I'm happy to say that both movies hold up very well today and may, in fact, have improved with age.Įlizabeth McGovern and Donald O'Connor in Ragtime. Of all the movies I saw during my adolescence, this one and Apocalypse Now stand out the most clearly in my memory. It is paced rather slow but it so richly unfolds. This movie is beautiful down to the smallest detail. Mandy Patinkin also adds much color as a poor but ambitious Jewish entrepreneur. Donald O'Connor is wonderful as a song and dance Vaudevillian of the era. There are many different characters and the time period is painstakingly recreated. This is an epic though so much more is going on than just that. Things just keep on escalating in a battle of wills and eventually the entire police force is involved. Coalhouse Walker, a black man, is humiliated by some volunteer firemen, who are jealous of seeing him drive around well-dressed in a nice new automobile. One of the families is white the other is black. Set exactly one hundred years ago in 1906 Ragtime is mostly about two families that come together and affect each other. Jackson and even silent film star Bessie Love. Rollins Jr., Debbie Allen, Pat O'Brien, Donald O'Connor, Jeff Daniels, Fran Drescher, Samuel L. Cagney) Elizabeth McGovern, Mandy Patinkin, Mary Steenburgen, Howard E. It also boasts an amazing cast that includes (besides Mr. Doctorow, directed by Milos Forman and produced by Dino De Laurentiis this movie has quite a pedigree. As a huge fan of James Cagney's, Ragtime was the one that I remember most anticipating. In Ragtime, On Golden Pond, Ghost Story and S.O.B respectively. James Cagney, Henry Fonda, Fred Astaire and William Holden all made their last theatrical film appearances that year. In 1981 there seemed to be a last hurrah for several classic era male stars. The United States became a superpower in the 20th century, and Doctorow charts its meteoric rise by concentrating on America's largest city.James Cagney made his last film appearance in Ragtime. New York is the center of the earth." What Doctorow is foreshadowing, by setting Ragtime in New York at the turn of the century, is that the United States would loom freaking large in the 20th century. Today, America is the Roman empire, and New York is Rome itself. In 1971, John Lennon famously said, " If I'd lived in Roman times, I'd have lived in Rome. Through it all, more and more immigrants are arriving at Ellis Island, trying to pursue the American dream. Doctorow plays the city like a piano, hitting notes where he wants and bringing characters in and out of famous locales.įreud spots the Little Girl and Tateh on the Lower East Side, Houdini hangs above Times Square, the mansions of the rich contrast with the tenements of the poor. But between rich and poor lies a broad spectrum, and it's in the middle-income melting pot of New York that Doctorow focuses the action of his novel. (4.4)Īnything and everything is possible in New York City, if you have the right amount of money. He liked to feel clean so they passed along a change of clothes delivered each morning to the jail doors by his valet. Thaw was not really fond of the jail fare so they brought in his meals from Delmonico's. (3.7)Īnd on the other end of the income spectrum there's this: Their exposed intestines heaved with rats. Fathers raced through the streets looking for ice. The sink at the bottom of the stairs was dry. The tenements glowed like furnaces and the tenants had no water to drink. By using New York as his setting, Doctorow can examine a bajillion different themes: from immigration and poverty to class differences and intolerance and sex.Ĭheck out the contrasts that Doctorow conjures up. New York at this time is the center of America, and is on its way to becoming a global capital. While Ragtime does take trips to the Arctic, Egypt, Europe and other locations in the Unites States, the book's real center is New York: from the beginning of the turn of the century to the end of World War I. What could be more American than New York City (besides apple pie)?
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