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GREEN BOOK? : A CIVIL RIGHTS FAIRY TALE
FINAL EASSY
000097765
GOUTHAM MADHUSOODHANAN MENON AVC 4205 : INTRO VISUAL CULTURE INSTRUCTOR : NICOLA MANN
? (Movies.universalpictures.com, 2019)
This final essay will analyze the Academy Award nominee Viggo
Mortensen and Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali star in Green
Book. This classy, Inspirational filmmaking comes from the
director and co-writer Peter Farrelly, This film is inspired by
a true friendship that transcended race, class and the 1962
Mason-Dixon line. Set against the scene of a country grappling
with the heroism and flickery of the Civil Rights Movement.
2 men
will be tackled with racism, anger, generosity, kindness and
their own distinctive senses of humour. Together, They will
challenge the long-held assumptions, Push past their seemingly
Insuperable variations and embrace their shared humanity. This
is the real story of a 1962 road trip taken from the Bronx by
famous black jazz pianist Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and his
white, naive, desire and dose driver guard Tony “Lip” Vallelonga
(Viggo Mortensen). The open racial intolerance pictured within
the film reflects a time not so long ago.
Green Book offers a
worthy message concerning the importance of getting a fellow
feeling for those who are outside of your immediate cultural
sphere, No matter their race, sexuality or faith. This excellent
piece of work clearly shows that racism is bad and friendship is
good.
Green Book won four Oscars at the 2019 Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Mahershala Ali), Best Original Screenplay.
?(Gettyimages.co.uk, 2019)
The main casting of this feels good movie includes Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali, Linda Cardellini, Sebastian Maniscalco, Dimiter D. Marinov, and P.J. Byrne. Green Book is produced by Jim Burke (The Descendants), Charles B. Wessler (The Heartbreak Kid) alongside Farrelly’s fellow writers, Brian Currie, and Nick Vallelonga, and Farrelly. The drama is executive produced by Participant’s Jeff Skoll (The Help) and Jonathan King (Lincoln), along with Octavia Spencer (Fruitvale Station) and Kwame L. Parker (Kill Bill series), as well as Cinetic Media’s John Sloss (Boyhood) and Steven Farneth. Linda Cardellini (Brokeback Mountain, The Founder) co-stars ?(Universal Pictures, 2019)?.
The backstory of this movie is quite interesting as it is a story passed on from a father to his beloved son.Nick vallelonga,Co-writer of? ?Green Book? ?was the eldest son of Tony Vallelonga. He grew up hearing this beautiful story about his fathers expedition with Don Shirley.? ?This was a story I had on my mind basically my whole life from the time I was a young kid (Cinema Buzz, 2019) ? ?says Vallelonga an actor, writer, producer, and director whose filmmaking credits include Deadfall, Stiletto, and the award-winning indie Western Yellow Rock and Unorganized Crime.
For Green Book, Farrelly wanted his period drama to have a look
unlike any of his previous films. Sean Porter, whose credits
include 20th Century Women and Green Room used a tobacco-filter
lens in most of the scenes to give the film a warm burnished
tone across a palette that ranged from cool monochromatic to
spring-hued pastels. On Green Book that meant shooting the
abundant car scenes practically rather than the vacuum of sound
stage. It meant covering scenes in the simplest way possible to
tell the story. Limiting the film’s palette to the hues capable
of being produced by era’s light sources (Mulcahey et al.,
2019).
In a racial flip of Driving Miss Daisy, nearly 30 years after that film won a handful of Oscars including best picture ?Green Book? features a white man serving as a chauffeur,valet,muscle, and all around problem solver to a black man. It depicts a powerful message about overcoming prejudice.
The title of this movie ?Green Book? comes from the travel guide for African-Americans published from 1936 to 1967 that listed safe hotels and restaurants in the segregated South.
