I have noticed a pattern in the last few novels I have read, though I am pretty sure they are by chance since these books never come to me by my own agency (i.e. beggars can't be choosers). They all have to do with immigration, emigration, and general foreignness. I'm American, from the land of immigrants, so the immigrant experience is sort of in my blood, assuming I believed in such a thing. Heredity aside, there is a certain diversity—or at least fractiousness—that is built into my national consciousness. Now that I've been away for almost two years, and especially after having spent that time in a country as homogeneous as Japan, I've begun to the almost schizophrenic nature of my homeland. Accordian Crimes explores my country's disorder in a very intimate way.
The book is based on a massive pile of newspaper clippings. Some of the clippings are quoted word for word. Others are a single headline embellished into an entire family history. The story begins with an Italian accordion maker who packs up his finest instrument and heads for America at the turn of the 20th century. His destination is New York, but through a series of events he winds up in New Orleans where he loses the accordion, as well as everything else. From there, the instrument makes its way up the Mississippi, across the Midwest and Southwest, through Canada and down the East coast, and each time it is picked up and passed on by another almost mutually unintelligible culture of Americans. It's leather bellows pump out Zydeco for the Creoles, polkas for the Germans and the Poles, love songs for the Quebecois, Blues for the Southern Blacks, reels and jigs for the Irish—it is everything to everyone. The only people who don't play it are the "real Americans," who are named, but never actually appear in the book.
The lessons in the book are not simple ones. These are not stories of triumph over adversity. In fact, most of the characters are not successful. But in their struggle, Proulx captures the paradox of the American identity: we have built a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, despite the fact that none of the parts really fit together. The Italian accordion maker is told to stick to his own kind to for safety, and is rounded up in a purge of the Italian slum. Three Germans who meet by chance found a thriving Iowa town without ever really being able to integrate into it. A young man in Minnesota leaves his orphanage to seek his roots only to find the bones of a wayward Frenchman (and a green accordion). There is no question that the might of America has roots in its diversity, but we have spent most of our history struggling against each other rather than with each other. We have our Chinatowns and Little Italies and French Quarters and Barrios. We have our slums and our suburbs and our projects and our gated communities. We have our race riots and hate crimes and lynchings and glass ceilings. But without (and perhaps in spite of) anyone's intentions, they somehow form a nation. Like America, it is one book with disparate stories, and an unlikely element tying them all together.
This movie was, by any standard, fantastic. And this no small assertion, because it had a lot to overcome.
For starters, the books are legendary among Fantasy readers, who are notoriously picky about movie representations of their most treasured books. And the last time anyone took on J.R.R Tolkein, his personality cult crushed the film so badly the sequels were never finished. In that case, they were not wrong—it was a terrible movie—but they remain a difficult audience. Perhaps the most difficult of all would be the Tolkien estate, whose descendents suffered a family feud over the film--one camp really liked it, and the other wanted nothing to do with it. Fortunately, those who enjoyed it are in the majority.
To clarify its background, Lord of the Rings is a series of three books, but the plot actually begins in another book called The Hobbit that precedes the other three. The Hobbit is the story of Bilbo Baggins, who finds himself a reluctant participant in a quest to rid Middle Earth of a troublesome dragon. By chance, while lost in a mountain, he finds a magic ring that turns him invisible, and saves his hobbit skin more than a few times. The following trilogy is about this ring, and all the trouble it brings. Frodo, Bilbo's nephew, inherits the ring and finds himself another reluctant participant in another even worse quest to finally destroy it. If returned to the hands of Sauron, it's maker, it could finally let evil triumph over good. Unfortunately, they can't just pop down to the local jeweler's, but instead have to take it to Sauron's home, Mt. Doom, and throw it into the fires from which it was forged.
Every time a movie is made from a book (which is almost always) the book is usually better, especially if the movie departs little from the original story and presentation. The Fellowship of the Ring is a rare exception. I read the books, and I enjoyed the movie just as much. However, not having read the books is no obstacle to watching the movie either. I probably had a slightly better idea of what was going on than less informed watchers, but that could be due to the fact that for once in my life I could remember the names of all the characters when they weren't on the screen.
Another obstacle the movie easily overcomes is being three hours long. I've seen plenty of good, long movies, but often I have to apply myself to sitting for that long. The Godfather, for example, is a good movie, but you have to really want to watch it. Lord of the Rings really flies by. This is due in large part to the quality of the action and the special effects, which really did Tolkien's vision justice. Most of the monsters and scary places, like the Mines of Moria and Mordor (which we will see in the next movie), he took from his own nightmares while lying doped up and delirious in a field hospital during World War I. They scared the hell out of me as a kid, and this movie would have done the same.
The one thing that may frustrate viewers is the fact that it does not really end. Nothing is resolved, and the heroes are in just as much trouble as when they started (especially the one who fell over a waterfall and the one who got dragged into a bottomless pit by a grouchy demon—I'll let you guess who gets what). Lucky for us, the other two movies have already been shot, and are simply waiting to be released.
