MovieChat Forums > Avalon (1990) Discussion > Television as a Metaphor

Television as a Metaphor

posted 19 years ago by gaucho54-1
13 replies | jump to latest

The television is a metaphor that appears throughout Avalon. Of course the film begins in the later days of Radio (evidenced by the Wedding song sung by Jolson after they eat), but soon after Jules receives his first television as a get well gift.

From this point on, their lives continue with television in the background always exerting it's subtle influence. As the movie continues, the influence strengthens. By the end of the film, the television is constantly present.

The irony is that as the influence of television strengthens (bringing all this information into ones living room), the family influence decreases until Sam is in the Home for Seniors, totally alone.

First scene, a large family around the thanksgiving table, love, joy family dynamics.. last Scene, a Lonely Sam talking about how you work your whole life to exist in a place like this. Michael's visit is bittersweet, he remembers a different time.

Avalon is a wonderful movie for those of us from that era. I totally identify with Michael, Sam and Eva were my grandparents, the great uncles and aunts, the cousins, the only difference was that I grew up in NYC, not Baltimore. Why don't my cousins talk to each other? The Grandparents and great uncles/aunts are gone. How could things change so??

I watch Avalon every thanksgiving, it reminds me of what my family once was. That era is gone, it always brings tears to my eyes.

As Joni Mitchell wrote and sang: "You don't know what you've got till it's gone",

Gene Martin
SF

[–] eventodd 18 years ago

That's right, the introduction of television into the story is the beginning of the disintegration of the family. The family talks and eats together, but after tv, they sit glued to the set. By the end, not only is Sam in an old folks home, but if you notice, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is on tv in the room when Michael visits, and they both stare listlessly at it from time to time.
Most people notice that the film takes place over many Thanksgivings, but it also occurs on many Fourth of Julys -- two quintessential American holidays with no religious affiliation.
The lack of any religious observance in the family probably helps lead to the family's disintegration, as well. It is not a mistake by Levinson, it's an accurate remembrance of how it was to be an assimilating Jew in his family, his time. What the family lost by embracing only American holidays.
The original working title of the film was "The Family".
Eve

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] moviegeek71 15 years ago

The lack of any religious observance in the family probably helps lead to the family's disintegration, as well.

Just because we don't see it on the screen doesn't mean it didn't happen... all those people in that family came from one man yet we never see a sex scene either.

----------
"If I've never seen it before, it's a new release to me."

[–] PenTheater 16 years ago

The scene where the family all rushes from the dinner table to the TV to watch Milton Berle, and then the camera passes them and focuses on al the un eaten food on the table.
a lot said there.

[–] jfd0210 15 years ago

Sam's loss of memory comes from his natural agining process, I reazlie, but I felt it was also a link to the influnce of television.
He is so virbrant at the beginning of the film (even at middle age), with no television. Then, as others have said, little by little, the television begins to replace aspects of the family being united.
By the end, everyone is as glassy eyed as Sam, finding the television their link for communication instead of each other.

[–] RCeditor 13 years ago

The scene where the family all rushes from the dinner table to the TV to watch Milton Berle, and then the camera passes them and focuses on al the un eaten food on the table.
a lot said there.

I agree! That one scene was very powerful for me.

(formerly slimcity321)

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[–] Tina-37 13 years ago

I know it has been over five years since this particular thread began, but it seems to maintain interest as the last comment was only a few months ago. Today, I saw Avalon for the first time (I regret having missed it all these years), and was so caught up in it from those opening moments that I put off going to bed (I work nights) in order to watch it through the end. By the time it was over, I was in tears and everything that has been mentioned regarding television and its' influence in the film...talk about mixed feelings. I mean, here I am watching the movie on the very medium that you see -- little by little -- tear down the family unit we so loved at the beginning.

I especially caught it there at the end, when Michael is visiting old Sam at the nursing home. Michael still listens to Sam, as he always did (although you know it's breaking his heart to see Sam in such poor condition), but little Sam keeps drifting, his eyes continually going to the Thanksgiving parade on TV. He is a child of that "new" generation that has always known TV.

I was just glad that as the movie ends, we see Michael begin to tell his son of old Sam's arrival in America. And it reminded me of all the numerous times my own mother (who passed away about 6 weeks ago) told us of her childhood and those of her cousins and her grandparents. After a while, even though you wonder just how many more times you'll hear these stories, you suddenly realize how important these things are to maintaining family. Here's hoping little Sam will understand too as he listens to Michael tell their story.

