IT must have been one hell of a time to be colored and a tourist in the US of A even in the 1960s. Two men discover this truth: one a pianist of utmost refinement to the point of delicacy; the other rough and a physical survivor of the rougher world.
It is 1962. The world is changing. Tony Vallelonga has just lost his job as a bouncer in a nightclub undergoing renovation. He is given a reference to work as a driver to a pianist, Don Shirley. The artist is one of those rare breeds of classical pianist crossing over to jazz, when crossing over was not yet in fashion. Shirley is also black, and gay. Think of that in a world of segregation, when White America has not yet come to terms with the weakness of racism and still in denial about its bigotry rooted in its colonial past. It is a strange colonial experience because the colonizers came—the White—and stayed on.
In this Trump era, Green Book is just the right potion for a land that is being poisoned once more by the notion that the skin of one’s person is destiny.
But we are going ahead with our politics.
The film Green Book is indeed about racism and bigotry but the filmmakers refuse to bring on the slogans and stay there. The film moves us because it begins with two men, of great characters. They are not heroes but they are not villains either.
Vallelonga is an American of Italian descent.
Right after he has lost his job, Vallelonga wakes up to see his home filled with his Italian kin. They are there because, as his father puts it, they are guarding Tony’s wife (and home) because she has sought the help of two black men. The two repairmen inside the home of non-White men (which include at this point Italian) are a threat. The wife of Tony, it seems and for reason that may have nothing to do with race relations, does not mind having “colored men” around her. But Tony is different. Seeing the two glasses used by the two black workers, he throws them into the trash bin.
The wife discovers this and puts back the two utensils on the cupboard.
But there is a new job and the man looking for a driver insists on meeting up with Tony. The driver-applicant does not know he will be working with a black man. If racism or bigotry is placed on a continuum, Tony could be down there on the point of the lesser-than-hardcore. But he is still not comfortable working with Don Shirley. The musician, too, is not exactly the personality one warms to easily. He enters the living room surprising Tony not only with the color of his skin but also his African clothing. Then there are the manners—effete and ritualistic. Then there is the ceremony—Shirley sits not on the chair opposite.
Tony but saunters onto a throne!
The job application is taking place in the throne room, Tony must be thinking. The driver raises his asking price. The musician refuses. Later, the musicians relents and gives in to the wage scale specified by Tony.
And the two drive on, first to the Midwest and then to the Deep South: Driving Miss Daisy without the lambent charm and poignancy of that film with Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman. Where the Alfred Uhry film has the scent of magnolias intact all throughout the story of a rich Jewish woman who grows old and comes to term with the presence of a black man through the years, Green Book allows all kinds of scents and stink.
There is the White population gaining ground and life at the expense of the Blacks pushed to the margin. There is art that loses its hatred of black during performances. There are the music lovers who become color-blind when the music is to their liking. Then there is the audience who unsheathe their bias once the concert is over.
And here is the source of my discomfort: There is Don Shirley, the black pianist who would perform and just perform even when he knows that out there discrimination goes on.
What is clear though in their road show is the fact that racism and bigotry are alive, stupendously alive in many parts of the United States of America.
The title Green Book refers to the “Negro Motorist Green-Book,” a sort of guide for African-American travelers. The book allows the tourist or traveler to be led to hotels or inns that allow only “coloreds.” The “Lonely Planet” might as well be the other name for the Green-Book as it pictures to us generations and eras when there were places that refused to accept blacks. In most occasions, the inns meant for the African-American are decrepit and old.
Woe to those who refuse to follow the paths lighted by Green-Book. Nat Cole, one of the greatest balladeers, is an example. Bessie Smith, the Empress of the Blues, is another. Think of those white men and women—the white fans and musicians—who all worshipped at the foot of Smith and the immortal blues that colored with splendor the great American songbooks.
It is perhaps the signs of the times that a film like this is making a killing in the box office. It is, I believe, the greater irony that where the White Man discriminated Black men and women, he also develops the talent to be more discriminating about music.
In Guess Who is Coming to Dinner, Sidney Poitier, the black man marrying into an upper-class white American family, has to be a doctor. Poitier, again, has to be a charismatic teacher to be admired in To Sir, With Love. In Green Book, Don Shirley has to be himself—a snob and sometimes arrogant artist—in order to tell the tales of racism in today’s political climate.
Green Book is directed by Peter John Farrelly (There’s Something About Mary) and written by Nick Vallelonga, Brian Hayes Currie and Peter Farrelly. Nick is the son of Tony Vallelonga who is played here by Viggo Mortensen. Don Shirley is played by Mahershala Ali who won the Oscar’s Best Supporting Actor in “Moonlight.” Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali are nominated in the Oscars for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. The film is nominated in the 91st Oscars for Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture. It already won in the Golden Globe. Green Book has been listed as one of the Top 10 Films by the American Film Institute. It is distributed by the Universal Pictures.