Skip to main content

Film Review: A Study on "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” (1945) - [Essay #7 - August 2022]

  Adapting to Life's Hand - A Study on "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" *Super Spoilers* ________ "Mama! Mama, they're cutting the tree!" - Francie Nolan   ________ Written by Bolivar T. Caceres Reading time approx: 20 minutes      Watch Film (free) Published January 15, 2022             Listen to Essay (free) Featured on IMDB                                 Listen to Soundtrack (free) Read our Scene Study                     Listen to our First Take Top 5 Film Like “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" "However, unlike a stage, in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," this stiff and static cinematography only ushers us into these Shakespearian characters filled with tragedy and humor. " "I guess you won't get home until the sun comes up." Adaptation is all about survival. It's the innate ability to overcome hardship to live long and prosper – as Captain Spock is wont to say. In these moments of perseverance, one

Film Review: A Study on "Next Stop, Greenwich Village” (1976) - [Essay #6 - January 2022]

redbox deals 

All Of New York City Is A Stage - A Study on "Next Stop, Greenwich Village"

*Super Spoilers*

________


"I'll tell you something, Robert. Underneath that pose is just more pose. Adios." - Larry Lapinsky

________



Written by Bolivar T. Caceres

Reading time approx: 20 minutes     Watch Film (free)

Published January 15, 2022             Listen to Essay (free)

Featured on IMDB                           Listen to Soundtrack (free)

Top 5 Film Like “Next Stop, Greenwich Village”

 



Get video games delivered to your door with GameFly

 

"In Greenwich Village, Larry has his place, but there is no food, no furnishings, no photos, no personality or family. "


"Who are you?" "I'm Bernstein." 

New York City – chiefly Greenwich Village – is the stage. Some of the players are Larry Lapinsky (Lenny Baker), Faye and Ben Lapinksky (Shelley Winters,) Sara Roth (Ellen Greene,) Anita Cunningham (Lois Smith,) Robert Fulmer (Christopher Walken,) Berstein Chandler (Antonio Fargas), and Clyde Baxtor (Jeff Goldblum.) It is the 1950s. Jazz buzzes throughout the clubs and streets. Art and artists are everywhere. Next Stop, Greenwich Village, directed in 1976 by Paul Mazurksky, captures the 1950's essence while taking advantage of character tropes to study how living under proscribed notions can reward or trouble someone. 



A twenty-two-year-old Larry Lapinsky packs his suitcases in his childhood bedroom, clothed in slacks, blazer, and dress shirt. He casts aside his kippah when emptying his drawer. When Larry walks out of the bedroom, his baseball pennants, artwork, family photos, and diploma remain on the walls. He says he will come back for them with no real commitment. 




Larry flocks the nest, renouncing the opera music and Jewish heritage, but not without his mother's rebukes — calling him "Mr. Greenwich Village." Larry is no longer a child dependent on his parents. He is an actor, an artist, and an adult. Larry, a picture-perfect bohemian with his scarf and long trench coat, takes a short train ride from Brooklyn to Greenwich to his new apartment.



With her son's departure, Faye faces the potential loss of her identity, and her hysterical emotions reflect this. She is the protectress, which Larry's ambitions threaten to take away. Faye resorts to frequent visits to Greenwich Village to guarantee Larry's health – by bringing groceries – and to guarantee he is not a fallen man, filled with no ambition and a surplus of debauchery – by offering warnings. She meets Sara Roth, who tethers on the line of a femme fatale and a pious woman. Sara is Larry's love and antagonist. She is the central catalysis of Larry's change and endangers his success as an artist and adult. 



redbox deals

Sara's first appearance is in Larry's rickety Greenwich Village bed in a bra. She is eager to leave, even after Larry begs her to stay. She refuses to attach herself to Larry's life; although, she has many opportunities to do so. Later in the film, she is pregnant, and with Larry ready to quit acting and work full-time at the pharmacy, he asks her to be a wife and a mother. Sara declines, aborting the fetus. 