[–] gaucho54-1 12 years ago

I started this thread years ago (2005), and it is still going. Last year I lost my father. (That would have been Michael's father in the movie). I still watch Avalon when I want to remember what my family once was. I don't believe it disintegrated due to lack of religion as some stated. More likely, the times have changed, children can move farther away, there is more money and families no longer have to depend on one another as they did in the 30's to the 60's. This is not to put down the family nor to put down religion, the world is changing and constantly evolving.

Joni Mitchell really captures the movie:

And the seasons, they go round and round
and the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came,
and go round and round and round in the circle game.

[–] angelosdaughter 10 years ago

The ending always make me cry. My father immigrated from Italy at the age of 17 in 1921, and he used to tell us what an adventure coming to America was. He, too was in a nursing home at the end. I would have loved to keep him home, but I had to work so I went over every night after work, and sometimes I brought him home, knowing I would be up into the wee hours because he usually woke up in the middle of the night. I was with him when he passed away. He did have a good long life. He was 90. That was 20 years ago.
Life has has lost much of its savor since he died.

"..sure you won't change your mind? Why, is there something wrong with the one I have?"

[–] whosit 10 years ago

To paraphrase Will Rogers: "I never met a phor I didn't like"

Thank you ladies and germs.

[–] tmaj48 12 years ago

I find it ironic that Michael's mother often complains that her in-laws repeat
the same stories and dinner-table arguments over and over ad nauseam. Yet TV is
also notorious for repeating the same stories and plotlines over and over again,
and people can't get enough of it.

I'm not crying, you fool, I'm laughing!

Hewwo.

[–] rushfan03 11 years ago

I saw this movie first back in the late 90s when my dad was still living. Some of it was clichéd, with the big family dinner and daughter-in-law not liking her mother-in-law, and son/husband not wanting to stand their ground.
As time progressed in the movie, the degeneration of the family unit becomes apparent with the dinner left at the table because the Texaco Star Theater was on, and then again when holidays which were once considered sacred and family oriented became times to sell at a department warehouse, and then finally when invited family were left behind in the cutting of the turkey, even though that said family member was always late, and would always hold up the Thanksgiving dinner.
My grandfather would have been Simka's age. My aunt is around Michael's age. As I watch Michael run down the street, I think about my own grandfather, and how things were just left unsaid. This really hit home on that fact when Simka came over. I am still researching my own family information because I would like to know the circumstances, much like what's being shown here, of the family's own journey to the states. I think Simka's character hits me harder since my own grandfather was a POW.
I digress, though, it's a progression of time and it's a fragility of how people are.
As we see Eva become ill and in the hospital, then pass away, then the downward spiral of Sam, a forgotten time is left behind. The roaring 20s, the market crash, the depression. The war was fresh on the mind in that time. Cars, or machines as the older folks called them, became the norm. Eating in front of the TV.
I always want to cry at the end because you see the obvious end of Sam, which is the end of the Krichinsky name. In just one phrase, "For a minute, I thought I never was," it symbolized what even my generation forgot in our insatiable need of progress and technology. In the same note, finding out what you can on a personal level is like pulling teeth from generations at times because I know my grandfather's generation didn't like to talk about much of anything, and thankfully, Sam, Eva, and his brothers and family, talked freely.
I also feel that the ending where the photo of the building front "Avalon" faded into a sepia and then into a black and white photo. That's actually a symbolism of memories fading and getting tattered and torn like photos.
I'd like to end with when Michael was talking to Simka's step-daughter, whom I've not been able to gather a name for. In that day and age, to tell her what channels to tune into for what shows made it seem like the universal language was TV.

[–] twm-2 10 years ago

The irony is that as the influence of television strengthens . . . the family influence decreases . . . .

To me, this isn't irony, but a profound indictment of the way television has infiltrated every corner of society, dominating our culture. The message is hardly subtle, but it is strikingly made. The family members started watching passively more and more this little box and talked to each other less and less. The penultimate scene has the grandfather/great-grandfather sharing his life and sorrow, while the great-grandchild's attention is drawn away to those hypnotic, mind-numbing images. To me, that was horribly tragic. No doubt, the old man will soon be gone, and this moment was lost forever to the youngster . . . and no doubt, that scenario has been replayed thousands of times in real life.

A very fine movie.

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