There is something fascinating about delving into the world of a sociocultural Other. And indeed, white America has for centuries enacted such an imaginary process, projecting itself onto alternate groups and peoples located on the fringes of society. The process of projection has involved both revulsion and attraction: the savage has functioned primarily as foil and scapegoat (i.e. the Other of didactic Puritanical stories), but also as an exotic entity, impossible to characterize, explain or fully comprehend. Both constructions expose entrenched prejudices, and neither contributes much in the way of new insights about the people themselves.
The captivity narrative, while declaring savagery and civility to be incompatible and irreconcilable, also conveys a subtext about the complementary nature of indigenous life. The fact that some Puritan prisoners of war preferred to stay with their captors suggests that the world of the Native imparted certain benefits, particularly for women. These advantages, whether material, spiritual, or psychological, were either inaccessible or nonexistent in the civilized (patriarchal) life of the settlement. Implicit in the captivity narrative was the idea that indigenous life satiated a certain social hunger and filled a spiritual void left by Christian civility and codified European traditions. How would “mainstream” society cope with the Native? The answer lies in exclusion — through physical separation and rhetorical devices. The discourse on native peoples has consistently positioned the American Indian beyond the periphery of the colonial settlement (lurking in the forest, or beyond the butte, dunes or hills), or safely contained on reservations, far from the burgeoning cities and sprawling homesteads.
The gypsy, in contrast, has been less widely articulated or addressed in America’s historical conversation with itself. Though ostracized through policy, the American Indian has at least been acknowledged in America’s cinema culture. Certainly, the characterization of the Native American has been far from ideal. He is rarely afforded the same level of character development as the white frontiersman, and his language is systematically dismissed as unintelligible (a notable exception is John Ford’s The Searchers, in which Ethan’s knowledge of Comanche partly humanizes his antagonist, Scar). The historical practice of casting white actors to play Native American roles further solidifies Hollywood’s seeming prohibition on nuanced, authentic American Indian performances. And yet, even the most bigoted cinematic portrayals of the American Indian allow for a conversation about how the Native is represented in the movies and the American consciousness. One can hope that as audience sophistication increases, so too will sensitivity to racialized portrayals of the Native.
What does this mean for the gypsy, whose portrayal in American movies is not merely negative, but actually nonexistent? The gypsy is an invisible entity in the space of mainstream cinema, which perhaps should not be surprising, given the limited space he occupies in our collective national consciousness. Given this reality, Robert Duvall’s film Angelo My Love (1983) is essential viewing for anyone interested in the treatment of underrepresented peoples in cinema. His luminous commentary on gypsy life depicts the Roma neither as pitiful victims nor grotesque menaces, but as human beings who are at times exuberant, and at times melancholy. Though we may occasionally perceive their language (a hybrid of English and Gypsy) as jarring, and their gesticulations, dances, and affectations as eccentric, we accept their actions and attitudes as rational, given the context. It is the camera that allows us to see into the crowded apartments, decorated with their plush plastic couches; the masses at the Feast of St. Anne; and the men and women gathered around the campfire near Albany, following Patalay’s acquittal at the Kris. Thus, it is cinema that facilitates our receptivity to the gypsies, whom we might otherwise dismiss as inconsistent with familiar laws, social structures, and behaviors. We come to appreciate misdemeanors as pragmatic choices, necessary given the gypsies' position at the city's social and economic periphery.
The gypsies’ relationship to mainstream society is a complex arrangement, verging on mutualistic. Their status as Other arises not from systematic exclusion by a non-gypsy majority, but from the gypsies' conscious efforts to keep their culture intact. They are ostracized to some extent, yet they are not completely disconnected from the services and institutions that constitute the fabric of mainstream society. In fact, the gypsies partially integrate themselves into the dominant culture —at least on a superficial level— to ensure their economic survival and, to a lesser extent, their children's literacy and education. Paradoxically, the gypsies work to maintain a distinction between their world and the conventional mainstream. Nowhere is this more evident than when Angelo's mother delivers her ultimatum following Angelo's recovery of the family's ring. Throughout the film, Angelo is characterized as a small adult man. He blurts obscenities, exerts complete control over his body, mesmerizes women with his suave demeanor, and embodies the same machismo as his uncles. Yet, he is moved to tears like a small child when his mother says, “You can be Gypsy or Gadjo [non-Roma]— but not both.” The finality of the statement suggests that commitment to discreet elements of gypsy culture is insufficient; what is necessary is the complete repudiation of the mainstream culture, including its rules, logic, and values.
