Theres a scene in Ron Howards new Hillbilly Elegy that approaches the quiet dignity I wish the rest of the movie had. Glenn Close stands in a doorway. Shes playing Mamaw, the proud Appalachian grandmother of the high schooler who will eventually write the memoir on which the film is based. Mamaw accepts a free dinner from Meals on Wheels. And while it pains her to do so, she asks for more food. The delivery kid blinks, embarrassed. But he bends the rules a little and the two connect over a small but meaningful act of charity.
Depicting the complex realities of poverty not just its hollowed-out emptiness but attendant emotions of shame and despair has always been tricky. Thats doubly true for those employed by Hollywood.
Filmmakers in Europe and Asia have stronger track records. Italy has its earthy tradition of neorealism, bringing us midcentury heartbreakers like Bicycle Thieves and Umberto D. In India, Satyajit Ray made the humane miniatures of his 1950s Apu Trilogy, set just a hairs breadth away from destitution. Socially committed voices like the British Ken Loach (I, Daniel Blake) and the Belgian Dardenne brothers (Rosetta) have each won Canness top prize, the Palme dOr, twice.
But with millions more Americans closer to poverty than there were a year ago and the food lines snaking to the horizon, maybe we should get better at addressing it. Even if theatrical distribution magically rebounds in a post-vaccinated world, money will remain on audiences minds, no matter how much escapism and popcorn wed like to chomp on.
To its lasting credit, Hollywood produced a mythical moment of compassion during the worst days of the Great Depression: a climactic close-up that even decades later remains nuanced and open-ended. Charlie Chaplins City Lights (1931) is a comedy vibrating with economic anxiety. While its iconic heros resourcefulness is never seriously in doubt, the Little Tramp looks pretty rough by films end penniless, on the streets, clothes in tatters after a stretch in jail. In the final shot, though, he is seen for what he is by the one he loves; his eyes shine, knowing there can be no more hiding his true identity. Does she love him back? (By extension, do we?) The fade to black on Chaplins quivering face is both hopeful and a touch uncertain.
The critic James Agee called it the highest moment in movies. But the studios, by and large, didnt follow Chaplins lead. Ultimately, it took the schism of independent cinema, decades later, to open the door to unflinching examinations of poverty that werent merely sentimental, reductive or convenient plot devices to be solved in the nick of time. Kelly Reichardts Wendy and Lucy (2008) plunges us into the brutal quandaries that come with limited means: Do I buy dog food or steal it? Do I get my broken-down car serviced or make do without? Every choice knocks back Wendy, an Alaska-bound loner played by Michelle Williams, a bit, as do the rare instances when she encounters sympathy, an emotion that seems to confuse her. (The Times critic A.O. Scott celebrated the film as a piece of homegrown neo-neorealism.)
Like Wendy and Lucy, honest movies about subsistence living never prescribe a one-size-fits-all solution. Sometimes theyre not about fixing things. Amid the squalor of Sean Bakers pastel-tinted The Florida Project (2017) and Harmony Korines cringe-a-minute Gummo (1997), children go about the business of dreaming and playing, inventing their own escapes, not so innocently. A pre-Hunger Games Jennifer Lawrence is too young to be saddled with rearing her siblings and finding her missing father but somehow thats exactly what she does in the Ozarks thriller Winters Bone (2010) from Debra Granik.
In the forthcoming Nomadland (a critical sensation at the fall film festivals), Frances McDormand disappears into the role of Fern, a hardened widow living in her van and traveling from job to job after her Nevada factory town collapses. (She is houseless, not homeless, the character insists.) The movie is careful to preserve Ferns cryptic streak of independence, which sometimes registers to others as frosty. McDormand and the director Chlo Zhao improvised and shot their project with real van-dwelling nomads.
