Italian and Irish Filmmakers in America: Ford, Capra, Coppola, and Scorsese

302 Pages·1990·24.82 MB·English

by  Lee Lourdeaux

Italian and Irish Filmmakers in America
sea
FOR D, CAP R A, COP POL A, and R S ESE
Italian and Irish
Lee Lourdeaux
FORD, CAPRA,
Temple University Press
Philadelphia
Filmmakers in America
COP POL A, and S COR S ESE
Temple University Press, Philadelphia 19122
Copyright © 1990 by Temple University.
All rights reserved
Published 1990
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standard for
Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lourdeaux, Lee.
Italian and Irish filmmakers in America: Ford,
Capra, Coppola, and Scorsese / Lee Lourdeaux.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-87722-697-0 (alk. paper)
1. Catholics in motion pictures. 2. Italian
Americans in motion pictures. 3. Irish Americans
in motion pictures. 4. Ethnicity-United States.
5. Ford, John, 1894-1973. 6. Capra, Frank,
1897- . 7. Coppola, Francis Ford, 1939-
8. Scorsese, Martin. 9. Motion pictures producers
and directors-United States-Biography. I. Title.
PN1995.9.C35L68 1990
791.43' 65222-dc20 89-20396
CIP
To Kay and Elaine, and Mary and Vito.

I wanted to be a painter, but I wasn't doing
that. I began to see that the priests and the
nuns were talking about God, and heaven,
and hell, and religious vocations. And I
started to say, Well, at least with a religious
vocation a priest or a nun might have more of
an inside line to heaven-into salvation, if
you want to use that word. They might be a
little closer to it than the guy on the street
because, after all, how can you practice the
Christian beliefs and attitudes that you are
learning in the classroom in your house or in
the street? ... Later on, obviously, it didn't
work out, and I wound up finding a vocation
in making movies with the same kind of
passion.
-Martin Scorsese
Nobody leaves the Catholic Church.
-Jimmy Breslin

Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: The Design of the Book 3
CHAPTER 1
Irish and Italian Immigrants and the Movies 11
Framing Ethnic Culture 14
Filming Ethnicity Piecemeal: D. W. Griffith's Women and Other Precedents 26
CHAPTER 2
Irish and Italian Immigrant Stereotypes in the 1920s 45
Irish America Pays a Price for Success 48
Immigrant Italians for Anglo-American Audiences 65
CHAPTER 3
John Ford and the Landscapes of Irish America 87
An Irish-American Idea of Film Production 91
Urban Irish America: Ethnic Dangers and Virtues 96
Ireland Remembered: The Holy Mother, Judas, and Mary Magdalene 104
Faraway Places with Irish Types 109
The Wild West: Irish Identity as American History 117
CHAPTER 4
Frank Capra and His Italian Vision of America 129
The Italian Success Ethic in Capra's Films 132
The Early Years: Irish Types and WASP Woman 140
The Mature Years: Italian Social Ethics in Anglo America 146
The Follow-Through: An All-American Ethnic Story 156
ix