Sara persists in her box. She never becomes a pious woman or holds any other respectable title. Larry and her break up after she sleeps with Robert. While Larry continues to audition to be an actor, he meets others on the stage who also struggle to fit the mold they choose for themselves. 




Connie (Dori Brenner) is full of compassion. She cares for her friends as a mother would care for her children. In one scene, she dashes towards Anita's house to stop her from suicide. Moreover, who is there when Berstein has a breakdown? Like Larry, Connie finds herself when she lets go of everything she believes defines her – a mother, a lover, a savior, a mentor – and when she wholly accepts herself, she finds mature love with Larry. 


Bernstein, a homosexual African-American entertainer, denies his upbringing to fit in a white world until the pressure breaks him. Crying after Anita's suicide, believing he is the cause of her death for sleeping with her sailor suitor, Bernstein Chandler reveals he is Floyd Lewis from Macon, Georgia, not a child of a cleaning lady who worked for a Jewish family named Bernstein. When he embraces himself, his happiness and growth are apparent. 


Robert, the playboy intellect, is an aspiring poet whose only epiphany is that he never loved anyone. Robert leaves with Sara to Mexico, where possible growth can happen. Maybe Robert will fall in love with Sara, and Sara would find love the motivator to being a pious woman.  


In the end, Larry's mother sees Larry as an adult. Although Faye will not stop being a protectress, she finally understands her son, giving him the freedom to protect himself.

 

redbox deals 

 

"Where are you going with all that luggage?" "Greenwich Village." 

Clothing and demeanor are conservative attributes in 1950s fashion. Men wear collared shirts and slacks; women wear dresses and skirts. Everyone is well-adorned for the world stage, both in appearance and bearing. They are fashionable and respectable; clothes are far from revealing or vibrant. The wardrobe department (Peggy Farrell and Max Soloman) and Mazursky dress the characters in "Next Stop Greenwich Village" in drab clothes, evocative of this old-fashion vogue of the 1950s. If there is any New York City film that is the antithesis of the flamboyant "Do the Right Thing" (Spike Lee, 1989), Next Stop, Greenwich Village is that film. 




Every character has their variation on this simple fashion: Connie (Dori Brenner) may wear a button-up and slacks, or Sara may wear a black dress with red flowers on it; compared to the lead character, Robert and Clyde Baxter (Jeff Goldblum ) dress more handsome and well-to-do. Clyde always wears a cream suit and white suit at auditions, making him stand out from the rest of the cast. Robert wears his burgundy polo collar popped up. The main character, Larry, wears his trench coat and scarf, looking like an ostensible sophisto.  


However, it is not the efficacious clothing that illuminates the character's vim and vigor, joys and misfortunes. Next Stop, Greenwich Village wants to remove the superficial from each character, to focus on the character's inherent natures and traits, and to break the tropes instilled upon them, throwing them into a whirlwind of trial and tribulation for their desires. Larry and his cohorts following the fashion of his time, while living in the Mecca of art and culture — New York City — is far from unorthodox, and it holds far less import than, for example, Larry's shabby living quarters. 


Art director Robert Hart uses Greenwich Village, and particularly the confining apartment spaces, as opportunities to elucidate the character's history (past, present, and future.) Larry grows up in a small apartment with a kitchen that barely fits the three individuals for dinner. Nevertheless, the apartment has food, kitchenware, painted walls, and it is cozy with furnishings, photos, and iconography. It has personality, and most importantly, it has a family.



redbox deals


In Greenwich Village, Larry has his place, but there is no food, no furnishings, no photos, no personality or family. It is a brown-wood studio apartment with crude make-shift furniture and shoddy appliances. Larry tries with Sara to fill his apartment with a family before painting the walls, adding some furniture, or hanging up some photos — the photos he left in his childhood bedroom.


