MultiCultural America

Question #1

David R Cobbins.

For many years America was considered to be a melting pot, a mixture of different ethnicities, races, and cultures. Recently, as in the last twenty years, America is now considered to be one of the most “multicultural” countries in the world. What does multicultural mean exactly? According to the dictionary it means “of, pertaining to, or representing several different cultures or cultural elements: a multicultural society.” The late twentieth and early twenty first century America is a country of 'multiculturalism”. Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese do not exist outside of the country they were born and raised in, and neither do their films. As the country evolved, changed, developed new ideas, and threw out old ones, the two filmmakers changed concepts, and racial representations in their films to reflect the new multicultural America. Both directors films changed to either explore different ethnicities inside their enclave or move outside of their enclave. In Spike Lee's “ Do The Right Thing” we see what's been traditionally a Black neighborhood, and Lee telling stories only involving Black people, expand to include a multiple ethnicities and their stories, and with Scorsese's “ Gangs of New York” we see him take on the plight of not Italian Americans, which he traditionally does, but Irish immigrants.
“Do The Right Thing” is a 1989 film written, directed, and produced by Spike Lee.

The film tells a tale of racial conflict and anger in a Brooklyn neighborhood called Bedford-Stuyvesant.It's set on a single street. That street is populated mostly by African-Americans and Puerto Ricans. At the end of the street is a pizzeria run by a white American Italian family and a Korean owned corner store. In short, the plot revolves around the tensions between the primarily African American community and the American Italian owners of the pizzeria. Mookie, played by Lee works as delivery guy for the Pizzeria. He's constantly clashing, in a not so serious manner, with Sal, and in a more serious manner with Pino. Pino hates Bed-Stuy and no longer wants to work their. Sal enjoys owning the pizzeria and “Feeding” the community, as he puts it. The internal tensions come from these three, and the external tension is provided by 'Buggin out', who's choosing to protest the fact that they're no Black people on Sal's wall of fame. In the end Sal causes the death of Radio Raheem, who had joined Buggin's protest. This causes an explosion of anger in the community. Outside the mass critical acclaim this film received, there was a personal exploration the Lee was experiencing, as well as an exploration of changing consciousness in America. 1989 was a turning point for race, in that the civil rights era was over, and Black Power movements were winding down. For one of the first times people were starting to embrace the idea that this wasn't just a country of black and white. America was becoming less content with being segregated between black and white and more open to the idea of being multicultural. Spike expresses this throughout “Do The Right Thing”. The first glimpse of this expression is in one of the opening scenes of the film when we get a shot of an outside building wall. Painted on it's wall are three flags, an American flag, a Puerto Rican flag, and African American Flag. The flags exist in the background with people painted in front of them. This is a representations of the changing times, no longer a melting pot of mixed cultures under one flag, but a multicultural country under multiple flags, in one nation. This scene is also a foreshadowing to a concept that has never taken place before in any of Lee's previous films. That concepts is a main cast characters who are not just black. Lee's prior movies included all black casts before, this one was different. In this film we have American Italians, Puerto Ricans, Koreans, and whites of no known ethnicity. What we also get is an interaction between the different races which shows that racial tension is no longer a problem between just black and white, but a problem for all people. These tensions range from lite, when Radio Raheem goes into a stereo “boom box” battle with a group of Puerto Ricans, to intense, when Raheem is killed by the police which starts a riot. Another noteworthy scene is when the Korean store owner states that he's the same as the other black inhabitants, being that he himself is black. This statement can be taken in multiple ways, one being that we're all the same and share the same problems in the end. The other being that “black” is social creation that has more to do with economics and class, then with skin color. Spike Lee doesn't abandon his enclave, but his enclaves gets a modern day makeover. Spike Lee's cinematographer paints a picture of vibrant colors. This leads us visually to a transition of a multicultural society. Everything stands out, and none of the colors seem out of place, except the pictures on Sal's wall of fame.




