Review of America America (2012) by Edith N — 28 Jul 2011

Following a Dream For a Mere Three Hours.

I think what every dream project needs is what Dave Barry refers to as "the Department of Louise." Someone whose job it is to step in and say, "Yeah, no." Someone who would have told Michael Cimino that maybe he needed to rein in the excesses a hint while making [i]Heaven's Gate[/i]. Someone who could have gotten Martin Sheen to a hospital a bit faster. I'm sure everyone can come up with a list of people who let what might have been great works of art get bogged down by a lack of vision, a lack of clarity. This could have been a great movie. It could have been one of those stories wherein a family history becomes American history, the kind of story Americans love to see about their country. However, what Americans don't love is three-hour movies. There are exceptions, but let's fact it. All the exceptions have a lot more action sequences. What Elia Kazan needed was Louise there to wield final say over the editing process.

What Elia Kazan had was an uncle, Stavros Topouzoglou (Stathis Giallelis). His family was from a small town in Turkey which was also populated by Greeks, like the Topouzoglou family, and Armenians. The 1890s were not a good time to be Greek or Armenian in Turkey, and not only Stavros but his whole family dream of more for him. They tell him that he will go to Constantinople, to the store of a cousin, and he will work for Cousin Isaac (Harry Davis) and earn enough to bring the whole family out of their little village and the poverty therein. Thing is, Stavros doesn't want to live in Constantinople. He wants to go to America. It's not a "streets are paved with gold" dream, but it's definitely a "land of opportunity" dream. The problem is that the family can't afford to send Stavros to America, and he is robbed on the way to Constantinople, eventually having to kill the robber. Cousin Isaac suggests that Stavros marry Thomna Sinnikoglou (Linda Marsh), the plain daughter of a wealthy merchant, but Stavros believes doing so will trap him in Turkey. So he goes off and is young and stupid for a while instead.

Of course, we know that Stavros will end up at very least sending his nephew to America. Elia Kazan was actually born in what was then Constantinople (now Istanbul), but he was brought to New York when he was four. (His uncle's real name was Avraam, but Kazan said everything else was true.) Therefore, Kazan grew up knowing what the immigrant perspective on the United States was. He insisted that the scene where Stavros kisses the ground when he finally gets into the US was artistically and emotionally necessary, and you'd figure he'd know. All through the movie, there is the dream of America. The character of Hohannes Gardashian (Gregory Rozakis), the Armenian, is similarly passionate, and he shows that it is a shared dream. Stavros helped him, and he does the only thing he can to help Stavros. These are men who know that they are trapped in Turkey. Especially the Armenian. But in America, no one cares if you are Armenian or Greek or Turkish. At least in theory. If you work hard, there is a life for you where you don't have to worry about soldiers pounding on your door.

The problem with the movie is that Kazan seems to want to tell us everything he knows about his uncle, and we don't care anywhere near as much as he did. I think he spends too long establishing each aspect of his uncle's life, and while some of them are interesting, overall, it just goes on way too long. Stavros starts out young and stupid, too trusting to know when he's being conned and should cut someone loose. Okay, we get that. And we get that it let Stavros in for worse problems than he would have had if he'd showed a little forethought. We get that Turkey at the time was a place a lot of people would want to leave. And we get that Stavros went on to make a whole string of foolish decisions because he thought they would get him closer to that American dream of his. I can imagine young Elia having the stories told to him of how the family eventually managed to make it as they all dreamed of doing. And the story of Stavros and Sophia Kebabian (Katharine Balfour) ends with showing the unity of the immigrant community, I think, but I still kind of don't care.

The story of the United States is the story of immigration. Stavros came to the United States (illegally, it's worth noting), worked hard, and brought his family over. That family in turn contributed to the American economy and American culture. No, not every family of poor Greek immigrants will produce an Elia Kazan--or a Michael or Olympia Dukakis--but one by one, they built the country into what it is now. Almost none of the movie is actually set in the United States. Almost all of it is set in Turkey, both in Constantinople and in the Anatolian village where the family originated. However, Stavros spends the entire movie dreaming, and the title phrase is repeated over and over through the course of the movie. Kazan himself said that, even now, people in Turkey would kiss the ground the moment they set foot in America. I don't think that's true of all of them, but it's true that this country has been a dream of opportunity since before it was a country, and this movie was intended to celebrate that. It also helps explain the HUAC thing a little; if Kazan believed it was best for his adopted country, he would do what he had to do.