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At the beginning of "Green Book", the first painting directed by Peter Farrelly without his brother Bobby Learn that the movie was inspired by a true story. Using the word "inspired" rather than "based on" means that we do not need to look for historical truth in every detail of the story as it is told on screen. (Nevertheless, the family of one of the two protagonists, pianist Don Shirley, protested against his description.) "Inspired" also suggests that the purpose of disconnecting the historical truth is to allow filmmakers to create a historical, social and social environment. cultural allegory, which in this case is related to the issue of race relations in America. The main purpose of the allegory is to provide viewers with enjoyable entertainment and to allow them to leave the image with a sense of exhilaration. In short, the "Green Book" is what the American film industry describes as a film of well-being.
The film is actually nice; in terms of satisfaction and exaltation, that's another story. We are in 1962. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), trained as a clbadical pianist but who chose popular music because he did not believe that a black musician playing Chopin would be accepted in America, has built a successful career. He is part of a trio that plays jazz that will please everyone, and even appeared in the White House. Now, he decides to go on tour in the Southern States, where the separation between whites and blacks is still strictly observed. He therefore needs not only a driver to drive him from one show to another and to make the necessary arrangements, but also a driver able to protect him from local racists.
He chooses Tony Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen), an Italian-American security officer who lives in the Bronx with his wife, Dolores (Linda Cardellini), and their two sons. A tendentious scene at the beginning of the film describes him as a bigot, not necessarily self-conscious, but rather in the spirit of the times. Two black men work at Tony's house and Dolores gives them water to drink; Then, Tony throws the glbades they used in the trash – although Dolores retrieves them and puts them in the sink.
But it is not only ethnic origins that make Tony and Don Shirley diametrical opposites. Shirley, from Jamaica, lives in a picturesque apartment above Carnegie Hall in Manhattan. At his first meeting with Tony, he interviewed him sitting on a throne-shaped chair, dressed in a white dress and adorned with gold jewelry. Tony, on the other hand, is a representative of the working clbad. He may be racist, but he loves his family and has a good heart, although he is also insatiable, eats all the time (Mortensen added a considerable number of pounds for the role) and is rude and uneducated.
After much hesitation, Tony decides to accept Shirley's offer, even if it means that she will have to be away from home for a few months. Yet the family needs money. The two men leave in the Cadillac of the musician, the two other members of the trio following a second identical Cadillac. Tony speaks and eats constantly as he drives, while Shirley is sitting down, stone on the floor, at the back and forbids him to smoke in the car. Will these two blatant oppositions become friends and change each other? Is Earth round?
Shocked by racism
The deeper they sink into the South, the more striking is the separation between black and white. Shirley can perform in a hotel in front of a large audience of whites who greet her enthusiastically, but he is forbidden to eat or sleep in the hotel. Other black artists have experienced the same humiliation in the southern states, including Nat King Cole, mentioned in the film because of his audacity in this regard. Tony and Shirley have to sleep in different motels, one reserved for whites, the other reserved for blacks. The title of the film refers to "The Negro Motorist Green-Book", a travel guide listing places that served blacks, published by the beautiful name of Victor Hugo Green.
The relationship between Tony and Shirley develops along two parallel lines. Tony is increasingly shocked by the depth of racism he discovers in the South, but also by Shirley's ignorance of black culture. The jazz pianist, for example, has no idea who are Little Richard and Chubby Checker – he hears their songs for the first time on the radio during the trip and he likes that. He has never eaten fried chicken, which, according to the stereotype, is supposed to be the favorite food of blacks. This gap will also be addressed during the trip.
Unlike the white Tony, Shirley, a black man, has a problem with his identity. In a particularly melodramatic scene, he says crying – the mawkishness reinforced by driving rain – that he has no idea who he is or what he is. Caucasian Tony will solve this problem. He even told Shirley that at one point he was darker than him. Not surprisingly, the film, which once again shows a white man rescuing a black man, has sparked controversy within the African-American community.
The links between Tony and Shirley are also developing on a more personal level. Tony promised his wife that he would write to her during the trip, and when Shirley saw that her driver had no idea what to say, he was writing for him in the best Cyrano style of Bergerac. Dolores and her friends are overthrown by the beauty of the letters. Shirley is gay and gets confused in one of the southern states. Tony does not care about Shirley's badual identity. After working as a bouncer in some of New York's most prestigious nightclubs, he knows homobaduality well. It is also for this reason that the film, which is presented entirely through the eyes of its white protagonist, makes no reference to Shirley's badual inclination, except during this incident.
The film offers a pleasant experience because it is written, directed and played effectively. Mortensen and Ali play their roles well, side by side and with each other, even if their performances are sometimes treated. However, the scenario, which Nick Vallelonga, the son of the real Tony, helped to write, is so programmed that almost all melodramatic and sentimental plot movements are predictable.
A more serious problem concerns the fact that the film was produced in 2018. Although located in the past, the painting aims to cast a glance from the past to the present; it's his way of displaying relevance. Spike Lee made it more impressively, sharper and sharper in "BlackkKlansman," which is also based on a true story (from the 1970s) and, like "Green Paper," described the growing link between a black man and a white man. At the end of the event, he moved on to the present with the help of archive footage of the events that occurred in Charlottesville in the summer of 2017.
Farrelly's film seems to be Lee's total opposite. It takes place in the early 1960s and also looks like an image that was made at the time, while American cinema was just starting to address the issue of race relations and describing situations of struggle for the future. 39; equality. It seems even rudimentary than the films of that time, which had some elementary daring, even though they sometimes tended to a tendency to addiction.
While Spike Lee's film claims that nothing has changed between his past and present, Farrelly's painting has no relevance in Donald Trump's America – unless its relevance comes from his ambition to provide the American public with a good feeling in these unstable times. The occupation of racism in America in the 1960s is translated into the film into a sentimental and simplistic kitsch, which creates for America today a reactionary white fantasy.
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