In one of the film's final scenes, the Lapinskys stand in Larry's apartment, and although it has not changed much in appearance, it and the people within it have changed. There is a supportive environment with love and understanding. There is a family hugging and loving each other with little censorship. It is the culture and family which Larry ran away from that makes him finally whole. The troubles are gone, and the rewards are near: Larry is going to Hollywood. 

 

"Listen, listen to that voice." "Wonderful."

Next Stop Greenwich Village" opens with "Three To Get Ready" by The Dave Brubeck Quartet over the intro credits. The song is jaunty and full of jazzy motifs, the brush-sticked drums breaks, the syncopated saxophone, and the often discordant piano. Opening with this track immediately paints the setting, the jazz age surrounding the film's characters. Thus, it helps paint the nature of the film. To live a jazz life, to live free is to live a challenging life, one with ups and downs. A life where one finds and loses friends and love, maybe a child. A life where people judge and question one's decisions at all turns. Moreover, this misleading lively song prepares the audience for the unexpected.



 

  Cliff Kohlweck, and the entire sound department, coat "Next Stop Greenwich Village" with police sirens, barking dogs, passing cars, and other New York City sounds. Kohlweck also heightens eventful scenes or important transitions for a particular character with jazz: The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Charlie Parker, J.J. Johnson, and The Glen Miller Orchestra. 



"Three To Get Ready" becomes Larry's song. Kohlweck sparsely layers it in the background at different tempos to elucidate Larry's frustration, embarrassment, annoyance, anger, and happiness. For example, when Larry starts his journey right after leaving home, he is happy yet pensive, nervous but excited, and the "Three To Get Ready" plays again at its normal medium tempo. However, playing again so soon has greater significance. 




Larry Lapinksy's ultimate plight is his belief that letting go of his past will secure his future as an independent adult and artist in New York City. The Dave Brubeck Quartet and jazz represent this future; it represents Larry's idealism as an independent artist and adult. Therefore, his friends, who extend from his dream, receive the same jazzy treatment. In terms of sound, the opera's wholesome and familiar tones represent his past. It is Faye's favorite music, and it is the music she plays in her home, for herself as much as her family. 


Later, during one of Faye's visits to Greenwich Village, she cooks lunch and plays on Larry's vinyl player plays "Tosca," a song by Jussi Bjorling. In this scene, familial harmony and warmth are absent when Sara or Larry's other friends are at his apartment, even during the party. As much as Larry and his father, Ben, may often disagree with their mother when she shows a fervent passion for the song – "Next time he is at the MET, I am going" – they cannot help but agree with her that his voice and the sounds are beautiful. 


Get video games delivered to your door with GameFly


When the film ends, Larry visits his mother and old neighbor. All is well and peaceful between relations. He boasts about his trip to Hollywood, "Yeah, I am going to Hollywood. I am going to star in a movie." The sounds that he hears are not the jazz songs of the time and his dreams, but the chatter of the people in the street and a violin playing a Jewish melody, soft, warm, and familiar, a song from his heritage. Smiling, he accepts that he must embrace his past to be himself fully. The violin whines on. 

 

redbox deals 

"You all think I'm crazy, don't you?"

Arthur J. Ornitz's cinematography is subtle and unobtrusive. At first glance, the shots are amateurish, rendering the film to appear as a film school final thesis project. Unlike the hip and flashy styling of Lee and Dickerson's camera work in "Do The Right Thing," the camera work in Next Stop, Greenwich Village is raw and basic. There are no crane shots, dolly shots, and Steadicam shots; in fact, the camera seldom moves unless to track, tilt, or pan. The static behavior of the camera is dramatic and apt for the film. 




After copulation with Sara, Larry jumps and runs excitedly to the train, and the camera never moves, allowing Larry to run off camera. One can imagine another cinematographer using some camera effects to show Larry's happiness, but not Ornitz.


A few shots later, Larry waits for the train home, and as he waits, he takes the time to practice his impersonations. There is a static wide establishing shot of the train tracks and the empty station platform save for Larry. Here, one expects to see a Lee-like crane shot slowly coming down into a medium shot of Larry practicing his impersonations with his imaginary trophy, an empty liquor bottle he found. But, again, the camera is still.