PLOT SYNOPSIS
In early-1960s in an openly and legally segregated America, Tony
“Tony Lip” Vallelonga a doorman and bouncer at the Copacabana
nightclub, who is an Italian-American lives in the neighbourhood
of Bronx, New York City. He’s known as Tony Lip because he’s an
amazing “bullshitter” He does what he has to put food on his
family’s table. In an early scene, Tony conjointly reveals
himself to be an unthinking racist. Once 2 black workmen leave
his room, He picks up the water glasses they have drunk from and
tosses them into the bin. Green Book is sometimes as unaware as
Tony staggering into the stereotypes.When the club closes for a
couple of months due to its renovations Tony was out of his
work. He and his wife, Dolores (Linda Cardellini), we’re having
trouble making the rent and keeping a roof over their two kids
home. After a few days, an old contact gets him an interview to
be a driver for a doctor, Dr Don Shirley. He’s not a medical
doctor but a concert pianist. He’s doing a concert tour going
from the Midwest into the deep south and he needs a trustworthy driver. For his driver’s job, he asked around specifically for someone who could handle trouble because he knew that there’s going to be racism against him. The tour is going to be two months long which ends right before Christmas. He asks Tony if he can be away from his family that long and for the need of money Tony agrees for the job.Don calls Tony’s house and asked Dolores if she’s okay with her husband being gone for long time. once she agrees, he offers Tony the job of his driver/protector. Dolores asks Tony to jot down letters for her during the trip. The company rents Tony a pleasant vintage car and offers him half the money up front and tells him he’ll get half at the end of the tour. But if Don misses a show he won’t get the money. They additionally offer him the “Green Book” a traveller guide for black individuals to remain within the sequestered Jim Crow southern states. They begin their tour within the midwest before eventually heading further south. Tony and Don clash over their differences during the trip, As Tony feels uncomfortable being asked to act properly by the Don. Whereas Don is displeased by Tony’s habits. Regardless, Tony finds himself impressed with Don’s talent on the piano. The relationship that develops between Don and Tony becomes a collision of, and personal education in previously established racial inclinations and class ideology.?(IMDb, 2019)
Tony drives Don with a puffed-out sense of pride and unashamed
hedonism. In the car, Tony plays contemporary music on the radio
and is shocked when Don doesn’t know popular music like Aretha
Franklin. He even questions if Don is even black and when he
drives by a Kentucky Fried Chicken and finds out Don has never
had fried chicken he stops. He playfully forces Dr Shirley to
try the chicken. Tony works on his letters for Dolores and
they’re terrible. So Don helps him make them more poetic and
beautiful. At a later stop, Tony finds a gemstone that’s being
sold on the ground and pockets it. But Don forces him to put it
back saying it’s stealing even though Tony disagrees.Don Shirley
speaks several languages, has advanced degrees and sells his
exceptional talent short by playing a crowd-pleasing mixture of
classically-infused pop. He’s extraordinary by any measure,
however, the screenplay solely hints at the layers of his
character, skittishly racing past a scene that reveals he’s
gay.Dr Don Shirley was a real gentleman throughout the movie and
people respected him due to his extraordinary talent in music.
Still, we are able to see harsh racism towards him throughout
the second half of the movie. During a concert venue at a
Southern mansion, the host was very friendly to Don. For dinner,
they prepared fried chicken for him. During the interval, Don
asks to use the toilet and the host directed him to the outhouse
not permitting him to use the inside toilet. Don refuses to use
the outhouse. So Tony drives him back to his hotel simply to use
the toilet. When Don and Tony were walking down the street they
saw a suit store and Don admires a suit form the suit collection
through the window. Tony insisted him to buy the beautiful suit
which Don liked. When they entered the shop, the racist staff
refuse to sell Don a suit. It is very clear that the Green Book
depicts a wide range of racist attitudes that were dominant in
American life during the early and mid-20th century.On the way
to Raleigh, North Carolina, Tony is touched by the look on his
boss face once they stop the car to observe black labourers
picking up cotton from the cotton plant. Looking back they see
the doubly surprised expressions on the faces of the youngsters
who have not seen a black man in a blue suit and a cravat.Beyond
the adorable relationship that develops between the racially and
culturally mismatched Don and Tony, The wedding
?(Green Book | Movie & Cast Pictures | November 16, 2018, 2019)
between Tony and Dolores imbues Green Book with a romantic
subplot. Tongue-tied within the letters demanded by his wife,
