Ragtime

This a truly terrific period piece directed by Milos Forman(Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus) and starring terrific cast. The film takes place in the very early 1900's and follows the lives of at least four different people/families. As the movie gets going, it begins to focus mostly on an African American man and his struggle to be heard in society after he is mistreated by a group of firemen. Everything that follows is equally powerful and fascinating as the man tries to find justice in the turn of the century America. This fine film is richly textured with turn of the century atmosphere, music and actual newsreels from the period which all contribute to this fascinating story. Also nice to see James Cagney one more time. This is a film that I would recommend to anyone who is interested in what life was like at the turn of century. A fantastic film. ***3/4 out of ****.

'Ragtime' by E.L. Doctorow was one of those important ground breaking books.

It deserved a better translation to film. Having read the book numerous times over the years, what struck me about the film was that it was largely undecipherable if you had not first read the book. The book is a rich tapestry of American society, its values, behaviour and so on of the day. The film focuses on 2 sub-plots only - Nesbit Thaw and Coalhouse Walker Jr. The character - mother's Younger Brother was largely sacrificed - this introverted complex character - was portrayed only as Nesbit-Thaw's lover and a terrorist - with no development of how he became to be these. The relationship between Father and Mother too was badly handled, especially the Mother's leaving with the Russian film maker (silhouette artist).

The film simply does not even begin to scratch this surface. The film is a major disappointment.

Ragtime is a movie that has obvious aspirations to the epic, but never quite makes it. Multiple plot lines go nowhere, only to be neatly resurrected at some random time in the future, just to remind us that everything is 'linked'. Characters go off on random tangents for no apparent reason, things just happen, you get the idea. The central subplot is actually reasonably compelling, but even then it suffers from being slightly haphazard, with all but the very central characters basically behaving in a completely random manner. All this being said, Ragtime is not a bad movie per se, it's sumptuously shot and the acting is mostly pretty good, once the main subplot gets moving, it's pretty engaging.

Ragtime is based on the book of the same name, I didn't know this when I was watching the movie, but it's pretty obvious that the script has suffered from attempting to compress the book, even then, the movie still weighs in at a hefty two and a half hours, one can't help feeling that they should have just concentrated on developing the main story properly, instead of trying to throw in the kitchen sink.

In conclusion: Well done, a little bit of a mess, probably worth a go if you're looking for a period drama.

A short commentary: Having read through a few of the comments here, I note that there are several which express disappointment that the movie didn't do the book justice. Personally, having read the book some time after seeing the movie, I can understand their point, but realistically it's the type of book which would be nearly be impossible to do justice to, as there are so many broad interwoven threads in the book that it would require at least a 6 hour movie to even scratch the surface, and even then, putting it all together into a singular coherent whole which would hold the viewer's interest for that long would be quite a mean feat indeed. So instead of looking at it as an attempt to fully capture the book, it might be best to simply appreciate it for what it is, rather than what it isn't. And I believe that on its own terms it succeeds admirably, and remains one of my favorite movies of all time.

Another way of looking at this, as an introduction to the book, rather than vice versa it has some value on those terms. Perhaps if I hadn't seen the movie I might never have happened upon the book, and never known what I'd missed.

Ragtime has emerged as a classic film. Its astonishing array of great performances--literally a score of them, from Howard Rollins's truly tragic stand for human dignity at the film's center to James Cagney's historic return to film at the end of his life and the end of this motion picture--would almost alone qualify this as a great motion picture. But Michael Weller's breathtakingly complex and complete dramatization of Doctorow's sprawling novel, the gorgeous production and costume designs and the superb direction of Milos Forman seal the deal. This is a magnificent tapestry of American life at the beginning of the American century.

Lavishly entertaining, genuinely heartbreaking and a dandy history lesson to boot, Ragtime has joined the pantheon of great, epic movies.