Greetings Economists, MBS writes, Right. In this respect, incidentally, the friendship in the film between the Irish and the black seems like a film cliche but is actually true to the history. There was enough mingling for such an alliance to be plausible. At the same time, it isn't overplayed. The black man is not prominent in the story, and he dies in the riot. No Hollywood ending there, and another sign of the intelligence underlying the film.
Doyle I agree with Yoshie, the weakness of the movie is in not portraying the 'friendship' of a free black man to Amsterdam. You minimize the meaning of friendship here for no good reason. Your comment about the intelligence of the underlying film is not appropriate. How could the truth of the movie be destroyed by saying clearly what friendship meant then? Not likely. In fact it is more likely it is hard in this time to understand a friendship now. And to see how in such a sucky culture of the period that people could be friends is a real eye opener about the porous and plastic nature of human cognition. Which is what class movements are built upon. The working class to remind you is composed of various groups of workers finding unity over time. That often in that century it was the vehement passions of religious cognitive methods (John Brown) that fused people into a single group. The intelligence of a movie is the intelligibility (in contemporary parlance, 'Usability') of the movie in respect to whoever sees the movie. Not the unknowable of Scorsese's intentions behind the scenes. More likely the collaborative team that made the movie is who decided how to portray a black man's emotional reality in the movie. There must have been some debate from the cast and so forth in making the movie about how to portray people. You get the sense that Scorsese uses historical documents (flashed on the screen) to bolster his position that he is seeking to show what the documentation during the period says. Yoshie says that there may be elements that would contribute to a better portrayal over time as the lessons of this movie sink in. That may be. Perhaps the reality is too much to expect of this document if it is opening the doors to understanding the history of capitalism. I think though it better to succeed on levels that I think a red would naturally want than to forgive the high capitalist like Scorsese for their failings. There is no good reason to think that minimizing understanding passionate relationships between people is going to destroy meaning. If you want to debate that emotions are not part of 'meaning' you'll be on not very solid ground. thanks, Doyle Saylor