Tony scribbles misspelt accounts of his diet and experiences on
the road until Don insists on serving to him. Don dictates
ornate and poetic language for Tony’s letters and also the
cutaways to Dolores and her feminine friends lightheaded or
teary over the prose lend a charming undercurrent. Collectively
would possibly expect, Farrelly keeps the tone of green Book
rather light-weight no matter many ugly moments of racist
behaviour.During the final concert venue at another hotel of
their musical expedition, Where Don is shown to a tiny room that
they refer to as his dressing room. Tony then goes to eat in the
dining room with the players of his band. When Don arrives to
join then the hotel manager refuses to let him eat there. Don
refuses to play the event. He told them that he can only play if
he is allowed to eat in the dining room just like other people
dining there. The hotel manager denies it and Tony pulls him
aside to talk to him. Don enters into the scene again and told Tony he will do the show if Tony wants to, knowing that Tony won’t get paid unless they finish the tour. Tony agrees with Don and they bail on the gig despite the screams of the hotel manager. Then they both walked down the street to a bar for black people. Don buys a round of drinks, flashing his wallet filled with money. After some time Don plays the piano with the jazz band of the bar. Moving towards the end of this feel-good movie. Tony and Don started their drive back to New York hoping to make it by Christmas Eve. The weather was really bad with a lot of snow on the roads and all over the places. After a few moments, Tony admits that he can’t stay awake any longer and barely see through the snow and he accepts that he won’t make it home and goes to sleep. While he was sleeping Don drives the car rest of the way to Tony’s house. He wakes Tony up and told him to go home with a pure smile. Tony invited Don to his house but he refused. Tony then went upstairs and surprises his family. Don returns to his ornate house and sits there alone in melancholy and solitude on a Christmas Eve. The ending of this movie is very emotional as Don comes to Tony’s house with Dolores wholeheartedly welcoming Don and thanked him for helping Tony with the letter and changing her husband.?(IMDb, 2019)
Director Peter Farrelly has made broad comedies in past. Working on his own in ?Green Book?, He doesnt veer far from that formula, opting for obvious comedy at every turn of the film. The film heads inevitably towards a moment of brotherhood between two men. ?Green Book? is a crowd-pleaser so watching it with a large audience is both essential for its maximum effect. ?The movie certainly paints a rosy picture of race relations, but ultimately there’s nothing bad in it. Movies like green book is
telling us a story that makes our grandfathers seem better than
they probably were. But it does so as an example of how we should? be as an aspirational ideal that maybe we will live up to in the future even if we didnt yesterday. With an old-fashioned filmmaking which big
studios no more offer anymore ?Green Book? is smooth and dashing, gliding along the surface of deeply emotional,complex issues while dipping down into them just enough to give us a taste of some actual substance. Nobody knows ?Green Book? s world is the real world, but its a nice one to live in for a while.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Universal Pictures. (2019). ?Green Book | Universal Pictures?. [online] Available at: [Accessed 22 Apr. 2019].
Vox. (2019). ?Green Book builds a feel-good comedy atop an artifact of shameful segregation. Yikes.?. [online] Available at: globes [Accessed 23 Apr. 2019].
IMDb. (2019). ?Green Book (2018) – IMDb.? [online] Available at: [Accessed 23 Apr. 2019].
British Film Institute. (2019). ?Green Book review: the little hoax that could | Sight & Sound.? [online] Available at: farrelly-nick-vallelonga-race-road-movie-awards-bait [Accessed 23 Apr. 2019].
Cinema Buzz. (2019). ?Everything You Need to Know About the Movie Green Book?. [online] Available at: [Accessed 22 Apr. 2019].
Mancini, V., Cosores, P., Cosores, P., Rossignol, D., Cosores, P., Gilke, C. and Cosores, P. (2019). ?Green Book Beautifully Illuminates The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Race?. [online] UPROXX. Available at: [Accessed 23 Apr. 2019].
James, C. (2019). ?Film review: Two stars for Green Book.? [online] Bbc.com. Available at: [Accessed 23 Apr. 2019].
Evening Standard. (2019). ?Green Book review ‘Flawed, but with two sublime actors’.? [online] Available at: [Accessed 23 Apr. 2019].
Culture Whisper. (2019). ?Controversial true story Green Book wins Best Picture.? [online] Available at: [Accessed 23 Apr. 2019].
Definitives, T., Book, G., Eggert, B., Farrelly, P., Mortensen, V., Ali, M., Cardellini, L., Maniscalco, S., Marinov, D. and Byrne, P. (2019). ?Green Book (2018) Deep Focus Review Movie Reviews, Critical Essays, and Film Analysis.? [online] Deep Focus Review. Available at: [Accessed 23 Apr. 2019].
