A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

What a great start to a year of watching movies. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) at the MOMA (in the good theater, downstairs), 2:30 on New Year’s Day and the place was packed. Not completely full, but mostly. An older crowd, but a few parents and kids. Got there just in time to land a seat in the middle, no water bottle or snack, nothing to disturb me from just fully concentrating on the film. And what a beautiful ride. This first film directed by Elia Kazan, based on the beloved book by Betty Smith, won Oscars for Peggy Ann Garner as 12-year-old Francie Nolan and James Dunn as her likable but unsuccessful father Johnny. A beautiful movie, nearly perfect. If you don’t have a tear in your eye art least once, your heart has turned into a little black ball. Slightly stagey as far as the “tree” is concerned; we only see characters looking out the window at the tree, not the tree itself, making it feel, for a few moments, like a play. But other than that minor quibble, the film works beautifully, riding a line between period realism and sentimentality, barely tipping its toe into sentimentality, but you know, a little sentimentality is OK. Good for the skin, they say. Comedy moves in, but heartfelt. Sweet and to the point.

The detail is exquisite. There’s no question of authenticity. When someone says there’s five pennies on the table, there’s five pennies on the table. The coffee is black and steaming and real. It’s composed of moments that feel real. Small moments with big flourishes. Big moments with small flourishes. An immigrant grandmother, knitting, explaining to her growing grandchildren why learning to read is so important. Francie lost in the world of books on the fire escape. In some ways, you might say, not a big film. But deep. True. And honest as (narrative) film can be, keeping in mind this was made over 60 years ago. Even a film as “basic,” visually speaking, as this benefits greatly from being seen in the theater with an audience. Even if the screen at the MOMA isn’t that big, a close-up of a face is still 20 feet high as compared to 20 inches at home. And in the theater, obviously, there’s no rewind. You have to take it as it comes and move along with it. And then of course, the interesting dynamic, the triangle between the viewer, the screen and the audience. The audience effect. When the viewer laughs, and others laugh along, they connect, on some level, to the same stimuli. A shared experience laughing at shared experience. And when they cry? Strangers, staring up at the same screen, with tears in their eyes inspired by their own lives, their own relationships, strong or broken. The moment of knowing you are sharing in these feelings, the moment of choking up, and knowing others around you are as well. What art can do.

Vaguely ritualistic. Except that we are all strangers. You might be one of two, or one of three, or one of one; in any case, the rest of the audience are, essentially, local strangers. Is there meaning to this? The shared experience? At the least we can suppose that it impresses the movie more directly on the viewer. A more intense experience, probably, than one would have at home, even assuming DVD (the stop, pause, and rewind buttons only as far as the bowl of potato chips and ice cold root beer.) But what if it were on TV proper, with no commercials (say, TCM), and with the phone off the hook and promises oneself no e-mail for the next two hours; without the distraction of an audience, and with the comfort of one’s favorite chair, could it have even more (solitary experience) power? Assuming also, first time viewing: that’s crucial. It is after all the first viewing that is the emotional one. From then on, you know what’s coming. I do know that the first time I saw The Seventh Seal, it was at home on TV, and I was totally blown away. Subsequently I have seen it three times in various theaters and always enjoy seeing it with a crowd and LARGER. Deep down, I wish that first viewing had been at a theater; it was and remains memorable, but the smallness of the TV is there, in my mind’s picture, kind of like a mole that annoys whenever seen.

In any event, seen in a theater or at home, this film is definitely art, in its ability to evoke those shared situations of laughter and tears. Tender and funny moments sprinkled throughout. The most real film I have seen in a long time, thanks to Kazan’s clean direction and the uniformly great acting (not to mention the coffee and pennies on the table.) Interestingly, one “big” scene turned out not to be big: when we learn Johnny Nolan has died, it is done in such a matter-of-fact way, the tears are not jerked, making a later scene, when Francie receives a “gift” from him that much more powerful. The reality of him being gone hits you with a finality that is, I believe, more true to real life than the drawn out drama we often get in films when a major character dies. I mean, really, when have you ever seen a believable death scene? And indeed, the gift is what allows the girl to finally let go and cry over her beloved father. Anyone who has dealt with the death of someone close knows the truth of this, that the reality of it actually hits you later, the reality that you will never see, or hear them laugh, again. You may have been shocked by their death, and may have grieved at their gravesite, but when that reality hits you, and it could be years later, that’s when you really grieve.