialism and post-colonialism.

What is also worth noting about Call it Sleep, in comparison to other immigrant stories, is the juxtaposition of the old world with the new world. David’s infantile amnesia prevents him from fully remembering his country of birth and he is left with only vague memories. His experience of the new world, however, is still foreign, which situates him in the immigrant status as his parents. David’s conceptualisation of the old world is shaped by his parents’ and family’s recollections of it. The subtle contrasts between the old and the new world reveals Roth’s attitudes towards them.

Since the majority of the novel is communicated from David’s perspective, there is an absence of an omniscient narrator to provide us with a total view of the immigrant ghetto of New York City. As readers, therefore, we are provided with a fragmented and restricted view of America and American society.

From the culmination of themes towards the end of the novel, however, critics interpret the railroad tracks scene as a moment of transformation, rebirth or redemption. Hana Wirth-Nesher claims that “David becomes a naturalized American by becoming a Christ symbol (460). This is plausible to the extent that David’s fascination with Christian symbolism and ritual objects that litter the novel. If David’s near-death experience on the railroad tracts could be read as similar to Jesus’s self-sacrifice then this reading could be interpreted negatively as condemning Jesus’s actions. David’s actions if fulfilled could have resulted in his death, which may be classed as suicide, but he failed to achieve divine communion. Therefore, his actions were in vain.

Consequently, Call It Sleep provides an insightful depiction of the immigrant experience, especially the Jewish immigrant experience, in America. Although there are certain scenes in the book that could be edited because they are protracted, overall it is a spectacularly vivid read.

Works Cited

Kazin, Alfred. Introduction. Roth Call It Sleep ix-xx.

Roth, Henry. Call It Sleep. New York: Picador, 1991. Print.

Wirth-Nesher, Hana. “Between Mother Tongue and Native Language in Call It Sleep.” Afterword. Roth Call It Sleep 443-462.

The Cop and Criminal in US: Irish-American Ethnicity in The Public Enemy and The Departed.

The history of the representation of Irish-Americans in American cinema demonstrates a trajectory curve that mirrors their gradual assimilation (which American cinema partly contributed to) into American society. Contemporary depictions of Irish-Americans have come a long way from the stereotypical images of aggressive, alcoholic, working-class ‘Micks’, ‘Paddys’ or ‘Boy-Os’ of early American cinema, which were short-lived because of the influx of a new wave of immigrants into America who were deemed to be less ‘white’ than the Irish. As a result, the Irish were repositioned further up on the ‘white’ spectrum and were utilized as an exemplification of assimilation. Benshoff and Griffin observe that “the Irish were regarded as an ethnicity and a nationality, whereas they had previously been considered a race” (59).

In the 1930s, however, a few gangster films portrayed Irish-Americans in an anti-Irish light by depicting Irish-American criminality and their involvement in organized crime. This negative image was counter-balanced in some films by the inclusion of the image of the Irish-American law abiding citizen. Both these images are evident in The Public Enemy, with Tom Power’s policeman father and patriotic brother, and in The Departed with Costigan and Dignam who are the most law abiding despite their few deviations. This cop-criminal image of Irish ethnicity is also present in films like Gone Baby Gone(2007) and the most recent film, The Town(2010).

William A. Wellman’s The Public Enemy (1931) and Martin Scorsese’s The Departed(2007) are two examples of the way Irish ethnicity is represented simultaneously as both positive and negative on screen. As typical of the gangster genre, there is an abundance of violence in both films, which also demonstrate an interconnectivity between ethnicity and violence.

James Cagney wanted to transcend the stereotypical representations of the Irish-American by relocating that figure from the social stratum of the ghetto to the bourgeoise classes, which he achieves in ‘G’-Men (Smith qtd. in Barton 5). Cagney’s most memorable persona is that of the quasi-psychotic and unpredictably explosive gangster in The Public Enemy and White Heat.

Kevin Rockett claims that the success of The Public Enemy (1931) did for the Irish what Little Caesar(1930) did for the Italians (29). However, it also developed Cagney’s stardom with his performance of Tom Powers, the Prohibition era Chicago gangster. Despite the fact that following the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929 Italian gangsters dominated Chicago’s underworld, there is an abundance of Irish ethnic references in the film. This comes across most powerfully from the importance of the matriarchy, familial loyalty and kinship in the Irish family system.

