My Sundays: Green Book
Isolation is hard. Lockdown is harder. Nearly everyone I knew was suffering from not being able to properly socialise. Solitude or jail, you name it. However, every cloud has a silver lining and my silver lining was focusing more on movies and series I haven’t seen before - during the month of April. I used to just pick Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, Seinfeld or something that I’ve watched at least 5 times before and keep a numb mind. I wanted to focus and watch/read as much as possible as I didn’t have anything else to do.
Considering the fact that my hours were cut off by 20% and Mondays were my regular days off, the importance of Sundays hiked. I’d do my cooking and meal prep for the week (self-taught myself new recipes: stuffed eggplant, lentil soup etc) while I’d put something on. The first Sunday in that fashion had Green Book on the screen. (Available on Prime Video — Australia)
Green Book was an annual guidebook for African-American roadtrippers. It was originated and published by African American, New York City mailman Victor Hugo Green from 1936 to 1966, during the era of Jim Crow laws, when open and often legally prescribed discrimination against African Americans especially and other non-whites was widespread. — Wikipedia
I have always been in awe of movies and books that take place “on the road”. There is something that I can’t really explain, even if I try my best. Green Book is based on a true story: the friendship between two people who are the opposite of each other — Don Shirley (a musical genious with a substantial intellect) and his bodyguard/driver Tony “Lip” Vallelonga. The whole movie is based on the two and the rest of Shirley’s quartet having a tour down south (deep south) of USA.
The casting was interesting as it had Viggo Mortensen portraying an Italian working class man from New York City. Working as a bouncer (yet a Jack of all trades when trades are about side hustle), having a hard but happy life with a loving family. I’ve seen him acting in Lord of the Rings, Eastern Promises, History of Violence and even Texas Chainsaw Massacre. However; I can’t remember his skills on different dialects and accents. Well, let’s talk about the elephant in the room first: he pulled it off so well.
Another rising star, Mahershala Ali made a name for himself in the Season 3 of True Detective. The portrayal of a man that can’t find himself belong anywhere was so excellent that the corrupt jury of Academy Awards granted him the “Best Supporting Actor” award. However, the chemistry between the two made me think that the positions of leading and supporting actors were not clear at all.
Speaking of awards, got to add that the movie won “Best Screenplay” and “Best Picture” awards as well. I am not a movie critic — hence I can not comment on the two, yet I got an eye for beautiful photography and cinematography; and I can clearly understand the reasoning behind it. Some of the shots were so astonishing that I actually grabbed screenshots to use later on. (They are for my personal use only, hence I am not going to share them here — yet, a quick tip: the scene that they are eating fast food on park benches in front of pine trees is one of those shots.)
Let’s get to the controversy behind the movie. If you spend around an hour or two on social media daily, you must be familiar with words like “SJW”, “Politically Correct”, “Cancel Culture”, “Red Pill” and other bits and pieces incels and imbeciles love using. A portion of the audience stated that the producers acted like cabbies following an ambo: leveraging the movement of equality and that’s why — the movie was dishonest. Well, if it was a polyphonic movie with characters from various backgrounds, sexual orientation, religious stance but lacking depth in general (that’s what Netflix has been pulling off since 2017), I’d say that this assessment is correct. However, in this instance; I didn’t even think of that for a second and I was truly disheartened, reading these comments.
Now above was the first pillar of the controversy. Second pillar was — Spike Lee; dismaying the movie. The pioneer filmmaker/actor walked out of the Dolby Theatre after the movie won the Best Picture Award over his film: “BlacKkKlansman.” Apologies for my “French” but I find this meltdown “salty”. After the walk-out, controversy was kindled on Twitter with users stating that the movie had a really shallow message: “white guy saves the day.” I can’t agree with that, either. The white guy (Vallelonga) is plain muscle, a street smart bouncer with no education and no intelligence while Don Shirley is a genious. It is the duty of that white guy to protect Dr. Shirley in the movie. The tweets that compared “Black Panther” and/or “BlacKkKlansman” to Green Book was nothing but cringeworthy to me. (Reference)
Then the third pillar — Dr Don Shirley’s family. Shirleys were angered that they were not mentioned during the acceptance speech and they were not asked for advise/council during pre-production. That is completely understandable as they could have contributed a lot, to the movie, I thought. However, son of Anthony Vallelonga (The Lip) explained it with a few words below:
“Don Shirley himself told me to not speak to anyone. He told me the story that he wanted to tell. He told me, ‘If you’re going to tell the story, you tell it from your father, me. No one else. Don’t speak to anyone else. That’s how you have to make it.’ He told me, ‘Don’t make it until after I pass away.’ So I just kept my word to that man. I wish I could have reached out to Don Shirley’s family. I didn’t even know they really existed until after we were making the film, and we contacted his estate for music; and then the filmmakers, we invited them all to screenings and discussions. But I personally was not allowed to speak to his family, per Don Shirley’s wishes… I kept my word to the man, and that’s the reason for that.” (Reference)
His words raise some eyebrows as we will never know whether he was speaking the truth. If he made that up, shame on him. If it is the truth, good on him for keeping his word.
In conclusion, I would definitely rate it 8/10. Two points were broken due to some of the unnecessary scenes in the movie that wouldn’t mean anything at all. Even if you took them out of the script and kept it in the range of 90–100 minutes, you wouldn’t miss a lot.
Let’s finalise it with a beautiful track by the Jazz artist the movie was based on.
Footnote: I started working on this piece Mid-April, before the horrible death of George Floyd (rest in peace) and many others and #BlackLivesMatter protests. Work and life got in the way, hence I never found the time to finish it. I didn’t tag the story with the movement and-or tried connecting it to the current affairs as that would be going for “clickbait” and I have a handful ethical/moral codes. However, you beautiful people; I am glad you exist. You know who you are and you know who I am referring to.
