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In the discussion about the Oscars earlier in the week, I did some complaining about "Green Book" winning Best Picture award, and how the Academy retreated to a safe, comfortable choice instead of rewarding a bolder, more confrontational movie.
But after everybody moved on to other things, I felt like I was being hypocritical: I don't like it when other people pass judgment on something they've never seen, and here I was, passing judgment on a movie I skipped during its theatrical run.
Fortunately, my favorite multiplex in Sheepshead Bay was giving Green Book an Oscar Week run, so I decided to put my money where my mouth is and check it out on the big screen.
The first thing you have to accept about "Green Book" is that it's NOT about noted pianist and composer Donald Shirley (played by Mahershala Ali). Shirley is a major character, but it's the story of his chauffeur/bodyguard Anthony ("Tony Lip") Villalonga (played by Viggo Mortensen). Shirley has maybe two or three scenes without Tony present, and the movie is filtered through Tony's viewpoint. This is to be expected, since it's based on Tony's memoirs and the screenplay was co-written by his son. Whether you feel Dr. Shirley deserves a more in-depth cinematic appraisal--and, oh yeah, I do--this is what we got, folks.
If you can make that adjustment, the movie goes down a lot easier. There's no question that Ali and Mortensen are a tremendous buddy team up there, with Mortensen's rough-and-tumble Tony bouncing off of Ali's refined Shirley like a Kennedy-era Felix and Oscar. Besides the broader humor director Peter Farrelly once rode to fame (like the infamous fried chicken scene), there are moments of quiet grace, like when Shirley looks out from the road at a group of black field workers, or when Shirley helps Tony, Cyrano-style, write letters to his wife with words that match the love he feels for her. (The latter sets up a final moment that is spot on perfect.)
But, given all that, my original critique stands. Despite the scenes of Southern inhospitality, there is very little sense of danger here. The movie is period perfect--maybe too perfect. The vintage cars, the dining room silver and the brass trumpets are burnished to a soft glow. The racist scarecrows strut across the screen, to be knocked down by Tony's Bronx moxie or Dr. Shirley's moral rectitude. And even when the guys are busted by racist cops in Alabama, Dr. Shirley can pull a deus ex machina out of his immaculate suit and the tour sails on. (More on that one in a minute.) There is rain in this movie, and dust--but nothing really gets muddy.
Similarly, there's never the slightest risk that Tony is ever going to screw over Dr. Shirley. Yes, he's a typical early sixties racist in the opening scenes, but once he's on the road with Dr. Shirley, his loyalties are never in question. Is he going to peel off with Dominic in Memphis? Fuhgeddaboudit! Even the incident at the YMCA doesn't dent Tony's fealty for a moment. (Which kind of begs the question: if Tony was cool with "all kinds" while working at the Copacabana, is his "journey to tolerance" that much of a journey?)
As for Donald Shirley, I'll leave the arguments about verisimilitude to the respective families and the historians. But even within the film itself, there are contradictions in the presentation that indicate a "flattening" of the character. First of all, for someone who supposedly knows nothing about the popular music of 1962, Dr. Shirley tears off some killer boogie woogie piano at that juke joint, right up there with Fats Domino, Professor Longhair and yes, Little Richard.
[Frustrated music critic nitpick: speaking of musical knowledge, I doubt Tony would know about Aretha Franklin at that point. Her recordings for Columbia Records in the early sixties--mostly jazz standards--were met with deep apathy by the American public. She only broke through when Ahmet Ertegun brought her to Atlantic Records in '66 and she worked on her own songs with producer Jerry Wexler and the Muscle Shoals rhythm section. End of nitpick.]
And if Dr. Shirley was as isolated and detached from black causes and the mainstream civil rights movement as the movie wants you to believe, how does he pull out Bobby Kennedy's phone number from his back pocket?
We are not seeing the full picture here.
In short: I don't want to come down too hard on this movie, because it's more of a "buddies on the road" flick than a treatise on racism. I'd recommend it on that level. Any significance beyond that is purely in the minds of the filmmakers (and its detractors).