Larry is drunk on love, freedom, and a bit of liquor. His raucousness causes a beat officer to appear. In a funny exchange between the officer and Larry, portrayed in static medium and long shots with a few over-the-shoulder shots sprinkled in, the officer offers Larry advice: "take my advice, get into another line." There are no zoom-ins or other for dramatic camera effects. The camera sits on a tripod and shoots. When the scene ends, Larry, not discouraged, still practices his impersonations, and Halsey cuts to that stalwart wide establishing shot. What the audience experiences in this short scene are the standard practices for every scene in the film. There is no fuss about it. 


Get video games delivered to your door with GameFly

The authenticity of the 35 mm grain is like taking a time machine; it gives the film a vintage-ness that it needs, as it is shot in 1970 but set in 1950. The choice of browns and orange tinges, heavy shadows, and natural lighting further push the impression that some final-year film students shot the film, probably using a college's 16mm.


The subtlety of the camera work allows the study of character to be forefront. It also captures Larry and his cohorts' spartan lifestyle in Greenwich Village. Beyond these attributes, the sparse camera movements are representative of the theater stage, the stage where Larry wants to shine like Marlon Brando or Lawrence Olivier. When watching the theater, there is one angle and no cameras, and Next Stop, Greenwich Village succeeds at producing the sense of the static-single view. This style hooks the audience into Larry's life without the Hollywood flash, keeping the film humble and honest, alluding to what best leads to rewards: living within one's innate essence. 


redbox deals 

"Larry... be a good actor." 

Art direction, wardrobe stylization, sound design, acting, setting, and cinematography are not the only contributors to support the underlying themes of Next Stop, Greenwich Village: that following one's principles with integrity and staying true to oneself more often than not gift rewards over trouble – even for Sara and Robert. Mazursky and editor Richard Halsey edit a film that delicately glues each character's journey. Here, they first see Larry become an adult and accept his whole self – opera music, Jewish heritage, and all. Here, they first see Anita's trouble inundate her, and Bernstein facing his issue while watching Robert and Sara run away from theirs. Many in the film community say films are made in post-production, and Next Stop, Greenwich Village exemplifies this perception.




Although there are many continuity errors and slight jump cuts, the raw editing has a purpose. The rawness presents the film with the same piquancy as the cinematography: the illusion of a student film, maybe a film shot and edited by the characters the audience watches. Furthermore, many of these continuity errors and jump cuts are intentional on a technical level. It is customary for directors, especially those trained in acting, to choose the best performance over the best shot and the film's flow. Nevertheless, with the help of the sound design and the Dave Brubeck Quartet and by mimicking the subtlety of Ornitz's work, the film eventually finds its flow.

 

The film's pacing is slow. The editing is simple: a cross-fade here and an unnoticeable cut there, a J-cut (image cuts before music) or L-cuts (music cuts before image), a shot-reverse-shot edit, wide shots before mediums, holding on a dramatic moment, fast cuts during the party, or a single shot to express melancholy: it is fundamental and reminiscent of film school teachings. Like the cinematography, it works by staying out of the way of the character's journey. Doing so allows the characters to incite the editing of a particular moment. 





On the Newkirk Avenue platform, performing his impersonation and holding his imaginary Academy award, the cuts follow the heartbeat of a tipsy lovesick, newly-independent young adult. Instead of illustrating the moment full of passion with fast cuts, Halsey takes it slow. Halsey holds the establishing wide shot, cuts to a medium, and holds a bit, then a long shot, and back to a medium shot in no real rush. There is a reliable shot-reverse-shot edit with the two shots and over-the-shoulder when the beat officer arrives. The cuts are pensive and heartful. Larry is having a moment, and Halsey wants the audience to enjoy it as much as Larry. The characters control the pace of their scene throughout the entire film.



