The Moth Chase

“If you don’t believe in heaven, how can you believe in hell?”

– Van Alden

These last two episodes sure were something. I think we see many of the themes I’ve been discussing over the last several weeks coming to the fore again. I want to focus my concluding discussion on several related points: the idea of America, the limits of forgiveness in response to sin, and the relationship between these two topics. One thing that finally struck me was the extent to which something like the law was about to trump Rothstein’s massive empire. What’s interesting about it is it’s not the “rule of law” per se, but rather the enforcement of law in light of something like the public or the “American” valorization of baseball. The problem is not so much baseball, but rather the un-American idea of fixing this great American past-time. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear all,

I will be doing a write-up of the final two episodes of Boardwalk Empire in the next several days–it is the end of the semester here, so things are a bit hectic right now!

Until soon,

Martin

“I can’t recall who I was before…”

– Harrow

Interested in contemporary America? You need not watch more than this past week’s episode of Boardwalk Empire. (Right down to our contemporary fascination with and/or ambivalence towards Europe as exemplified in my choice of title, following Angela.) This episode brings together almost all of the themes I have been haphazardly exploring throughout the weeks. The episode has more layers than a mutant onion…let’s see what we can uncover. Read the rest of this entry »

“How do you rest your spleen?”

– Eli Thompson

I feel like this was an important episode, although it did come off as a bit heavy-handed. While the image of Margaret’s dress (acquired by her newfound abilities to get what she needs) stained by blood is a powerful one, it also feels somewhat overdone (although no less compelling). What we see developed most explicitly in this episode is the theme of being a woman during this era. Read the rest of this entry »

“I prefer to make my living honestly.”

– Rothstein

Hello friends,

Wow…what an awesome episode. Although it beat you over the head with the show’s theme, I thought this episode was almost flawless. I’ll discuss a few points which I think unify around one issue: America.

1. The overt imagery of a “new world” and “America” was just fantastic. The image of a “back-room” deal (actually out in the open), in front of an American flag (i.e. this is how American politics works) was impeccable and poignant. Read the rest of this entry »

“That’s horrible.”

– Margaret Schroeder

“Life can be that way.”

– Nucky Thompson

It is great to be back to BE. This week I’ll focus on two episodes in preparation for tonight’s episode; this seems to have worked out quite well because both of the episodes, as far as I can tell, deal with something like time and the consequences of its measurement. In the oldest episode (“Family Limitation”), we see the end result of “Nights in Ballygran,” Read the rest of this entry »

“They can drown as far as I care…as long as they pay.”

– Nucky

Wow. What an amazing episode this past week. Aside from the absolutely stunning conclusion (which we all somehow suspected was coming), I see a definite trend emerging in the thematic engagement of the show. The theme, of course, is America. What struck me this week was how many different times and in differing ways, the American founding myth was invoked. Read the rest of this entry »

“What’s a motherfucker?”

- Nucky Thompson

“…as a baby’s ass.”

- Chalky White

I thought that this past week’s episode really solidified the series and drew a lot of items together and showed us what this show is not only all about, but going to be all about. Let me draw out a few themes. It is obvious that the mud that Nucky drags into his domicile is symbolic. The symbolism just drives home the point the series has been asking all along: can Nucky have his feet in two worlds at once? And this week, the answer seems plainly to be: no. We see this playing out in a variety of ways.

We have a variety of overlapping networks or systems of dominance. We can see this in a few choice scenes and pieces of dialogue. Foremost is Nucky’s elaboration of Jimmy’s history: he “used to do everything right.” When Jimmy asked Nucky how one becomes president, Nucky’s reply was: see the world, get in a lot of hard work, and study. Jimmy’s response: “Gee, that’s all?” Then, we see that Jimmy–the pinnacle of potential accomplishment–decides to serve his country and is irrevocably altered (a point he himself recognizes). Similarly, we see that Nelson van Alden, for all of his puritanical goodness is willing to circumvent the law whenever it helps him achieve his greater purpose. Throughout, we see that everyone–even Nucky–is just part of elaborate networks of dominance. In Nucky’s case it is a criss-crossing path of something like hedonism (“Whatever makes you happy”), power (“Not in an election year”), and the past. This last point requires some qualification. It’s obvious that Nucky’s principles–if we can call them such–are hardly, well, principled–they seem, rather, to rely on some sort of sense of the past. He feels a duty to Jimmy’s mom, he feels a duty to the memory of his dead wife, and so forth. We see, however, that when it comes to principles, Nucky is essentially willing to bend all in service of these three networks. Van Alden on the other hand is committed to some sort of strange fundamentalism, which is as oppressive as anything else (his conversation, or lack thereof, with his wife–as well as his “letter” to her last week is just another illustration of this theme). Jimmy is the most palpable example of this as he gets sucked in between a variety of these networks: the US military machine, his family (neither his relationship to his mother nor his relationship to his wife feel genuine as illustrated by his lack of anything beyond some basic material care for them), the criminal underground, the law, and so forth. In the same way, when the French Madam states to Ms. Schroeder that she is to be “seen, but not heard,” we should take this as a reference  to the way in which individuals appear in Nucky’s world. (This, in turn, is neatly illustrated by his ultimate interaction with Chalky White…it’s almost as if both men relinquish who they are to…what? Money? Something like the system. Neither one of them is really happy with the situation, nor is either one of them that committed to what’s going since neither one of them seems happy in general.)

