Such a frustrating disappointment

Pretty Good

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

a masterpiece. about a reality who remains contemporary. about the roots of success. about family. and, sure, about the image of America, this image more powerful than the reality. it is unfair to say why it is a great film. because, behind the image, the impeccable script, the portrait of the lead hero and his struggle to be a successful man , ignoring each detail against this desire, it is a form of poetry of the East , bitter, sad, sandy, cold. the need to escape from yourself. result, a great movie. like fresco of the self definition of an entire world.

aesthetic and sentimental. as portrait of a world and like realistic fight for happiness. a film with status of experience who represents not only illustration of Elia Kazan past but the search of sense of a generation. it is a splendid film for the image, music and message. for the bitter portrait of a way, force of detail and something else who could be translation of feelings of viewer. a spectacular movie far by usual definition. and good occasion to remember slices from a land history, sound of a special emotion, price of a travel who is of adventure circle. a story about use of sacrifice and about the building of fundamental decisions. useful. in a not ordinary manner. that could be all. or only beginning for new meeting with this superb Kazan work.

What we have here is a three-hour movie that required more editing. Just because the movie is an epic-length feature does not make it an epic, and this movie is not an epic. Ostensibly, it's about a young man, a Greek-Turk, struggling to emigrate to the United States but it's really about the director, using the movie as a pretext to tell his own story, a story that is not especially interesting. First, the director demonstrates his bias toward Turks, loading up the movie with stereotypical images of Turks as bullies, oppressors and petty-autocrats. Then, stretching plausibility to the limit, the director shows the protagonist, who is literally dirt poor, having lost whatever meager belongings he had to thieves and prostitutes, getting involved with the family of a well-to-do merchant and then, in what can only be ascribed to a bout of temporary insanity, rejecting the possibility of marrying into the family in order to go to America. It is one thing to emigrate because you're denied opportunity; it is another thing entirely to emigrate while opportunity is knocking on the door and in this movie not only is opportunity knocking for this young man, it's knocking loud and clear. Then he winds up having an affair with the married wife of a rich Armenian-American, a part of the movie which has some dramatic moments due to the excellent acting of Katharine Balfour, who gives the best performance in the movie. And finally he makes it to America, by appropriating a dead man's name, and then is shown shining shoes in New York City, with a big smile on his face, while the director, in an off-screen monologue, explains that over a period of years the young man manages to bring over the rest of his family. The scenes depicting his actual arrival to the United States are anticlimactic, featuring one brief glimpse of the Statue of Liberty in a wide angle shot; little drama there. Manhattan is depicted as a series of lights flickering in the distance; not much drama there either. Given the main character's obsession with getting to America, these scenes are a let down. Then there are the scenes set on Ellis Island which the director uses to impugn the American immigration officials who are portrayed as being arrogant and on the take. This alone should have been enough to convince the young man to take the next boat back to Turkey, beg his fiancé's forgiveness, marry her, acquire his father-in-law's business, make a lot of money, and possibly buy a political office, if not for himself then for one of his relatives. But he does not do it, instead settling to become a shoe shiner in New York City. The movie character Forest Gump said: "Stupid is as stupid does." Gump must have watched this movie too. How the young man, this shoe shiner, gets the money to afford to bring over the rest of his family is not explained, which is probably for the best. The interior cinematography is excellent, the exteriors showing mountains and villages almost stock footage; the actor who plays the protagonist gives a credible performance, and the rest of the cast does good work. It's the story, and the director's apparent need to focus on himself, that brings this movie down.

I saw America, America in 1963 when the movie came out and was extremely impressed with the way the years of the great immigration in the US was portrayed. Having Grandparents that immigrated from Turkey and Greece the images and the experience of the trip over to New York range true to the stories told to me by them. In a comment made in a recent blog the writer couldn't understand the desire of the immigrants to come to this country. The passion and the hope these immigrants had only could be understood by someone old enough to experience the whole immigrant movement of the 20's, 30's and 40's. The film itself has beautifully filmed images and a great film score. The film itself has been available as a PAL DVD and regional title in Europe and has not been released here in anything but VHS. Occasionally, it is shown on AMC but not too often. It appears that it has been tied up with some sort of legal issue. It is a perfect film for the Criterion Collection.