During Larry's first apartment party, the camerawork and the editing have many opportunities to showboat. However, they do not. Halsey, in particular, understands the trajectory of a party. Parties start slow; people mingle, talk and drink. So, Halsey takes it slow, flowing the pensive pace from the Newkirk Avenue station scene. The cuts are faster as the party heats up and people feel the liquor. There is less focus on the conversations and more on the happenings. The editing changes, returning to the slow and pensive pace when Larry's mother arrives at the party. 


Halsey's editing strength is his ability to step back without losing his style and without losing any of the film's voice. Although the character runs the flow of the film, it is only Halsey's who can tell their story best. 

 

 


​​"Commenting, editorializing, joking - terrible! Don't do it. It's fatal." 

Next Stop, Greenwich Village may not be a showy film, but it rewards its audience for their stay with character development. It exemplifies Franz Borzage's quote, "…life is made up largely of melodrama." (Franz Borzage, Wakefield, 46.) In using narrative techniques, Next Stop, Greenwich Village showcases the dramatic situations one must go through to fit in or break out of a characteristic, be free, be an adult, and ultimately, be one's true and best self. Furthermore, it promotes the theory that living within prescribed characteristics can cause trouble while letting them go can foster reward. 




    As a short time in New York City is liable to do to anyone, Larry's plights — and the plights of his friends and family — and their rediscovery of the importance of the life they tried to leave behind, forges them into adults. And, therefore, the artist and people they genuinely seek to be. 









Bolivar T. Caceres is a Bronx-based artist and writer. His poems appear on ShortEdition and Ariel Chart. He is also the author of the chapbook Outside My Garret Window, published in 2020. He currently writes for the quarterly film blog Film Studies Quarterly and the news blog New York Positivity. Connect with him on social media @BolivarTCaceres and at www.BtcArt.co.



Subscribe for Notifications



 
FOLLOW US:

Get video games delivered to your door with GameFly

Comments





Popular posts from this blog

Film Review: A Study on “The Lion in Winter” (1968) - [Essay #1 - Dec 2020]

Into the Lion's Den: A Study on "The Lion in Winter"     *Super Spoiler* ________ “I snapped and plotted all my life. There’s no way to be a king, alive, and fifty all at once.” - King Henry II ________   Table of Contents: 1. Summary 2. Historical Facts 3. Production History 4. Cast 5. Acting 6. Art Direction 7.  Cinematography 8.       Editing 9. Sound 10. Conclusion *Reading time approx: 15 minutes 30 Seconds *Published December 18, 2020 *Watch the  Film *Listen to  Soundtrack *Listen to Essay *Featured on IMDB *Written by Bolivar T. Caceres                    *Edited by Ricardo Esposito       " It's easy for the audience to overlook the finer details in The Lion in Winter behind continuous slights, rebuffs, plots, and schemes."      "The Lion in Winter" blends thoughtful acting, systematic filmmaking, and artful wit to differentiate itself from the multitude of films that explores the hackneyed family sq

Film Review: A Study on "Billy Liar"(1963) - [Essay #5 - April 2021]

  Unraveling the Porkies!: A Study on "Billy Liar" *Super Spoilers* ________ "Today is the day for big decisions."  - Willian "Billy" Fisher                                                                    ________    Table of Contents: 1. Summary 2.     Production History 3.     Dialogue 4. Art Direction 5. Cinematography 6. Editing 7. Conclusion *Reading time approx: 15 minutes *Published April 24, 2021 *Watch the Film *Listen the Essay *Featured on IMDB *Written by Bolivar T. Caceres      *Edited by Mike Gates               "One can say that Billy Fisher is Walter Mitty and that Keith Waterhouse’s 1959 novel, Billy Liar, sprang from James Thurber’s pages. "                The road to success can be daunting. Broken-down support systems and people's blind cheering can make it hard to share failures. Therefore, white lies  turn black, tarnishing a once-promising path and person. In John