This is clearly established with the juxtaposition between Tom’s criminality and his brother Mike’s patriotism and abidance of the law. Tom disrupts family unity by engaging in criminality and disputing with his brother, Mike, over it. Rockett contends that the disruption of familial unity is solidified by the deliverance of Tom’s dead body to his mother, at the apogee of the film (29).

However, there is also an attempt at transcending ethnic identity in The Public Enemy. The suit is synonymous with the gangster image. In this film, like the majority of other gangster films, there is a scene where Tom goes to a tailor to get fitted for a suit. This scene conveys a numer of significant transformations. Tom’s acquisition of a suit, a symbol of wealth and civility, suggests he has ascended the social ladder from working-class irish immigrant, but he falsely attains this status by criminal means. Tom attempts to masquerade his authentic working-class, Irish identity by dressing in a suit, which could be interpreted as a denial of his Irish ethnic identity in order to pass as an upper-class American citizen. As can be seen from the film, his attempts at passing is a failure, which culminates in his death.

On the other hand, The Public Enemy‘s fixation with the mother figure is the opposite in The Departed. Colin Sullivan and Billy Costigan are limbo characters who are fixated with finding a father figure and satisfying their, what James Herzog calls in his book of the same title, ‘Father hunger’ (6). Sullivan’s and Costigan’s purgatorial status is also implied from the title of the film, which is taken from a Catholic prayer for the souls in purgatory. Their liminal status is a result of their ambiguous professions. Both Sullivan and Costigan switch between the identities of a cop and criminal. However, their liminality is also a result of their hyphenated, ethnic identities because they are both Irish and American, but neither fully one or the other. To fully achieve one identity is to deny the other because both cannot simultaneously coexist.

Sullivan is desparte to evade his Irish ethnic identity so that he can pass as a fully assimilated citizen of American society. This is suggested by his exclusion of photographs-visual signifiers of the history of his Irish ethnic identity-from his new, 7th floor apartment that is architecturally aligned with the golden globe of the State House. The position of Sullivan’s apartment in the structural stratification of the building symbolises his position in the social stratification of American society. He has risen from the Southie projects of his childhood upbringing to a position that overlooks society, which is also reflected by his profession in the Massachusetts State Police because as a detective his duty is to overlook society. Colin attempts to achieve complete severance from his ethnic roots in South Boston by cutting the last remaining sinew connecting him to it. Sullivan kills Costello-who is appropriately wearing a T-Shirt with ‘Irish’ written on it- to terminate his Irish ethnic past, but total eradication is only possible with his own death. The close up shot of the rat in line with the State house on the ledge of Sullivan’s apartment balcony suggests that a rat has simultaneously infiltrated the hierarchical social strata of American society and its law enforcement system.

In terms of a post-9/11 context, The Departed‘s reference to the absence of an appropriate father figure could be read not only psychologically, but also in political terms as suggesting the absence of an appropriate leader in the American patriarchy. During the aftermath of 9/11, George Bush was overly preoccupied with establishing ‘us-and-them’ binary oppositions in order to vindicate his ‘War on Terrorism’ and his attempt to take economic control of the rich oil resources of the Middle East.

The Departed‘s reference to the absence of a patriarchal figure in society, the ambiguity concerning patriotic loyalty, the blurring of the lines between good and evil, as suggested by the opposition of cop and criminal, could be perceived as a critical commentary on the post-9/11 historical context.

Consequently, both The Public Enemy and The Departed are prime examples of how Irish-American ethnicity is represented on screen in a positive and negative light by juxtaposing the Irish-American criminals against the Irish-American law-abiders and enforcers, which is another way for America to exemplifying the good and bad immigrant that has been portrayed since early American cinema in films like The Black Hand(1906).

Works Cited & Consulted

Barton, Ruth. ed. “Introduction.” Screening Irish-America: Representing Irish-America in Film and Television Dublin: Irish Academic P, 2009. 1-14. Print.

Benshoff, Harry M. and Sean Griffin. America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality at the Movies. Massachusetts: Blackwell, 2004. Print.

Herzog, James. Father Hunger: Explorations with Adults and Children. New Jersey: Analytic P, 2001. Print.