But after everybody moved on to other things, I felt like I was being hypocritical: I don't like it when other people pass judgment on something they've never seen, and here I was, passing judgment on a movie I skipped during its theatrical run.
Fortunately, my favorite multiplex in Sheepshead Bay was giving Green Book an Oscar Week run, so I decided to put my money where my mouth is and check it out on the big screen.
The first thing you have to accept about "Green Book" is that it's NOT about noted pianist and composer Donald Shirley (played by Mahershala Ali). Shirley is a major character, but it's the story of his chauffeur/bodyguard Anthony ("Tony Lip") Villalonga (played by Viggo Mortensen). Shirley has maybe two or three scenes without Tony present, and the movie is filtered through Tony's viewpoint. This is to be expected, since it's based on Tony's memoirs and the screenplay was co-written by his son. Whether you feel Dr. Shirley deserves a more in-depth cinematic appraisal--and, oh yeah, I do--this is what we got, folks.
If you can make that adjustment, the movie goes down a lot easier. There's no question that Ali and Mortensen are a tremendous buddy team up there, with Mortensen's rough-and-tumble Tony bouncing off of Ali's refined Shirley like a Kennedy-era Felix and Oscar. Besides the broader humor director Peter Farrelly once rode to fame (like the infamous fried chicken scene), there are moments of quiet grace, like when Shirley looks out from the road at a group of black field workers, or when Shirley helps Tony, Cyrano-style, write letters to his wife with words that match the love he feels for her. (The latter sets up a final moment that is spot on perfect.)
But, given all that, my original critique stands. Despite the scenes of Southern inhospitality, there is very little sense of danger here. The movie is period perfect--maybe too perfect. The vintage cars, the dining room silver and the brass trumpets are burnished to a soft glow. The racist scarecrows strut across the screen, to be knocked down by Tony's Bronx moxie or Dr. Shirley's moral rectitude. And even when the guys are busted by racist cops in Alabama, Dr. Shirley can pull a deus ex machina out of his immaculate suit and the tour sails on. (More on that one in a minute.) There is rain in this movie, and dust--but nothing really gets muddy.
Similarly, there's never the slightest risk that Tony is ever going to screw over Dr. Shirley. Yes, he's a typical early sixties racist in the opening scenes, but once he's on the road with Dr. Shirley, his loyalties are never in question. Is he going to peel off with Dominic in Memphis? Fuhgeddaboudit! Even the incident at the YMCA doesn't dent Tony's fealty for a moment. (Which kind of begs the question: if Tony was cool with "all kinds" while working at the Copacabana, is his "journey to tolerance" that much of a journey?)
As for Donald Shirley, I'll leave the arguments about verisimilitude to the respective families and the historians. But even within the film itself, there are contradictions in the presentation that indicate a "flattening" of the character. First of all, for someone who supposedly knows nothing about the popular music of 1962, Dr. Shirley tears off some killer boogie woogie piano at that juke joint, right up there with Fats Domino, Professor Longhair and yes, Little Richard.
[Frustrated music critic nitpick: speaking of musical knowledge, I doubt Tony would know about Aretha Franklin at that point. Her recordings for Columbia Records in the early sixties--mostly jazz standards--were met with deep apathy by the American public. She only broke through when Ahmet Ertegun brought her to Atlantic Records in '66 and she worked on her own songs with producer Jerry Wexler and the Muscle Shoals rhythm section. End of nitpick.]
And if Dr. Shirley was as isolated and detached from black causes and the mainstream civil rights movement as the movie wants you to believe, how does he pull out Bobby Kennedy's phone number from his back pocket?
We are not seeing the full picture here.
In short: I don't want to come down too hard on this movie, because it's more of a "buddies on the road" flick than a treatise on racism. I'd recommend it on that level. Any significance beyond that is purely in the minds of the filmmakers (and its detractors).
