America America (1963, dir. Elia Kazan, USA) by Patrick McElroy

When approaching the 4th of July holiday we often get an excess of jingoism, but what we fail to recognize is the value of immigrants, what they bring to the culture, and how they help retain it as a democracy. The journey of every one of them is unique, and few films explore it better than Elia Kazan’s 1963 film America America, released 60 years ago this year.

The film was based on a book that Kazan wrote which was inspired by the journey his uncle took from  Greece to America in the 1890s. After making a series of films with big stars, Kazan took influence from Italian neorealism and cast the unknown Greek actor Stathis Giallelis in the role that was based on his uncle.

His performance is honest and natural as you see a young man face adversity and go through a series of trials in order to escape the poverty and war of his homeland.

When Kazan wrote the book, he was at a difficult point in his life, most of his kids were fully grown, his marriage to his wife Molly of 30 years was growing stale, and he was having an affair with young actress Barbara Loden. For the first time in his life, he’d started seeing a psychiatrist, for he’d never addressed his emotional problems.

There, the psychiatrist asked if he’d ever done anything for himself; while many of his movies are personal, they were the works of other writers. This would spark an interest of self-reflection as he decided to finally  write something, for he’d never been trained as a writer. He would return to the origins of his life, as he related to the struggles he faced on the journey of his own.

The novel and film would serve as therapy for him, as it would be his most personal film yet. When looking at this film it’s not just an immigrant’s story, it’s the journey we all take through life, hoping for a sense of peace  and achievement.

What’s remarkable about the film is after almost two decades of filmmaking, Kazan was still experimenting with new styles of film, his sense of location, and the way him and his cinematographer the great Haskell Wexler show Greece in a way that’s both natural and beautiful.

His sense with actors is still unmatched compared to any director in film history, looking at every actor in the film, even the minor ones, there’s a sense of personality that creates  an atmosphere and a world of its own.

When the film was released it received acclaim from such critics as Joan Didion who referred to it as “a kind of miracle play.”, but received less  enthusiastic reviews from some such as Pauline Kael who called the film’s protagonist “so blandly uninteresting”.

The movie would go on to earn four Oscar nominations including Best  Picture, and would win the award for Best Art Direction, for these would be the last nominations  and win for any of Kazan’s films. In other countries the movie would receive more recognition. In 2008 Cahiers du Cinema would rank it at number 80 on their list of 100 greatest movies ever made.

After America America, Kazan would only make three more films, none of them successful, but would improve his writing skills leading to one of the finest autobiographies of any director Kazan: A Life in 1988. This film marks the end of an era for one of the most innovative and groundbreaking of American directors, and it’s the story many of our ancestors took, and many are still struggling to take today.

Patrick McElroy is a movie writer and movie lover based in Los Angeles. Check out his other writing at: https://www.facebook.com/patrick.mcelroy.3726 or his IG: @mcelroy.patrick