tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014874020674080213.post6942775881663311650..comments2024-03-22T11:43:15.466-07:00Comments on Oscargasms: Gentleman's AgreementAllenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11964977693763983338noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014874020674080213.post-52995375282077277262016-01-27T02:53:39.123-08:002016-01-27T02:53:39.123-08:00I think "Gentleman's Agreement" migh...I think "Gentleman's Agreement" might just be the most non controversial "controversial" film in Academy history. Under the guise of uncovering anti Semitism in the society of the time, it glosses over and sugarcoats the more viscously racist aspects of that very same society. At a time just two years after Japanese Americans were sent to government assigned internment camps based on nothing but their race and the lynching of Black Americans was still commonplace, it's hard to get riled up over Gregory Peck being turned away from a "restricted" hotel because he's thought to be Jewish. Oh my!<br /><br />What I like about the film is that it exposes the actual "attitudes" of people who believe they're not bigoted but whose behaviors are driven by these same attitudes that they are relatively unaware of. That's how so much bigotry and racism occurs in many human beings (just look at our current political milieu for further evidence). That theme still rings true today and is the one aspect of GA that remains relevant. Still, the film plays it safe time after time and much of the dialog and characterizations exist in the platitudes of upper class white people offering homilies about prejudice rather than gutsy portrayals of what's actually going on around them. Example: Peck and Stockwell discuss the discrimination the boy experiences over his perceived Jewishness but we don't ever see it. When the actors talk, we often get speeches that sound more like the voice of the screenwriter than of the characters themselves.<br /><br />Also, I think the performances are erratic. Peck has never been more wooden and Dorothy Maguire's passivity becomes monotonous after a while. I also find Anne Revere's sermonizing insufferable. John Garfield does manage to register in a part that's barely there and Celeste Holm adds some insouciance to a role that's really more of a plot fulcrum than a fleshed out character, but they don't really elevate the film from its preachy doldrums. The one character that seems of flesh and blood is June Havoc as Peck' secretary. In just a few brief scenes she registers as a flawed but very human person who protects herself by buying into the very anti-Semitism she's been the victim of. It's an intriguing dichotomy that the screenplay never really explores and I wish we saw more of her in the film.<br /><br />"Gentleman's Agreement" was a BIG picture at the time because of its subject matter (especially when you consider that many of the heads and top executives of Hollywood studios of the time were Jewish) but it's rather tame stuff and it hedges that subject matter by placing it in a rather docile and whitewashed setting. When you consider the fact that this film was made at the very moment when McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklist were rearing their ugly heads, you could see it as either very courageous for even attempting to tackle its subject matter or very timid for how it went about doing that. Either way, it doesn't make for very entertaining viewing. Frank/click5https://www.blogger.com/profile/03605293626729520817noreply@blogger.com