Rockett, Kevin. “The Irish Migrant and Film.” Screening Irish-America: Representing Irish-America in Film and Television Dublin: Irish Academic P, 2009. 17-44. Print.

 

Cultural Psychology of Immigration (07 October 2010)

While researching the immigrant experience and theories of immigration, I came across an excellent book called Cultural Psychology of Immigrants, edited by Ramaswami Mahalingam with a chapter by Silvia Pedraza on the immigrant experience in America. Pedraza deals with the major question concerning immigrant research that is what factors impel immigration and what can be attained from it? (34). Pedraza questions how to describe this process, whether it is “assimilation, adaptation, integration, incorporation and diasporic citizenship?” (34)

Pedraza also mentions the internal colonialism model that is a major challenge to assimilation theory. The theoretical aim of this model is to delineate the ways in which the experiences of racial minorities like the indigenous people such as Native Americans and the oldest immigrants such as Mexicans, Blacks and Puerto Ricans differentiate from White European immigrants’ experiences at the turn of the century.

The internal colonization model proposes that the experiences of the two groups differed significantly from white European immigrants because their race and colour determined their place and role in the production system they occupied (Pedraza 36; Blauner 400). Proponents of the theory believe this is a result of voluntary and involuntary migration and forced and unforced adoption of cultural values.

The internal colonisation model is relevant to my thesis topic research because I wish to examine how the traumatic effects of colonisation impacts upon Native American identity and culture.

Works Cited

Blauner, Robert. “Internal Colonialism and Ghetto Revolt.” Social Problems 16.4 (1969): 393-408. JSTOR. Web. 07 Oct. 2010.

Pedraza, Silvia. “Assimilation or Transnationalism?: Conceptual Models of the Immigrant Experience in America.” Cultural Psychology of Immigrants. Ed. Ramaswami Mahalingam. New Jersey: Erlbraum, 2007. Print.

Silent Star Breaks Sweetheart: The Irish-Immigrant Cinderella Story of Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley (1918) (12 October 2010)

Release date: 11 March 1918.
Director: Marshall Neilan (Irish-American).
Starring: Mary Pickford, Norman Kerry and William Scott.

Mary Pickford stars as Amarilly Jenkins, the Irish tenement dweller in the ethnic neighborhood of Clothes-line Alley, as the title of the film suggests. The linking of Amarilly with her ethnic neighbourhood is another example of conveying the ethnic geography of America, and the symbiotic relationship between urban setting and ethnic identity. In the film, the city is coded as a community, but it is also coded as a potentially dangerous place. This is conveyed by the exoticism and threatening nature of Chinatown where Terry gets shot at randomly, which is exemplifies America’s xenophobia from the influx foreign nationalities.

Pickford’s performance vindicates the vast fandom she attracted. Even though she is not performing as the American sweetheart, which is a persona molded by her fans, her star persona shines through Amarilly’s poverty-stricken veneer. Young observes that Pickford associated her Irishness with such virtues as hard working, resiliency, matriarchy and humour (65). These qualities are evident in her role as Amarilly and other characters she played.

The plot of the film is a fish-out-of-water tale with quasi-Cinderella overtones. The upper-class, gentleman falling in love with the poor, working-class girl is a familiar trope that has been rehashed many times since in movies like Pretty Woman(1990) and Maid in Manhattan(2002) to name but a few. Like the majority of movies employing this trope, an event occurs so the path of the poor, working-class woman converges with the upper-class man. This develops in Amarilly when Gordon is taken home by Amarilly after a fight breaks out. The fight scene that Amarilly engages with is comical because Pickford fully embraces the fighting-Irish stereotype. In a humorous and melodramatic fashion she pretends to roll up her imaginary sleeves and punches the air with her fist while jeering on Gordon and the other men as if she were one of the men about to engage in boxing.

This image of the rough-and-tumble, tomboyish Amarilly, which is a symptom of living in the dog-eat-dog world of the immigrant tenement, juxtaposes sharply with the image of the upperclass, social butterfly that Mrs. Stuyvesant Philips’ attempts to create, as part of her upper-class Pygmalion experiment. Amarilly’s make-over involves the washing away of the filth of the tenement, but this process is also an ethnic cleansing, as the defining, physiognomic features of her Irish ethnicity-her wild, frizzy hair-are cleansed, tamed and contorted in order to conform to the WASP stands of beauty and to see if she can be equated with upper-class society.

