| re: Ragtime... for our time | |
| Posted by: lordofspeech 09:21 pm EDT 08/26/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Ragtime... for our time - claploudly 08:32 pm EDT 08/26/20 | |
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| I always thought the novel was centrally about the Mother. (Not a racist thing, I don't think. Just that's how it seemed to me. Her freeing herself. Including the Emma Goldman subplot...it was kinda more feminist than about Coalhouse.) I think the movie is about Coalhouse. Partly because Mary Steenburgen isn't right enough to locate herself in the world, and to travel from the imprisonment of her time to full-on consciousness. And by omitting the Emma Goldman plot line, we don't get the feminism. And the actor who played Coalhouse was great, and Jimmy Cagney was right in the middle of the Coalhouse storyline. I think it needs to be about Coalhouse or Mother or both. But not about everybody. But I don't think the problem with any of the versions is some kind of racist thing. It's just an aesthetic thing. There's leeway but you need to make it work. Is INTO THE WOODS about the Baker's Wife or Cinderella? Or the Baker? I think the director helps in shaping that kind of thing. I think the musical play doesn't know who it's about (although it leans a little bit toward Mother) and that's part of the problem. It's not enough about either Coalhouse or Mother. To me. It becomes a sort of a tapestry, and I can't find my way in. (But I only have seen it twice, the two times on Broadway, and the first time I saw it from way too far away in that big house.). |
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| Next: | re: Ragtime... for our time - AlanScott 05:09 am EDT 08/28/20 |
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