The American Dream through cinema
To me the closest thing to dreams are films. So after a marathon of movies this weekend, I wonder what that says about the American dream and dreams in general. I watched the Coen brothers' "A Serious Man," Steven Soderbergh's "The Informant" and the three-part Masterpiece Theater's version of Jane Austin's "Emma." I know Austin is not American, but I needed a woman's version of a dream somewhere.
So first the gratifying Coen brothers' production. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1019452/OK so there's been a lot of back and forth about whether this was really a modern-day version of the Job story. I say, it doesn't really matter. It's nice coming to a movie with literary allusions in our pocket, but they should be accessible to everyone, whether they're familier with those allusions or not.
Being a secular Jew myself, I was particulary interested in this version of the American Dream even though it does verge more on nightmare and the allegorical. I particularly loved the opening sequence with the couple in the shetl visited by what is either a spirit who has moved into the body of an old man, left unattended during the shiva period, or just an old man who people thought were dead. Who do we believe? The wife who believes he's evil incarnate, or the husband who feels he is a real man who did him a kindness and for that is rewarded by being stabbed in the throat by his wife. Who do we believe indeed? That is the driving force of "A Serious Man" and of the American Dream of course. Do we believe that if we just don't "sin" we won't be punished? Or do we believe that God or destiny is capricious and will punish for no reason at all.
"The Informant,"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130080/ on the other hand is really a meditation on the American Dream with the protagonist - played masterfully by Matt Damon - wrapping his American Dream of greed and false pedigree in layer upon layer of lies. Interestingly enough, even though we know he's a lying rat, we always hope that the latest untruth he utters will be the last. We hope that his motives are pure even though we know and see time and again that they aren't. Perhaps that talks to our dream of wanting everyone, including ourselves, to be better than our human frailities.
Finally "Emma." OK so this was the easiest film to watch of the three. It's eye candy all the way and on the surface seems easier to swallow than a man tormented by undeserved punishment and another by greed. But really, emotionally, I fould this to be the hardest dream to follow. There's Emma's agoraphonic father, who is so worried about losing his daughter - not to just death and destruction - but to marriage itself. He's kept his girls at home after their mother died and at first this is seen as a virtue in light of poor Jane and Mr. Churchill who were sent off to live with aunts when they lost a parent. But at closer examination we see his motives are selfish. He'd rather have Emma cloistered and lonely than lose her caretaking. The dreams in Emma at first blush look merely like the adolescent dream of the perfect romance, but particularly in this interpretation, we see how dreams are easily cast aside in a class-bound society where one dare not love above their station. And as Americans, 200 years after Austin wrote her novel, we may feel that we're above this classist prejudice. But don't kid yourself. It exists. But rather than class based on blood, it's class based on money and acquisition. One can argue then that the upside to the bad economy is the equalizing effect it has.
Emma sets herself up as an expert on people's "dream, hopes and aspirations" while constantly missing the mark, not only on the feelings of others, but her own heart as well. Which begs the question. Can we speculate on anyone's dreams but our own?
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