Gangs of New York is a 2002 film directed by Martin Scorsese. Although Scorsese has a very diversified film career, many of his movies typically involve people of Italian ethnic background, and Italian American enclaves. Gangs of New York is an extreme contradiction to this tradition and a nod towards a national identity that has now moved from a solely secular country, to a multicultural one. The story revolves around the “Five Points” neighborhood in New York city, which in actuality, 100 years later will be an Italian American enclave, but at the time when the story takes place (1800's) is quite multicultural. The movie is slightly based on Herbert Asbury's 1928 nonfiction book The Gangs of New York. The film deals with the two biggest issues of the era, those being Irish immigration to the city and the drafting of men into the Civil War. With this film Scorsese forces us to look at race and ethnic relations through another viewpoint. Throughout the film the battle is between the "Nativist", those who are born in the United States, led by Bill Cutting, and the Irish Catholic immigrants, who come to be led by Amsterdam. The most interesting aspect of this film is that the tension isn't between racial groups, unless you take into account that the Irish at this time were considered non-white, but it's between immigrants and naturally born Americans. This marks a significant change in Scorsese narratives. This change is made possible only by the idea of multiculturalism. If our differences in culture and ethnic background are starting to be embraced, then there has to be something new to separate us and create conflict. Scorsese is choosing the idea of “American” vs. “Immigrant”, instead of “Black vs. White” or “Italian vs. Etc.”, again as Spike Lee ushered in a new era, Scorsese continues it. Bill Cutting doesn't actually have much against the Irish, as long as their natives, and anyone can be a native citizen if they're born in America. His biggest issue is Irish Catholic immigrants, even then we see him break his own rules by allowing former Dead Rabbits into his gang. By doing this Bill Cutting has created a multicultural gang, one made up of different ethnicities. The Dead Rabbits, an Irish immigrant gang, even features a Black American member. A reoccurring theme, as with “Do The Right Thing”, is the flag. The American flag is everywhere in this film. It seems to be a uniting factor for all native people despite their ethnic background. It's usually in the background of important scenes, but one instance where it stands out in the foreground is when Cutting has himself wrapped it in as he talks to Amsterdam. After Amsterdam saves him from an attempted assassination, which is ironic because he does want Cutting dead, Cutting sits in a rocking chair draped in tattered flag and talks about the downfall of civilization and how he has maintained his power over the years through violence and the "spectacle of fearsome acts."Maybe this is an allusion to what white society has done to ethnic minorities for years in America. Film making wise, Scorsese uses new technology to put us right in the middle of the Five Points area. CGI technology and extensive set pieces help us as an audience to understand the world in which these people lived in. It helped us to understand the poverty and decay of the city, and how closely these people lived together, regardless of race or ethnicity.



Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese had previously, almost solely made films that dealt with their particular race and ethnic background. These two filmmakers have worked for decades, and as the times changed, so did they. As American became more prevalent in pushing the idea of multiculturalism and celebrating the differences and similarities all of it's inhabitants shared, both directors were at the forefront of translating that expression into deep and content rich films. Gangs of New York and Do The Right Thing don't necessary move out of the inter city enclave mentality, but they transform it from a ethnic enclave into an American enclave.





Works cited:





Shohat & Stam. Unthink Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media.








Roediger, David. The Wages of Whiteness. 1991. New York: Verso.





Stam, Robert. Bakhtin,Polyhony, and Ethnic/Racial Representation. 1991. Illinois: University of Illinois.

The New Wave Americans

Both Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee are apart of a new generation of American filmmakers that were trained entirely through film schools. They’re truly American “Auteurs”, not just in the sense that you can study their individual work and find similarities throughout the body, but more in the sense that their films reflect their own personal vision. According to a group of film critics known as the Cahiers du cinema, regardless if the directors are the screenwriters or not, he or she should use their camera as a pen (camera stylo), write through the mise en scène, and imprint their vision on the work. So if Lee and Scorsese are “Auteurs” we must ask the question, what vision are they trying to imprint on their work? The answer is rather simple, because both directors are trying to achieve similar visions. Scorsese, through “Mean Streets”, is trying to portray a definitive aspect of his a youth as an ‘itailianamerican’, and Spike Lee through “Joe’s Bed Stuy Barbershop “, is trying to do the same thing, a portrait of his youth as a Black American. Although they cover different aspects of their particular culture, these two directors are both making a valiant attempt at penning a vision of their youth culture upon the films they make.


