ALEX FARBA

By Alex Deleon

A working-class Italian-American bouncer becomes the driver of an African-American classical pianist on a tour  through the 1960s Jim Crow American South.

After a string of weak and questionable choices in recent years the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences finally got it right for a change by awarding Green Book the Best Film Oscar of 2019.

Whether or not similar stories have been told before (e.g., Driving Miss Daisy) this one takes the cake on every level.  Viggo Mortensen is beyond belief as the low class Italian American slob hired to Chauffeur an erudite posh mannered snobbish negro Pianist (Don Shirley) on a concert tour of the horridly outrageously racist deep south in 1961.   The way in which their early antagonism turns into deep friendship along the way is told in a most amusing manner skedaddled along by the bottomless talents of both actors. The situations are perfectly chosen to point up the deepening racism the deeper south they go. In one rain soaked scene we are subtly reminded that in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave there actually existed places (in Mississippi) where it was illegal for a black person to be see on the streets after dark! (Nigger, don't let the sun set on you) -- Shameful, shameful  but true!   In this scene Viggo punches out one redneck cop and both land in jail. Will they ever get out of this one? -- Shirley knows his rights and is allowed one call to a lawyer. The return call shocks the sickening redneck cops into letting the prisoners go.  It was from the Attorney General in Washington -- Shirley was a personal friend of RFK, brother of JFK -- neither mentioned by name. 

The picture opens without so much as a main title plunging right in to the back story of Tony Lip the night club bouncer (Mortensen) and his  Italian dialect speaking extended family with Mafioso connections. All mix their English up with snatches of Sicilian immigrant Italian  (subtitled) adding an immediate element of authenticity. We don't even get to the main  part of the film when Tony, out of work, is hired for a well paid job as a chauffeur and bodyguard by Shirley (Mahershala Ali, Best supporting actor)  but this part alone is almost a complete movie in itself. We don't even get to understand that the Green Book of the title is the name of an actual hotel/motel guidebook that was published to help black people find accommodations when traveling in the racially segregated south until nearly a third of the way into the story.  But by this time the tone is already set. Another strong plus is the way Shirley's swift  piano fingering is shown without a hitch  making it look as if Ali is doing the playing himself.  

At the Oscars Spike Lee was brimming with bitterness  that his BlaKKKlansman was so easily outflanked by Green Book, but having seen both pictures I am inclined to agree with the critic who said that he was very glad that a heartwarming and highly entertaining film like Green Book won out over Lee's angry hate filled diatribe. And that's exactly what KKKlansman was.

Ps: Although I was very favorably impressed by Rami Malek's rendition of Freddy Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody I was even more impressed by Mortensen's amazing ability to totally enter the skin of a low class Italian slob and endow the role with a perfect mix of violence, humor, and humanism.  For me it was Best Actor, Viggo.