Tag: history

An American Immigrant Story Part 2

I chose not to bore all of you with the more minute details of our first trip to Ireland. It’s a personal thing and I picked a moment to describe because personal moments don’t always (actually almost never) translate to someone who was not there in the moment. We did return to Ireland a few years later with my brother and my wife’s sister. That too was a great experience, albeit different. For the second trip, we had a condo to ourselves for the week. This meant we had a hub to return to every day or night. It also meant we made trips to grocery stores during the second visit. For an American, grocery stores outside of our own country are always an interesting safari. It’s like stepping through a portal and entering a bizarro world. Everything is sort of there and sort of the same but there are tons of subtle differences which all add up to create a wholly unique daily experience.

But I’m not here to write about this.

I’ve lived in New York my entire life. Growing up in the Hudson Valley afforded me the comfort and space of suburban life while also being within and hour’s drive of the city. I loved being in the city and spent countless hours of countless days record shopping down there, either at Generation Records on Thompson, Kim’s Video (RIP) on St. Marks, or even Bleecker Bob’s (also RIP) on the rare occasion I wished to argue with him over how much money he wanted for Inside Out’s No Spiritual Surrender on blue vinyl (I eventually got that fucker, lol).

But I digress.

The point is, as a New Yorker, I spent nearly my entire life without even so much as laying eyes on the Statue of Liberty. Never even glimpsed it from an airplane seat taking off or returning. My very first sighting of it was in late 2017 when my wife pointed it out to me as we were walking across the Brooklyn Bridge.

“Okay,” I thought. “That’s something, I guess.” I still couldn’t really see it well.

So when, in late 2019, friends were in town from New Mexico and my wife called me to come join everyone to ferry over to the statue, I jumped at the chance. Long story short, it’s a marvel and one that hits you in the heart when you’re there in Lady Liberty’s shadow. She’s unwavering and resolute with her eyes always forward and the time with her is special if you allow it all in. The kicker is, our trip that day was only getting started. Our friends also wanted to see Ellis Island and who were we to stop them? A quick boat ride later and we were disembarking onto Ellis Island and I suddenly found myself overwhelmed. Something dawned on me that I’d never allowed to fully set in until this specific moment in my life. My great grandparents, people dead before I was born, walked this same ground hoping for the kind of life that I’ve been afforded to live. They came to this country in the early 20th century, a long boat ride from Ireland, across the frigid and choppy Atlantic Ocean and arrived at this very spot. It’s a lot to take in.

We entered into the main hall with displays of what life looked like for early immigrants and you’re invited to grab a small phone-like device to aid you on the rest of your trip. Throughout the grounds there are stations where you dial the indicated number and are given a small lesson on a certain aspect of the entire immigration procedure. It’s a wonderfully in-depth and immersive experience. After securing our devices, we walked up the stairs into the main reception room and this folks, smashed me to bits. I dialed the indicated number and sat down on one of the benches in the hall. Through the device, I learned that many of these benches (including the one I was sitting on) are original benches — the very same used by the immigrants waiting to hopefully be approved entry into our country. This meant that for all I knew, I could’ve been sitting in the very same spot as either my great grandfather or great grandmother. Words cannot express what this does to a person. There’s an innate connection from family member to family member and it spans eternity. It never goes away — it can’t.

I sat there, unable to move, for nearly twenty minutes. Of course the tears came because how could they not? I’m a boy who grew to be a man. My family came from Ireland and settled in New York. I was raised by a mother and father who were raised by their respective mothers and fathers who were raised by their respective mothers and fathers. It doesn’t end. So when I think about my mother and father close to me, teaching me something new and then I think about my grandfather teaching me how to skip rocks and my grandmother sneaking me snacks whenever I wanted or allowing me to watch horror movies at a young age and then I think about what their parents taught and showed to them and then I find myself in Ireland where my family began. I think about the soil and the water lapping at the stones of a natural rock Jetty. I think of the toil of a farm, working that lush earth. I can no longer smell the gorgeous scent of peat smoke without getting emotional. All of this swirls inside of me at all times and then I find myself at Ellis Island, where my great grandparents’ names are on that fucking ledger and I’m sitting on the very bench where they sat huddled and hopeful and it’s all the most beautiful goddamn thing in the world.

The connections are real and unbreakable. It doesn’t just mean something, it means everything.

About half of this country needs a lesson in humility and empathy.

Why?

Because it fucking matters.

Sofia Coppola Friday #3 – Marie Antoinette

“Holy shit! Was that a monkey?” – me while watching Marie Antoinette

Have I properly expressed my love and adoration of Sofia Coppola yet? I love this project because great art opens doors. If you’re willing to engage in self-reflection, you can learn a lot about yourself and the world around you. I was struck, several times throughout the runtime, by revelations. I make notes when consuming various forms of art and media and afterward, I graze my notes and begin the process of asking myself questions about why certain things stand out to me — why I interpret things the way that I do.