The differences between the two ethnic groups-White Anglo-Saxon Protestants and the poor, working-class Irish immigrants-is accentuated at the society dinner. The dance the Jenkins performed during the dance scene symbolise their Irish ethnic identity and implies the stereotype of the Irish as dancers, which is intermingled with the stereotype of the fighting-Irish from the ‘Round 1’ and ‘Round 2’ inter-titles that are displayed between each round of dancing. Their ability to dance is seen as an innate thing. However, the inability of the society matrons to perform the other’s dance suggests one’s inability to perform another ethnic identity. As can be seen, Amarilly’s make-over doesn’t make her an upper-class, WASP lady because it is inauthentic. Her true ethnic identity cannot be contained under the false facade Mrs. Philips has applied to her. Even though her previous Irish-American comic dress is striped off her and replaced with the frilly dress of civility, her ethnic identity prevails, which suggests that ethnicity transcends materiality, and is not something that can be worn and discarded like a piece of clothing.

This is also apparent from Amarilly’s family who despite having dressed up for the occasion of the dinner, cannot retain the demeanor of upperclass civility for long. Ma Jenkins inadvertently offends one of the matrons by questioning her about if she does laundry and her reaction suggests her working-class background (Young 72).

Ma Jenkins is performed by Kate Price. As well as Pickford, she is a truly amazing character because of her depiction of the stereotypical Irish mother-figure, which is both humorous and sentimental. Her ability to raise a family in a foreign country without a husband demonstrates her resilience and strength, but it is also a reflection of what some immigrant mothers endured. Shannon maintains that Irish immigrants had the “weakest family structure of any of the major European immigrant groups” (81).

Although seriocomic-romance films are not a part of my favorite genre viewing-list, I admire this film for its realistic portrayal of the Irish immigrants’ experience, the film’s setting, which replicates tenement dwellings and the depiction of the prejudicial treatment of immigrants by the upper-class, WASP community, which is predicated on their socioeconomic and ethnic status. In this film, however, Irishness is represented in a certain way, which stems from theatre and vaudeville. Despite the all-too-predictable happy-ending of the film that provides us a glimpse of Amarilly’s life five years into the future, where her clothes and the act of performing leisure time- as they appear to be on a Sunday drive in the country-implies the elevation of her social status from gutter-snipe to Bourgeoise, middle-class, and her assimilation into mainstream American society. Leisure time-the act of retreating to the pastoral-is associated with authenticity because one retreats to the pastoral in order to be renewed. This is apparent in other films such as Deliverance(1972), Grizzly Man(2005) and Into the Wild(2007). In Deliverance the retreat to the pastoral of the remote, Georgia wilderness is an attempt to reassert masculinity, which is a problematic goal as can be seen from the film.

Works Cited & Consulted

Barton, Ruth. ed and intro. Screening Irish America: Representing Irish-Americans in Film and Television. Dublin: Irish Academic P, 2009. Print.

Shannon, Christopher. “The Bowery Cinderella: Gender, Class and Community in Irish-American Film Narrative.” em>Screening Irish America: Representing Irish-Americans in Film and Television. Dublin: Irish Academic P, 2009. 77-90. Print.

Young, Gwenda. “Funny Girls: Early American Screen Comdiennes and Ethnicity.” Screening Irish America: Representing Irish-Americans in Film and Television. Dublin: Irish Academic P, 2009. 61-76. Print.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wBTg-Qo378&feature=related%5D

Paradise Alley 06 October 2010

Figure 1: Paradise Alley Book Cover. Amazon. Web. 10 Oct. 2010.

Today I read Kevin Baker’s Paradise Alley because it also touches upon issues raised in Gangs of New York. In Gangs of New York, Scorsese focuses on the immigrant experience from a predominantly male centric perspective. While, on the other hand, Baker’s Paradise Alley portrays it from a female perspective with eyewitness immediacy. Baker’s female characters demonstrate moments of early feminism when they unite in a few scenes of terror. These acts of bravery imply that immigrant women require equal amounts of courage and endurance as the men.