Finding a strain of autonomy or boldness is crucial in elevating a film about poverty even a modestly budgeted one from seeming condescending. Michelle Pfeiffer carved out the performance of her career in Where Is Kyra? (2018), Andrew Dosunmus little-seen indie masterpiece of urban isolation. Its about an unemployed, divorced Brooklyn woman falling through the cracks of the social safety net. (Kyra is on the cusp of becoming a bag lady.) Her desperation is offset by a willingness to go to scary lengths.
Thats because poverty itself is scary. Financial ruin serves as the subtext of so many classic American horror films, perhaps because monsters are easier to deal with than the real thing. Leatherface and his cannibal clan from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) would have no ax to grind if they hadnt been laid off at the meatpacking plant. The hook-handed stalker of Candyman (1992) preys on the downtrodden Chicagoans of the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project, at least before he begins indulging a taste for grad students obsessed with urban legends.
A science-fiction film that pays more than lip service to the plight of the poor is John Carpenters sociopolitically inflamed They Live (1988), flatly described by the director as a reaction to Reaganomics. Its homeless hero, Nada (Roddy Piper), drifts between construction jobs before donning a pair of special sunglasses that allows him to see the alien (i.e., yuppie) invasion already at hand. According to Piper, who himself experienced homelessness before his pro wrestling career took off, Carpenter offered daily wages to vagrants appearing as extras. He fed them, too.
Partly filmed in a flimsy shantytown that the script calls Justiceville, with the luxe glass towers of downtown Los Angeles gleaming in the distance, They Live is subversive on many fronts, notably for bearing witness to sights that some civic leaders would rather erase from the cityscape. Such erasures had happened in the past: Kent MacKenzies The Exiles (1961) captures L.A.s Bunker Hill and its small community of working-class Native Americans, who once lived on reservations. Today, the neighborhoods Victorian buildings and their residents are long gone, paved over by corporate gentrification and racism.
Like a photograph, a film crystallizes pain, traps it in time. In the case of these dramas along with the finest of them, Charles Burnetts Killer of Sheep (1978) a universality attaches itself to scenes that anyone struggling will recognize: tense conversations at the kitchen table, fury at a steady stream of disappointments, from car troubles to the sickening monotony of existence. (Burnetts beaten-down patriarch works in a slaughterhouse.) The camera watches on, a steady companion.
That same documentarylike eye also grabs something serendipitous from the hazy Watts summer air: boys skipping rooftops from building to building. Its dangerous and crazy and also euphoric. There is freedom in their leap. The camera tilts down and we see no safety net. Burnett includes the shot for all those reasons and one more: Maybe you can fly away.
Continue reading here:
Some Movies Actually Understand Poverty in America - The New York Times
- The 30 best classic horror movies of all time - Entertainment Weekly News - March 16th, 2024
- The 23rd Spring, Is Jeepers Creepers Coming Back To Michigan? - 102.5/104.9 The Block - March 16th, 2024
- Winnie The Pooh Horror Movie Dominates The Razzie Awards - 106.3 The Groove - March 16th, 2024
- This Underrated Blumhouse Horror Movie Is Unlike Any Other Creature Feature - Collider - March 16th, 2024
- 13 Horror Movies Where Everyone Dies by the End - MovieWeb - March 8th, 2024
- Willy Wonka Experience Villain The Unknown Gets Its Own Horror Movie - TMZ - March 8th, 2024