When I the use the words “youth culture” I’m not merely expressing the idea of the overall American counterculture movement. That’s involved, but more specially I’m making a reference to the way Lee and Scorsese viewed their relative cultures through their own eyes, as well as the media were influenced by as ‘young people’.





“Mean Streets” is a more realistic depiction of an Italian American community in the eyes of its writer and director Martin Scorsese. Here we see a mafia life that’s not as flashy, grandiose, or beautiful; as it’s captured in movies like “The Godfather”. He uses his training from film school and his admiration of European cinema, specifically French, and Italian styles to create realism. The advancement of film technology also helps him in penning his vision. An example of this advancement is the creation of smaller cameras the lack of large, clunky equipment. The smaller camera allows Scorsese to get closer into the scene. We see it being used effectively in the fight scene in the bar when one of Charlie‘s friends is called a “mook“. The relatively light weight of the camera allows it to be placed on the shoulder, and we are thrown right into the shot as an audience. We also get a shot thats a long take with few cuts throughout this entire scene. This of course is something Scorsese learned from the French New Wave. The long take with no cuts does the perfect job of making us feel as though we are apart of the fight, this in turn adds to the realism of the film. It also gives us are own gaze, no longer are regulated to just spectators off in the distance. Now there are three gazes, the director, the characters, and are own. We’re left to make our own choices about what we see on the screen. Throughout the film we also get culturally references. We see a glimpse of Martin’s inner struggle with his own religion. However, we’ve seen this in other Italian gangster films; the inclusion of Catholicism is something that happens often. Although this is an important aspect of the story, what’s most impressive in “Mean Streets”, as previously stated, is the use of the camera as actually true to life camera stylo. Through this we see the film is setting up Scorsese’s signature, he’s becoming an ‘Auteur’.




Spike Lee’s “Joe’s Bed Stuy Barbershop” is less about the technical aspects, although we do see him experiment with some techniques he’ll use in later films, and more about the political and economical aspects of the Black community as Lee knows it. Spike having grown up with Blaxplotation films knows all about the stereotypes placed on black characters, and it’s obvious that he wants to avoid this. He also wants to avoid classical Hollywood clichés; however, despite his attempts to stay away from these pitfalls, he fails at both. The movie is a political statement to his personal struggle, a concept we see used again, by French New Wave filmmakers. Portraying authentic Black experience vs. economic advancement, this is the battle being waged not only within the film but also within Lee. He has a choice of, in modern day youth culture terms “Keeping it real”, or “selling out”. By selling out he would make his movies appeal to a more mainstream audience and thus taking him into the world of Hollywood. In that world he wouldn’t struggle to get financing for his films. So which choice does Lee make? We do get the authentic experience of a Black family, something which we aren’t show to often in popular cinema, but we also get the stereotypical Blaxploatation character, and the Classical Hollywood film fatale character. Lovejoy is the kind of criminal, pimp, character that we see glamorized in Blaxploation. He looks pretty, he talks pretty, and he makes his money illegally. Zack’s wife is the classical female noir character that causes the downfall of her male companion. So we see Lee take position on both sides, even in an independently funded student film. However, make no mistake about it, we still see some none stereotypical characters, and an 80% authentic experience, which is better than none. In doing this Lee starts to develop his auteur style of taking on issues within the black community.



Through these two films we see both Spike and Martian represent there cultures as they saw it in the years of their youth. We start to see them develop specific styles, and through studying their body of work we can see these styles, and themes worked over and over again. They’re truly are American ‘Auteurs’.






References:

Bernardoni, James. 1991. The New Hollywood. North Carolina: Mcfarland & Company, Inc. Publishers.

Guerrero, Edward. 1993. Framing Blackness. Philadelphia: Temple University.

Neupert, Richard. 2002. A History of the French New Wave Cinema. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.