MovieChat Forums > America America (1964) Discussion > Less than 400 votes?!?

Less than 400 votes?!?

posted 20 years ago by Rune3000
6 replies | jump to latest

I am amazed to find out that so few people have actually seen Elia Kazans final masterpiece! I know that this is not a typical Kazan-movie and most of people probably consider movies like "On the Waterfront", "East of Eden" and "A Streetcar Named Desire" as typical Kazan-movies, but I don't see how it could have stopped them from viewing this work.
Could it have been because of the movies incredible length of 170 minutes, which makes it Kazans longest movie. Or is it the political matter, although it never stopped people from viewing "Viva Zapata!"?

I think that this movie highlights a great historical matter which doesn't so often appear on the screen. The last attempt was Atom Egoyans movie "Ararat".
Unlike TV-movies like "Mayrig (1992)", which I think has a lot in common with this movies story, this major Hollywood production has an appropriate budget and therefore should have attracted bigger audience. This is a great story which involves a tale of many cultures and traditions, which are just as accurate today as it was in 1963, so I just hope that more people see this movie and get the actual look of the foreign world that not so often is shown with this kind of accuracy.

[–] marcsten 20 years ago

I fully agree with you!

[–] 20 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Dire_Straits 19 years ago

This is Kazan's finest work (and frankly, all of his films are exceptional); I had forgotten the movie was almost 3 hours long until I saw the above post...the film flies by for me.

I rank this film certainly in the top ten of all-time and probably the best film of the 1960's.

I can find no one (other than 'interneters') who have seen this film. I wish more would go out and rent a copy. Sadly, it's not available on DVD as yet (July 2005).

Dire_Straits
Lover of all B&W; especially film-noir

[–] weschingsdieder 15 years ago

I'm discovering Kazan right now (could he be one of the most underrated directors of his generation?) but have only come across his more popular works (STREETCAR, ZAPATA, WATERFRONT, EDEN, A FACE IN THE CROWD - liked / loved them all) - I somehow feel that Kazan could be one of those directors who got much more interesting and versatile with growing age and number of films. The late film of his I'm most anxious to see probably is THE ARRANGEMENT which sounds and looks extremely intriguing from what I've read and seen but now that I read all the praise here, I'm also thrilled to have been able to track down a solid VHS-Copy of AMERICA, AMERICA (unfortunately in Fullscreen, I hope, it's oppen matte). Epic films always catched me and the more Kazan I watch, the more I pity the fact that this is his only film that ran more than two hours, as silly as this may sound.

[–] gayspiritwarrior 13 years ago

Unfortunately, it's not a story that most Americans past third-generation are much interested in. That's a pity, but an inescapable fact.

"The value of an idea has nothing to do with the honesty of the man expressing it."--Oscar Wilde

[–] mam13143 9 years ago

Never heard of it, came across it by accident on TCM, and could tell right away it was special. Lots of little known gems like this.