[Marxism] Wendy and Lucy

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Put simply, Kelly Reichardt's "Wendy and Lucy" is a "Grapes of Wrath" 
for the contemporary era. In place of the Joads, we encounter a young 
woman named Wendy (Michelle Williams) and her dog Lucy who are trying 
to make their way to Alaska, a symbol of economic opportunity in the 
way that California was for the Joads. Although "Wendy and Lucy" is 
far less ambitious than John Ford's 1940 masterpiece, I regard as a 
better film in some ways since it operates in the neorealist 
tradition, a genre that corresponds to the lives of working people 
much more than Ford/Steinbeck's melodrama.

Like so many neorealist movies, "Wendy and Lucy" revolves around a 
seemingly mundane subject matter, in this case the young woman's 
attempt to track down her dog, the only source of companionship in a 
very lonely and economically deprived existence. If the bicycle in 
"The Bicycle Thief" was a means to economic survival, the tawny mixed 
Labrador breed serves to keep Wendy going emotionally in a heartless world.

full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/12/06/1261/


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