Interestingly, the final movie I saw in my 2019 Oscar race was my favorite. I loved this movie. It provided everything that I want in an excellent film. The movie tells a compelling story. The characters are well developed. I liked the characters and cheered for them, even with all of their messy parts. The issues are complex and layered. I laughed out loud. I cringed. I groaned. I winced. I cried tears of sadness and despair, tears of joy, tears of compassion, and tears of hope. I left the movie feeling better than when I went in, being utterly entertained, moved, and emotionally spent. This is my choice for Best Picture.
Set in 1962, the film tells the story of a white Italian New York night club worker (on hiatus as The Copacabana undergoes renovations (Sorry — are you too now singing Barry Manilow?)) hired to drive a black virtuoso pianist though the Deep South on a concert tour. Pretty much anyone could stop there, and you know the essential premise of what the movie will entail. (If you don’t, you need to open your eyes more with our country’s true history.)
Ironic, perhaps, that the first film I watched in this race was BlacKkKlansman. In those thoughts, I said how pleased I was the events were not set in the Deep South. I appreciated a film about racial relations that did not have the thick southern drawl and the caricaturized southern idiot. (That’s right, I said “idiot.”) The sad part about Green Book is that the southerners depicted here weren’t caricaturized. Sure, the the time the 70s came along, things had changed. In public. I grew up in that, surrounded by that. I still know that. And it hurts me at the core of my being.
Our first glimpse of the racial issues comes early in the film. It’s a bit surprising, as we have to realize that yes, even those who face their own ethnic stereotypes have racial biases. But we also then see that such views do not permeate all persons. We see a layer of compassion and humanity that we cling to in hopes of bookending the movie. (Let me say here that yes, women have a key part in changing the world.)
But the movie is more than a tale of racial tensions of the south. It’s heart. It’s soul. It’s life. The movie is more so a tale of friendships and relationships told against the backdrop of racism. How we interact with each other, how we respond to each other, how we treat each other, how we learn about each other — those are the great things that can be a part of our world. Green Book reminds us of that beautifully. It also reminds us that these issues are not solely —not simply — black and white. The issues are deep and complex.
One of the best moments for me personally while watching Green Book came as Dr. Shirley and Tony are talking in the car, and Tony passionately explains why he sees himself as “more black than” Dr. Shirley. The older black gentleman sitting next to me in the theater, at the end of that diatribe, said, “I know that’s right.” Then, the next solid lines from the movie are Dr. Shirley, fervidly lamenting his state of limbo. Again—there was that gut punch. The movie-goer’s comment had given me pause: what makes someone black or white enough? Dr. Shirley, I hope, gave both the movie-goer and me pause: what happens when you’re neither?
The movie provoked thought often. I laughed in triumph in the moments of the phone call to the small-town Alabama police chief. Then I felt a gut-punch that made me near nauseated. Most people so treated could never have made that necessary phone call. Hell, I’d say 99.9% of the people so treated never could have made such a phone call. And that’s where the movie abruptly—strikingly—jolts you back to the reality that is racism. And privilege.
And what an interesting point the movie makes about privilege. Here, privilege is particularly complicated. It turns off and on like a faucet. This alone shows you just how shallow its award is and can be. Dr. Shirley’s view of privilege might be one of the best anyone could imagine. He sees it from too many sides.
Of course, race isn’t the only area where people prejudge. And Green Book juxtaposes racial and ethnic identity issues nicely. One need not know much about New York City neighborhoods and immigration to know how places developed. Ethnic identity was strong and even today remains so. The difference, of course, is glaring. But I appreciated the film’s nod toward those issues too.
It was in those walls that we build that I found the heart of the movie. We build walls around ourselves and others. We want to keep others out. We want to keep ourselves in. We don’t want to explore the challenges of what’s different or unknown or that threatens our preconceived ideas. When we do that, though, we block out not only what scares us but also what nourishes us. We might as well wall of the sun. For when we build our walls too high, we don’t grow.
As the movie was drawing to its close, I held my breath. We know the end of the film is near as it’s a linear tale based on this concert tour. But from the moments the Alabama concert is in sights and in all that surrounds that, the inevitable becomes apparent. I saw what the man at the end of the bar saw. And the overwhelming sense of dread engulfed me. It hid in a corner as I finally, with a hard turn away, got to tap my toes and dance in my seat, smiling jubilantly ear to ear. Then the music stopped. I caught my breath.
What the filmmakers did at that point solidified this as my favorite film of the Best Picture category.
Now, all of this intrigues me as we head into the Oscars (merely hours away as I type this). I don’t see Mortensen as winning Best Actor. And I’m utterly torn between Richard E. Grant in Can You Ever Forgive Me? and Mahershala Ali here. For the first half of the film, I wast still team Grant. But by the end, okay, I will say I prefer Ali to win. As for Best Picutre? I’ve already said it’s my choice. But Green Book is not nominated for best Director. Often (too often?) those awards are tied at the hip. We’ll know soon.