THE KING OF AMERICA
US, 1984, 74 minutes, Colour.
Larry Atlas, David Canary, Olympia Dukakis, Barry Miller.
Directed by Dezso Magyar.
The King of America is a small-budget American telemovie set in 1915 and focusing on the plight of European migrants to the United States at that period. A comparison would be Terrence Mallick's Days of Heaven, with Richard Gere. This film does not have a name cast, although it includes Barry Miller (Fame, The Chosen, Saturday Night Fever). It re-creates the period, has great human feeling and offers insight.
1. The impact of the film? A human document? A piece of Americana? For the television audience?
2. The re-creation of period: the American cities, trains, migrants being caught by officials; the railways, the landscapes, work, Utah, the road, work on the cliff-faces? The atmosphere of 1915?
3. The title and its irony, memories of Europe, focus on migrants, innocence, irony? Reality?
4. The impact for the American audience, for ethnic groups, for Greeks? Universal impact? On migrants to other countries? The parallels in other countries?
5. The Greek interest and focus? The Greeks as a representative group? The Americans and the attitude towards migrants at the turn of the century? Welcome and unwelcome, treatment, used, opportunities, differences, difficulties, suffering? The parallel with the Japanese, the negroes?
6. The film's insight into migrants: the Old Country, heritage and traditions, longing? Difficulties of language, cultural differences? The differences between Greek and English language and conventions?
7. Andreas Lambrakis: arrival, 1915, the situation, friends, the bar, Chicago, the train - his dream? The arrest, Makarkis and signing the document? Exploitation, pay, the role of the foreman? Reactions, powerlessness? The railways, conditions, accidents, bonds?
8. Life on the railway: pay, exploitation, injury, rivalry, exasperation? The fight with Harry? The position of foreman? Jealousy, fights, death? Rituals? Andreas leaving?
9. His moving on: difficulties with the language, customs, his letters to home, music, dancing? (Men, bonds, the wheel)? The water boy? Religion, the land, funeral, Easter?
10. The new group, new work? The Japanese? The danger on the cliff face - the cliff-hanging suspense? Explosives and planting them? The realities of the dangers, skills required? Reactions? Makarkis and pressure? The matriarch, her daughter, love?
11. The work with the explosives, dangers, defying Harry, the shooting, the dynamite?
12. His leaving, marrying? Further troubles? Achievement? Hopes and reality? Americans and violence, prejudice, Greeks and their role in the United States, their contribution? The relevance of the title to the hero?