Watching Marie Antoinette hit me in different ways than when I first saw the film, fourteen years ago. I like it a helluva lot more now than I did then, placing it firmly in my “I love this film” category. What hit me the hardest, watching Kirsten Dunst expertly play this historical figure trying to navigate a world of excess, inconvenience, and rigid adherence to ridiculous custom, is about the fragile nature of our personal identity. I don’t think anyone ever knows who they truly are. We are constantly searching for it. If not, we’re giving up on the mysteries of life, instead settling into a depression by realizing who we are not. Great art helps us decipher the type of artist we want to be and for the record, everyone is some kind of artist. It’s in there somewhere, in each of us, we just need that spark to light the way.

So, how does Coppola manage to pull these musings from us? She employs several tactics to get her point across. This, her third film, shows incredible self-confidence and it makes our journey easier. First, Coppola uses pop music to set a tone in her films better than anyone. Yes, she’s better than QT, better than Wes Anderson, and better than Martin Scorsese. Using pop songs in a film set just before the French Revolution in the 18th century sounds like an anachronistic gimmick but Coppola’s choices are deliberate and perfect. They add a layer to every scene — evoking the despair and ennui of isolation and then the wild debauchery of youth gone wild. Next, the production and costume design are sublime. Coppola even leaves in modern fashion flourishes to further embellish this tale. She then uses subtle camera movements and expert scene blocking to provide us a specific feeling toward her work. The cinematography and shot composition combine to make the film resemble an oil painting come to life. She does more with this later as it all reverses and she literally tells a portion of the story through actual oil paintings. It’s an incredible reverse technique and when that pin drops, it injects the viewer with an extra dose of dopamine. It’s akin to the film becoming a silent film and then changing back — simply awesome. Early on, her storytelling is extremely visual, sparse dialog allowing the music, score, and camera to tell the story. The dialog increases and it’s full of gossip, back-biting, and royal fuckery creating an atmosphere that is gloriously bitchy.

What I’m getting at is that Coppola found a way to un-stuff the period piece.

The film spends most of it’s first half chronicling Marie Antoinette’s isolation inside this royal family. She’s different and everyone knows it. She doesn’t fully understand their ridiculous customs and finds herself surrounded by vapid enemies all searching for a crack in her armor. Everyone wants what she has and her standing is on precarious ground. MA feels this pressure but through sheer will, she begins to bend the royals to her will. The shot of her signature on the marriage certificate is incredible. Where everything else is done with precision, her signature is messy and crooked, ending with a splotch of misplaced ink. She is the dominate force here and everyone else will have to catch up. In fact, I could make the argument that she is us. Nothing makes sense to her in this new life and while she will adapt to a degree, she will fight to maintain her own identity. It all comes to a head when she convinces everyone to sneak out of the royal palace in order to attend a masked ball. The scene is amazing — reminiscent of the Lisbon sisters at homecoming and Bob and Charlotte’s big night out in Tokyo. These kids are breaking free of the rigid confines of their societal and royal obligations. Their lack of adherence to the rules, put simply, rules.

We could try and tackle the actors in their specific roles but Dunst blows everyone else off the screen. She owns every single frame of this film. The only other actor who even comes close to matching her electricity on screen is Rose Byrne. She is pure spunk as MA’s number one co-conspirator.

Instead of specific performances, everyone works in concert to create a vibe. This is what Coppola wants here above all else — put the viewer in the story. As the story progresses we become unable to tell the difference between everyday life and pageantry. It’s something that wears people out and drags them down. Nothing is ever quite like the first time. It’s here where Coppola’s ultimate intent becomes clear. Sure, she is telling an expert story about a woman attempting to break free of the shackles placed upon her by a male dominated society but it’s also about celebrity and tabloid. We can draw direct parallels between 18th century French royal society and that of Hollywood today. We are obsessed by the magnitude of their charisma and hang on their every whim while also reveling in their downfall. It sucks but it’s also a symptom of our frail relationship with our own egos. Coppola even finds time for the famous “let them eat cake” line with a clear rebuke to its attribution to MA. She never said it. In fact, MA was blamed by the poor and downtrodden for many things that were not her fault. Just like today, it’s easy for us to overlook the true villains, instead focusing on others.

By the end of the film, MA is forced to flee her home. The final image is one of her bedroom, now destroyed by rioters. It’s an interesting choice in that the decor at its peak is so ornate and gaudy, it doesn’t look all that different once destroyed. This is life full circle. A girl comes to France alone, wills the country to view her in her own way, creates a tight circle of vibrant friends, and watches it all fade away like old laundry until she is alone again. If you watch closely, you’ll see the use of color in increasing intensity until it fades to more subdued tones. Our birth. Our life. Our death. The only thing we can control is who we strive to be.

Next week, Somewhere. Until then, love each other.