- The 13 Scariest Horror Movies Streaming on Peacock: Alien, Leprechaun, The Exorcist: Believer and More - Syfy - March 8th, 2024
- Every Horror Movie Releasing in March 2024 - MovieWeb - March 8th, 2024
- 10 Scariest Movies That Have Won Oscars - Collider - March 8th, 2024
- The 10 Best New Horror Movies To Watch in March 2024 - Collider - March 8th, 2024
- Horror Movie Based on Viral Willy Wonka Experience Coming Soon - Bloody Disgusting - March 8th, 2024
- Where To Watch Imaginary: Showtimes & Streaming Status - Screen Rant - March 8th, 2024
- Immaculate: Eveything You Need to Know About Sydney Sweeney's Upcoming Horror Movie That Will Give You ... - FandomWire - March 8th, 2024
- The 20 best horror movies on Peacock - Entertainment Weekly News - March 8th, 2024
- Horror Movie Based on the Willy Wonka Experience Villain, The Unknown, Now in the Works - MovieWeb - March 8th, 2024
- Melissa Barrera's Scream 7 Replacement Actually Sounds Better Than Fighting Ghostface Again - Screen Rant - March 8th, 2024
- 'Shaitaan' Movie 2024 Filming Locations: Shooting Spots Of The Horror Flick - TRAVEL + LEISURE INDIA - March 8th, 2024
- The Horror Movie Franchise With the Most Sequels Ever Is One You've Never Heard of - Collider - March 8th, 2024
- Jimmy Fallon asked people to ruin a horror movie by adding a single word to its title - Upworthy - March 8th, 2024
- The Absolute Best Horror Movies on Hulu - CNET - March 8th, 2024
- Willy Wonka Experience creepy character 'The Unknown' handed role in new horror movie - The Mirror - March 8th, 2024
- The Best Sea Monster Movies, Ranked - Screen Rant - February 28th, 2024
- The Borderlands Movie's Scary Behind The Scenes Drama That Has Us Worried - Screen Rant - February 28th, 2024
- Netflix Just Quietly Added the Best Holiday Thriller of the Decade - Inverse - February 28th, 2024
- The 20 best scary movies streaming right now - Entertainment Weekly News - February 19th, 2024
- Best Horror Movies of 2024 Ranked - New Scary Movies to Watch - Rotten Tomatoes - February 19th, 2024
- 'Only Murders in the Building' Adds Molly Shannon to Season 4 Cast - Yahoo Eurosport UK - February 19th, 2024
- Why Lindsay Lohan Refused to Kiss Charlie Sheen in "Scary Movie 5" - Best Life - February 19th, 2024
- 15 Best Scary Movies To Stream - Screen Rant - February 11th, 2024
- Eight Skin-Crawling Scary Films That Don't Have Any Jump Scares In Them - Digg - February 11th, 2024
- David Cronenberg names some of the scariest movies ever - Far Out Magazine - February 11th, 2024
- 12 Horror Movies That Will Give You the Biggest Jump Scares - Collider - February 3rd, 2024
- TAROT's Trailer Brings the Iconic Cards to Life and Things Get Weird - Nerdist - February 3rd, 2024
- Review: Baghead - Is the Movie as Scary as it Looks? - Blazing Minds - February 3rd, 2024
- Natasha Lyonne Says James Woods Hit On Her As A Teenager While Filming Scary Movie 2 - 106.3 The Groove - February 3rd, 2024
- The Witcher's Freya Allan explains the challenges of filming her first horror movie Baghead: "You have to surrender ... - Gamesradar - January 26th, 2024
- The 5 Best Uses of Popcorn in Scary Movies - Dread Central - January 26th, 2024
- 5 Horror Films That Transformed The Genre - Study Finds - January 26th, 2024
- Kristen Stewart Wants to Star in Another Horror Movie in the Future - ComingSoon.net - January 26th, 2024
- Best Home Invasion Movies of All Time, Ranked - MovieWeb - January 26th, 2024
- Presence Review: Steven Soderbergh Tells a Ghost Story from the Ghosts POV. It Is Scary? Not Quite. But the Family Demons Lure You In - Variety - January 26th, 2024
- 55 best horror movies that are actually good and terrifying - Digital Spy - January 18th, 2024
- She is a Real Housewife, was in a scary movie franchise, is pals with Bethenny Frankel, has a Hilton connectio - Daily Mail - January 18th, 2024
