The Golden Door is the story of the Mancuso family's journey to America at the turn of the last century. The movie can be thought of in three distinct segments: the life the immigrants left behind in "the old country," the Atlantic passage to America, and the processing through Ellis Island.
The opening scenes, although they take place a mere 100 or so years ago, conjure up the Dark Ages. For all the superstition, illiteracy and darkness that pervaded peasant life in Italy at that time, it might very well have been that era.
Once the family decides to depart (only after receiving a "sign" from a saint to whom the patriarch prays), the horrendous conditions in steerage make it hard to imagine that these poor souls took on this voyage voluntarily. But they went. They went seeking out a life in a new land where money grows on trees and rivers run with milk (two of the more surreal themes in the movie).
The processing on Ellis Island which could end in forced return to the old country included every kind of indignity, including communal showers, medical exams en massed, intelligence testing that today would be denounced as "culturally biased," and brokered engagements held in an almost auction-like public setting. When it is inquired why all this is necessary, it is pronounced that America does not want the taint of inferior people.
Running as a subplot to the story of the Mancuso family is the story of Salvatore Mancuso and Lucy Reed, an English gentlewoman on board the ship who proposes to him as a means of gaining her admission to America where sponsorship is required of immigrant women. Although she claims that this will be nothing more than a marriage of convenience (and "not for love"), her eyes tell a different story, whereas Salvatore is clearly smitten with her.
This is a gritty and richly detailed movie. One scene where an elderly grandmother holds her grandson's hands in hers focuses on the dirt embedded under their finger nails.
The soundtrack is great, although not appropriate to time or place, alternating between too modern (the music playing over the credits) and more Middle Eastern-sounding than Italian (the folk music played by the immigrants while on board ship).
To witness the hardships that our forebears forbore to pass through "the golden door" is to be jolted out of our American complacency and to appreciate what they endured to pave the way for the lives we enjoy today.
Laura L.
The opening scenes, although they take place a mere 100 or so years ago, conjure up the Dark Ages. For all the superstition, illiteracy and darkness that pervaded peasant life in Italy at that time, it might very well have been that era.
Once the family decides to depart (only after receiving a "sign" from a saint to whom the patriarch prays), the horrendous conditions in steerage make it hard to imagine that these poor souls took on this voyage voluntarily. But they went. They went seeking out a life in a new land where money grows on trees and rivers run with milk (two of the more surreal themes in the movie).
The processing on Ellis Island which could end in forced return to the old country included every kind of indignity, including communal showers, medical exams en massed, intelligence testing that today would be denounced as "culturally biased," and brokered engagements held in an almost auction-like public setting. When it is inquired why all this is necessary, it is pronounced that America does not want the taint of inferior people.
Running as a subplot to the story of the Mancuso family is the story of Salvatore Mancuso and Lucy Reed, an English gentlewoman on board the ship who proposes to him as a means of gaining her admission to America where sponsorship is required of immigrant women. Although she claims that this will be nothing more than a marriage of convenience (and "not for love"), her eyes tell a different story, whereas Salvatore is clearly smitten with her.
This is a gritty and richly detailed movie. One scene where an elderly grandmother holds her grandson's hands in hers focuses on the dirt embedded under their finger nails.
The soundtrack is great, although not appropriate to time or place, alternating between too modern (the music playing over the credits) and more Middle Eastern-sounding than Italian (the folk music played by the immigrants while on board ship).
To witness the hardships that our forebears forbore to pass through "the golden door" is to be jolted out of our American complacency and to appreciate what they endured to pave the way for the lives we enjoy today.
Laura L.