Everything seems to be–as Jimmy points out–done in the name of progress. These networks make up the America of Boardwalk Empire, and one reason the show is thus far so effective is because these are the same networks that we feel defining us and impinging on ourselves. The key is they  are all interlaced–creeping even into the future. This is what I take to be the import of Nucky’s contribution to the “baby incubators” project: the very future itself will be as defined (and as tainted) by the deeds (and misdeeds) of the present.

In conclusion, I want to pose a question about Jimmy’s reading material. He is reading Sinclair Lewis’s Free Air on the train. This is striking for several reasons. First, there is the irony of reading this book–the arguably the first “car road trip” book–on the train. Second, however, is that it may be suggesting that Jimmy is turning his back on his prior dream (of wanting all of the lavishness that we’ve seen thus far)…that is certainly a theme of the book (a disregard for “elitism”). In this sense, thirdly, it will be interesting to see how this plays out: will Jimmy reinterpret his move to Chicago as a willful action? If so, this will give us an interesting read on the various networks I’ve layed out and will show us a potential way of navigating through them with something like an “authentic” (or at least “chosen”) decision.

I am very excited to see what happens this week…

Best,

Martin

So, what’s going to happen on this week’s episode?

It seems that after two weeks, the big question is still on what sort of person Nucky is and whether you can be half a gangster. The stress in last episode seems to have been precisely the sorts of issues I pushed in the last writeup: we see, in relation to the Commodore, that Nucky is not a particularly cruel man…but we see also in relation to Jimmy that he can be vengeful, as he takes the $3000 which means so much to Jimmy and shows how little it means–in the grand scheme of things–to him. Read the rest of this entry »

“You can’t be a half a gangster.”

– Jimmy Darmody

Well, we have that…but not much of an empire…yet. How thrilling was it to see Capone? Luciano? Rothstein? These American legends (whether justifiably or not) brought to the screen with Martin Scorsese’s flair for detail and subtlety was a work of wonder to behold. In the same vein, I particularly enjoyed the claustrophobic way that he shot the FBI hiring scenes.

So what’s going? First, we are introduced to Enoch “Nucky” Thompson. Buscemi really nails this one as a peculiar mix of action, ideals, ambition, indolence, and care. What will be most interesting to see in the episode coming up in a few hours is how his relationship to Margaret Schroeder unfolds. We don’t know, as of yet, how much of what he said about his wife is true, but we do seem to notice that a certain level of care seems to exist on his part for Margaret–whether it originates in guilt (for her losing her child) or in genuine care (or perhaps there is not much difference) remains to be determined.

Also, obviously, we want to see how the Jimmy Darmody plot line unfolds. Darmody, incidentally, is the perfect counterpart to Buscemi, acting-wise. Carrying the same interesting mixture of power and fragility, ambition and indolence, he presents–as of now it seems–an younger version of Nucky. We don’t, of course, know whether he is working with the government, to what extent he is loyal to Nucky, and what his ultimate goals are.

I want to focus on his claim that: “You can’t be a half a gangster.” Certainly that doesn’t seem to be the case with our present day politicians, but maybe this will provide an added level of interest to the show: was being half a gangster harder during the 1920s? If so, why? The implication presumably is that somehow pretenses have to be maintained (whereas so much of modern politics seems to do away with premise)…yet the premise of much of classical political philosophy (think, e.g., Machiavelli) has been precisely that one can be half a gangster. Or is the argument, perhaps, not that Nucki can’t be half a gangster in the sense that he can have one foot in the criminal world and one foot in the normal (perhaps even moral one), as the quote seems to first imply, but rather that one can’t properly inhabit the normal (or, again, perhaps moral, or here: world of care) if one inhabits the criminal world. Hence, Jimmy’s point that he is a murderer: not that you can’t fake being a normal person to others, but that you can’t fake it to yourself–and so, Jimmy is presenting a sort of spiritual dilemma to Nucky. If so, then it will be interesting to see where this goes…

Excited for the upcoming episode,

Martin