- The Scream cast talk about the legacy of Scary Movie - Popverse - January 9th, 2024
- The 20 Best Horror Movies on Netflix: January 2024 - Vulture - January 9th, 2024
- Scream cast reveals their favorite scary movies - Popverse - January 9th, 2024
- Horror fanatics are 'desperate' to watch the first scary movie of the year Night Swim after trailer leaves the - Daily Mail - January 9th, 2024
- 20 Scariest Horror Movies That Are Too Disturbing to Re-Watch - Collider - January 1st, 2024
- Raging Grace review politicised critique of imperialism in horror movie form - The Guardian - January 1st, 2024
- 15 Scariest Horror Movies of All Time, According to Rotten Tomatoes - MovieWeb - January 1st, 2024
- The 19 Best Horror Films of 2023 Best Life - Best Life - January 1st, 2024
- The Best Horror Movies of 2021, Ranked by Tomatometer - Rotten Tomatoes - December 23rd, 2023
- This Is What Takes 'The Descent' From Scary to Terrifying - Collider - December 23rd, 2023
- 15 Best Horror Movies Of 2023 - Screen Rant - December 23rd, 2023
- 25 Best Horror Movies Created in the Last 5 Years - CBR - Comic Book Resources - December 12th, 2023
- 25 horror movies that were based on true stories - Yardbarker - December 12th, 2023
- The 30 best horror movies of all time - Gamesradar - December 12th, 2023
- Scary Movies In Theaters Now (2023/12/06)- Tickets to Movies in Theaters, Broadway Shows, London Theatre & More - Hollywood.com - December 12th, 2023
- What Is the Highest Grossing Horror Movie of All Time? - Collider - December 12th, 2023
- The 27 Best Horror Films of 2023 - MarieClaire.com - December 12th, 2023
- Upcoming horror movies: new scary films coming in 2023 and beyond - Gamesradar - December 12th, 2023
- 20 Best Horror Movies on Max (Formerly HBO Max): Dec. 2023 - Vulture - December 12th, 2023
- Scary Movie (2000) - Plot - IMDb - December 3rd, 2023
- The Best Horror Movies on Netflix - Rotten Tomatoes - October 16th, 2023
- The Best Horror Movies on Prime Video to Watch Right Now - October 16th, 2023
- From Psycho to a new crop of horror movies, the genre has some mommy issues - The Seattle Times - May 13th, 2023
- Months After Hulu Controversy, Mike Tyson Makes Major Move in the World of Cinema - EssentiallySports - April 8th, 2023
- Best Horror Movies of 2023 Ranked - New Scary Movies to Watch - March 31st, 2023
- Three cheers for the Moose: Everybody knows the name of beloved '80s sitcom star and 'Masked Singer' eliminee - Yahoo Entertainment - March 31st, 2023
- The 10 Scariest Horror Movies Ever - Rotten Tomatoes - February 26th, 2023
- Films Turning 10 in 2013: Oz the Great and Poweful The Croods Oblivion Labor ... - Latest Tweet by Pop - LatestLY - January 1st, 2023
- Family of slain Idaho student from Skagit County relieved to hear of suspect's arrest - KPIC News - January 1st, 2023
- The 50 Scariest Movies of All Time - Reader's Digest - December 24th, 2022
- 'Airplane!' and 'Scary Movie' director rips cancel culture in comedy ... - December 24th, 2022
- "I was a side piece and you're a str*pper": Nia Long spills tea about Regina Halls role in The Best Man: The Final Chapters - Sportskeeda - December 24th, 2022
- Mother says scary movie guy wanted to kidnap her child in Spains Castellon area - The Olive Press - December 16th, 2022
- The Daily Show To Replace Trevor Noah with Chelsea Handler, Kal Penn, Al Franken, Sarah Silverman & Leslie Jones - Television - December 8th, 2022
- 'Airplane!' and 'Scary Movie' director rips cancel culture in comedy: 'We don't want to try to educate' - Fox News - November 11th, 2022
- 20 Scary Horror Movies to Watch on HBO Max - Harper's BAZAAR - October 2nd, 2022
- Best scary movies of 2022 to watch for Halloween - Dexerto - October 2nd, 2022
Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero