Love and Belonging in John Crowley’s Brooklyn
By Jaylan Salah
Home is where the heart lies.
Does this saying have any truth to it?
“You’re homesick, that’s all. Everybody gets it. But it passes. In some, it passes more quickly than in others. There’s nothing harder than it. And the rule is to have someone to talk to and to keep busy.”
- Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín (novel)
“Homesickness is like most sicknesses; it’ll make you feel wretched and then move on to somebody else”.
- Brooklyn, Nick Hornby (script)
Isn’t cinema just powerful? I watched “Brooklyn” directed by John Crowley before reading the novel written by Colm Tóibín. The novel fleshed out what it feels like to be Eilis, an immigrant Irish girl in 1950s America, but the film masterfully captured how it feels to be Eilis without giving it all away.
Proof? Compare the two quotations above. They belong to the same character, Father Flood, as he speaks to Eilis when homesickness is gnawing at her fragile frame, haunting her days and leaving her a tearful mess.
In the film, the power of his single sentence stems from the lack of resolution or relief. Unlike in the novel, he doesn’t give sound advice. He just tells her she is in bad shape, yet it will pass. He doesn’t give her any clue as to how or when.
Contrary to common belief, “Brooklyn” is no sweet, sappy romance. It is not an ode to the power of love and how it conquers in the end. “Brooklyn” is one scary film, a meditation on the idea of home, love, death, and moving on.
It would be relatively easy to throw Eilis’ final choice on the beautiful reminiscence that love wins. But it’s not. “Brooklyn” is a film that paves to the power of individuality. Like most viewers, I got into it waiting for something bittersweet to fondle my nerves and leave me a puddle of goo by the end credits. I never thought that I would cry for reasons very foreign to what I previously had in mind.
Dare I say “Brooklyn” is an existential movie? In my book, it is. Before anybody attacks, let me explain why.
According to American director and actor Cameron McHarg, this existential movie deals with man’s search for meaning in an absurd world. It highlights a personal struggle in a meaningless world that doesn’t provide answers or even steps to follow. The viewer is on their own, literally and metaphorically, but expected to reach some sort of explanation by the end.
All of the films that I’ve come across labeled as “existential” starred existentialist male leads. Not a single one had a woman in the center. Enter Brooklyn, where it’s all about the female protagonist Eilis and her sense of identity, struggles, and attempts to find the self in two seemingly different worlds. Eilis leaves her hometown in search of a better opportunity. She gets it, not in the form of a job as an accountant but in the form of a young, handsome Italian chap who sweeps her off her feet and presents a sense of the very elusive thing she has been searching for: home.
In a film that plays on themes of home and love, Brooklyn deconstructs them as it builds up to them. One moment Eilis falls in love with Tony and believes she has found her home. Viewers think that Brooklyn is where her heart lies. A family tragedy forces her to go back to Enniscorthy, Ireland, and puts viewers in the shoes of the doubtful Eilis as she is lured back into her old life but with a different scheme. This time she is treated like a conqueror back from America, not the modest, simple girl constantly abandoned on the dance floor. Whereas Tony’s love for Eilis seems solid, her love for him is uncertain, driven by her insecurity and loneliness.
In the end, viewers ponder that had things taken a different direction, would Eilis have gone back to Brooklyn? Which does she consider home? Is there such a thing as home in the first place? What about love? The position of women in a time when they didn’t have a lot; either happily married, depressed, or unmarried didn’t leave much for the imagination. How would that woman find love in her own free will when singlehood would mean sharing a toilet with another miserable divorcée who dreamed of a husband to have a toilet of her own?
The film asks questions yet never gives us answers. What is home? Is it an actual place where a person belongs? Would we consider a place a “home” because of the people who live there, or is it just that it carries certain sacredness beyond our earthly perception?
The power of Brooklyn is in its ability to deconstruct every principle that it slowly builds for in the first half of the film. It reflects on free will and how far we as humans would go to seek shelter in the most ordinary of places, among ordinary people. Eilis’ transition was palpable and honest, yet it was also confusing and shaky. That’s what made her a great character. The strength in “Brooklyn” comes from the uncertainty and the absurdity by which Nick Hornby’s script, John Crowley’s directing, Yves Bélanger’s cinematography, and Saoirse Ronan’s acting handled the material.
This young woman’s existential crisis resolves but doesn’t leave viewers with a sweet ending. It gets them to think, “Really? Did she do that because she loved him?” and also, “Is this really what she considers home?” “Is that where her heart lies?”
A Matter of Scale
One side of the stage shows a MAN dressed in whatever clothing will connote poverty to the audience. The other side of the stage has a conference table and plush chairs with FOUR or FIVE PEOPLE in the day's business attire.
A few minutes of pantomime: the shabbily-dressed MAN is obviously begging; he is ignored or pushed aside by passersby, perhaps even arrested. The FOUR or FIVE are conducting negotiations: one will be handed a pen and sign an agreement, after which handshakes all around.
Voice (from dark center stage):
As it was in the beginning,
it is now, and shall ever be:
Panhandle for a few bucks,
you're a bum
Panhandle for a few hundred million,
you're a civic leader
(LIghts go down.)
THE END
The Last Word
Upstage L, a casket with mourners crying. Downstage R, a MAN preparing to speak of the deceased.
MAN: He was a liar, a cheat, a bully,
who made life difficult for those of us
who worked under him;
we were partially consoled by the thought
that most of us would outlive him
For those of us who did, he got us again,
dying in December to deliberately
thwart those of us who were
planning to piss on his grave
(Lights go down.)
THE END
For What It's Worth
A school anywhere in the United States, action to be demonstrated wordlessly as NARRATOR speaks.
NARRATOR (can be onstage or off):
There's something happening here
What it is is quite crystal clear
There's a kid with a gun over there
Who wants to do more than just scare
Once started he won't stop
Children, hear that sound
Everybody knows what's going down
The battle lines have been drawn
And the spree won't take very long
Bullets strike some very deep,
sending them to permanent sleep
Thoughts and prayers, I'm afraid,
won't make this sad day go away
Again and again that sound
Everybody knows what's going down
(Repeat last two lines at least twice)
(Lights go down.)
THE END
The History Game Show (Episode 2)
Setting: Two tables with four chairs each, one on each side of the stage, set at enough of an angle so that each chair is at least partially facing the audience. These two tables will be lit from the start of the play; center stage will be dark.
Cast of Characters:
MAN, whose identity will not be revealed until the end of the play
And tonight's show is
TO TELL THE TRUTH
MAN (speaking from dark center stage):
"It is conducted
for the benefit of the very few
at the expense of the very many",
"a racket . . . possibly the oldest,
easily the most profitable,
surely the most vicious"
"I helped purify Nicaragua
for the international banking house
of Brown Brothers
in 1909-1912
I brought light to the Dominican Republic
for American sugar interests in 1916
In China I helped to see to it
that Standard Oil went its way unmolested"
There are other instances I could give,
but I think these three will suffice
"Looking back on it, I feel
I might have given Al Capone a few hints
The best he could do was to
operate his racket in three city districts
We Marines operated on three CONTINENTS"
"In short,
I was a racketeer,
a gangster for capitalism"
This is the point in the old show where the four panelists would try to guess which of the four contestants was the real person whose achievements had been cited. If you are the one in a million who correctly guessed my identity, give yourself a prize.
(Lights go off the tables, come up on center stage, revealing the MAN
I am Smedley Butler,
once a Major General, USMC
(Lights go down.)
THE END
The History Game Show (Episode 5)
And tonight's show is
WHAT'S MY LINE?
(GUEST walks to the chalkboard, signs the name THOMAS MIDGLEY, and then sits next to the HOST.)
HOST: Are you ready, panel? (murmurs of yes from the panelists.)
PANELIST #1: Are you well-known to the general public?
MIDGLEY: No
PANELIST #2: Were you involved in the arts in any capacity?
MIDGLEY: No
PANELIST #3: Were you involved in what is today called STEM?
MIDGLEY: Yes
PANELIST #3: Were you involved in the Science part of that?
MIDGLEY (after quick consultation with the HOST): No
PANELIST #4: Were you involved with the Math part?
MIDGLEY looks at the HOST, who then answers for him.
Math was involved but not as the primary part,
so the answer has to be No.
PANELIST #1: Well, now I've got a fifty-fifty chance (chuckles from audience)
PANELIST #4: I'm betting he gets it wrong
No takers on that bet?
See the confidence people have in you
PANELIST#1: Were you involved in the Technology part?
MIDGLEY: No
PANELIST #4: I'm betting the next panelist gets it right
Again no takers
PANELIST #2: Were you involved in the Engineering part?
MIDGLEY: Yes
PANELIST #2: Were you involved in the building of bridges or roads?
MIDGLEY: No
PANELIST #3: Were you involved in the building of buildings?
MIDGLEY: No
PANELIST #4: Did you hold any patents?
MIDGLEY: Yes
PANELIST #4: I believe Mr. Midgley
is known as an inventor
HOST: That is correct
Mr. Midgley was known as an inventor
(Lights go down on everyone but the HOST, who continues speaking.)
That was his claim to fame during his lifetime,
and he was much honored by his peers
But during the decades after his death
his two most famous inventions,
leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons,
continued to inflict untold damage
upon planet and people
He has been called
"a one-man environmental disaster"
but even that understates his impact
He can legitimately be called
the most destructive individual
of the twentieth century
(Lights dim.)
THE END
Michael Ceraolo is a 64-year-old retired firefighter/paramedic and active poet who has had two full-length poetry books published (Euclid Creek, from Deep Cleveland Press; 500 Cleveland Haiku, from Writing Knights Press), and has two more full-length books in the publication pipeline.
C H A O S
Tell me please...
If those miscreants buzzing around
The ears. Has peace come to an end?
Are they the only dishes to serve people
their freshly breakfast?
When will they sing a song of no-more and
Wave a hand of no return to this infidelity?
Tell those gila-monsters, those wicked lions
That bore horrible teeth in their tragic that
Their lives will perish away like an atom
In the whirlwind of desert when breeze in the
Atmosphere hits the jackpot of peace.
Tell me...
Who would we bear on shoulders again?
Is it the giant whales flapping in pools of
Our wealth or the broken pieces of peace
Bloodly lying in every nook & cranny of the street?
I say this is not the faults of violence:
But a burning fire fueled by those
With great power in their hands and
Soaked people's minds in bowls of
Deceptions and cups of woeful wonders.
With love and peace, no way for violence.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
remember to laugh
laugh
sometimes all
you can do is
laugh
plans change
something
comes up
lines of
communication
get neglected
along the way
today is one
of those days
where i need
to remember
to laugh
especially when
the nurses tell my
mother she's an
hour early for
her procedure
somewhere
between the
paperwork
and a phone
call
the time change
was lost
laugh, remember
to laugh
there will always
be plenty of time
for revenge later
----------------------------------------------------------
in any traditional sense of the word
never fall in love
with a woman that
wants to stick a dildo
in your ass
she is incapable of
loving you in any
traditional sense
of the word
never fall in love
with a woman who
thinks she is a
dominatrix but is
unwilling to let
the world in on
the secret
never fall in love
with a woman who
puts money over
everything
friendship,
quiet moments
alone, even god
never fall in love
with a woman who
still seeks the privilege
of being an only child
well into her thirties
never fall in love
with a woman more
than two states away
from you
the distance will be
too much for some to
be able to handle in a
moment of crisis
------------------------------------------------------
still like the taste
i think my
imagination
is still in its
early twenties
everyone is
still naked
and ready
the drugs
still have a
good kick
and i still
like the
taste
sadly, the
body and
mind haven't
kept up the
pace
---------------------------------------------------------
violent in my dreams
i often wonder about
my death
it has always been
violent in my dreams
something tragic or
brutal in the daylight
i'd love to die in
my sleep
simply fade to black
my luck, it will be
upon insertion in
some unlucky
woman
the poetic way would
be mid-sentence, right
as the devil starts to...
--------------------------------------------------------------
a really short drive to crazy
i have always known it is
a really short drive to crazy
like maybe down the block
or around a fucking corner
it has been that way since
i was a child
they always told me i was
gifted
i read too much and knew
that was a kind way of saying
someone could be really
fucking crazy
i preferred savant but that was
my ego always speaking up
at the wrong fucking time
i was the type that never had
homework and could be seen
smoking cigarettes with the
homeless on the weekends
while writing poems with
a bottle of cheap wine about
even cheaper women
i look around this room
and see the cigarettes are
gone because of a lack
of funds
the wine is now a glass
of scotch
and the women are still
cheap
imaginary has some benefits
--------------------------------------------------
BLIND MOTHER
I'm one of the children of that mother
With biggest and milky breasts in town
Who lives to feed the adjoining cherubs
But too blind to notice the malnutrition
Which's been drawn in crystal on her kids;
I've been down in the mouth all day long;
I told my mother and did she tell me;
Put in the ground thy ears o' son
And water them with stream of thy eyes!
SAINT
Beloved
On my journey
To thy world
I embark
Beloved
If I reach
There I'll dwell
Till sun dies
Beloved
I am saint;
I am sent
To clean your sin
NIGERIA
Behold,
Here, Nigeria is my home;
Where my parents, family and friends
Are born and raised by different hands
Do we have other place to call home?
Halt, o' brethren
Don't let others in our hearts
Plant the seed of hatred;
Lado, Ejike, Olu we're but family
Let's alone stand to face our face;
Hang on,
The land, where we sang while farming
Is now with our hands turned it abattoir;
Where we slaughter our own brothers
Who live to provide for us the foods
Listen,
Why o' brethren and when again
Shall we regain our senses?
Tell our brothers to put down their guns
So peace would be freed and go everywhere
WEARY WANDERER
Home my abandoned heart, O' Dija
Let love be its eternal servitude
In your sacred kingdom
Clasp me in your arms, O' Dija
For my limbs grew cold
Strap my aching body to your back
Hold onto my hands, O' Dija
I'm an eclipsed moon
In your starry sky I reshine
I'm a weary wanderer, O' Dija
Take me to your pool
Let's swim and have ourselves anew