The film does not simply dichotomize Gadjo and gypsy cultures. True, the rules, moral codes, and rituals enacted by the gypsies within the context of nuclear families, the wedding and the Kris occasionally seem alien, patriarchal, and even clientelistic. And yet, by integrating scenes in which Angelo socializes with non-gypsies, including an inept grade school teacher, an elderly Puerto Rican woman, and the child country music star Cathy Kichen, Duvall connects Angelo's world to a familiar social milieu.
A wonderful aspect of Angelo My Love is the unapologetic performances by its cast members. Of course, the men and women in the film are not really actors at all. They are not "performing" so much as they are conveying shared experiences, internal crises, and identities. The film text is as much an episodic narrative as it is an anthropological study of New York City's Roma community in the 1980s.
The film maintains an interesting balance between Old and New World, conveying something about the adaptability of this formerly nomadic people transplanted from Europe. Even during the Kris (trial), Frankie, the de facto judge (reminiscent of a mafia Godfather), and Angelo vacillate between English and the Roma mother tongue. Sentences and soliloquies meld syntax and vocabulary from both languages; a perpetual high-energy rhythm links them together in an almost continuous vocal flood. This mode of discourse conveys the resilience of the people, seemingly referencing their migrant heritage, which likely required rapid adaptation to new environments, cultures, and resources.
We also learn of the ethnic and cultural variation that exists within the New York gypsy community, perhaps most clearly encapsulated by the Greek/Russian rivalry that provides the ongoing conflict for the film and context for the theft of Angelo’s father’s ring.
Finally, the costumes and modes of transport in the movie should not be dismissed, for they reveal something about the interconnectedness between gypsy and Gadjo cultures. Whereas the Amish completely reject "English" electricity and cars, the men in Angelo rely heavily on vehicles to pursue enemies, transport their families to religious ceremonies, and court women. The language of cars is ubiquitous: Angelo and Michael hail a taxi to pursue Patalay, Angelo "drives" partway to upstate New York (seated on Frankie's lap), and lacking cash for a cab becomes the justification for Angelo's failure to take Patricia out on her birthday. This sort of motif reveals something striking about the gypsy culture, at least as it is portrayed in Angelo. There is a high degree of devotion to ritualism, folklore, superstition, cultural pride and family honor, yet a reliance on the modes of contemporary Gadjo life. Still, the gypsies maintain a notably ambivalent attitude toward the mechanisms, bureaucracy, and institutions of the dominant culture. As Angelo's mother asserts (and Michael echoes), "Maybe you'll go [to school] today and not tomorrow."
But perhaps the most interesting conflicts in the film emerge within the gypsy community itself. As Angelo, Frankie and Michael watch Patalay and his fellow Russians singing around a campfire, Angelo observes their ugliness, horrified. Indeed, his statement articulates a reality we've come to appreciate throughout the film (shots of Patalay often fixate on his grotesque fleshy nose; those of Millie linger on her crooked teeth and aged skin). The ideal physical appearance —a handsome face and smooth skin— becomes emblematic of Angelo's clan (and the Greek gypsies, by extension). Angelo's discourse on beauty reveals something interesting about the construction of masculinity in the larger gypsy culture and among the Greeks, in particular. However, we cannot help but wonder whether Angelo's self-proclaimed beauty is not merely a transient sign of youth. His appearance, too, may be susceptible to the physical disfigurement and moral decay that marks Patalay.
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