Elia Kazan’s own words begin the saga of young Stavros (Stathis
Giallelis), who leaves his war-torn homeland behind to begin a
new life. With his family’s meager fortune and his her’s
blessing, Stavros encounters both allies and adversaries on a
dramatic trek. He ultimately achieves his dream through sheer
determination and will, thereby earning his nickname: America
America. Saluting the masses who sailed toward Miss Liberty’s
shining torch, Kazan (A Streetcar Named Desire) uses little-known
talents here rather than stars. The results impress: Academy
Award® nominations (1963) for Best Picture, Director and
Screenplay, an O® for Gene Callahan’s vivid Art Direction,
Golden Globes to Kazan (Best Director) and Giallelis (Most
Promising Newcomer) and nomination to the National Film Registry
for permanent preservation. Both epic and , it’s powerful
moviemaking.
.com
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Elia Kazan's America America, a three-hour epic feature starring
Stathis Giallelis as Kazan's uncle Stavros Topouzoglou, is a
complete departure from Kazan's other classics, such as East of
Eden and A Streetcar Named Desire. In all three, though, Kazan
discovered and championed young heroic male protagonists, James
Dean and Marlon Brando in the latter two. As one of the founders
of the Actor's Studio and Method Acting, Kazan apparently coached
Giallelis throughout this biographical project that tells the
story of Kazan's Greek uncle, struggling under the Turkish thumb
in Armenia, who works throughout his youth to emigrate to
America. America America, as a story about political repression
and culture clash, is magnificent enough, since its long length
lends the film the wide angle that novels encompass. But add to
this a stunningly heartfelt portrayal of Stavros by the youthful
Giallelis, in which close-ups of his dark eyes and furrowed brow
continuously add pathos to the drama, and one gets a most
chilling portrait of the desperation and determination indicative
of the many people who came through Ellis Island at the end of
the 19th century. Beginning in the 1890s, this film opens on
Stavros's rural family in Anatolia, toiling in the beautiful
countryside as his her struggles to appease Turkish
politicians. From the outset, the film exudes tension, as the
friends of the Greeks, the neighboring Armenians, are targeted by
the Turks during violent attempts at cultural sublimation.
Stavros, as the sympathetic character, is established as an
open-minded boy who cannot separate mis of others from
himself. Thus the story moves along, as he seeks rtunity in
Constantinople, falls in love with the lovely daughter (Linda
Marsh) of a wealthy merchant, then with a Greek-American (Joanna
Frank) who further fuels his American dream. The rich subtlety of
the acting throughout is what makes this film astonishingly real.
There is never a moment, even when long, rolling landscape s
punctuate the human dramas, that digresses from Stavros's
psychological desires. Additionally, critic Foster Hirsch's
commentary on this edition es out the film's evolution.
Because of the depth of character throughout, Elia Kazan's
America America speaks not only as tribute to Kazan's willful
uncle, but also to anyone whose family history bears the marks of
migration, foreignness, and the suffering that triumph is made
of. --Trinie Dalton