Ragtime (1981) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Milos Forman

Starring:  Howard E. Rollins, Jr., Mary Steenburgen, James Olson, Brad Dourif, Elizabeth McGovern, Kenneth McMillan, Debbie Allen, James Cagney, Mandy Patinkin

I will get my complaint out of the way first.    Major characters in films should have names.   First, last, or even nicknames.    Call them something.    Three of the major characters in Ragtime are called Father, Mother, and Younger Brother.    This was the case in E.L. Doctorow's book on which this film is based, but what's wrong with naming them, I don't know... John, Mary, and Clyde?    There you go.    Problem solved.

My pet peeve notwithstanding, Ragtime is a beautiful, sometimes haunting, and sometimes brutal film.    Beautiful in the way it captures its time period (early 20th century America), haunting in how it ultimately deals with who turns out to be the main character, Coalhouse Walker, Jr. (Rollins), and brutal in its depiction of the overt racism towards him.     Ragtime is full of parties, dancing, fun, smoking, and drinking, but even the costumes can't hide the ugliness of a society barely forty years removed from the Civil War.

We meet the characters and all paths eventually lead to Coalhouse, who is a successful pianist who only wants to marry his pregnant sweetheart Sarah (Allen) and have a family.    He makes enough money to buy his own Model T, which stirs enough envy and hatred within a group of gruff local firemen to harass Coalhouse and place horse manure on his front seat.   In the ensuing argument, Coalhouse is arrested instead of the men who actually vandalized his car.    Coalhouse searches in vain through legal channels for justice, and finds none.    He then takes matters into his own hands by teaming with a group of black men to blow up firehouses and kill firemen.    The ransom to make all of this stop?   Restore his car to its original condition.    

Before the tragic events unfold, Coalhouse is a happy man who, because he makes money, deludes himself into thinking racism would not touch him.    It does, because even though he is successful, to many whites he is still beneath them.    The Model T episode lets loose a rage in Coalhouse he didn't know he possessed; one which may never be squelched once it starts.     Rollins, who received an Oscar nomination for his role, provides Coalhouse with the right amount of intensity and evokes a fair amount of sympathy even though he is committing horrific acts.   His change from happy-go-lucky to resentful anger is always convincing.    To him, the use of terrorism is justifiable to right this wrong.    Many, including police commissioner Rhinelander Waldo (Cagney), may agree, but still must stop him.  

Coalhouse's situation touches the lives of Father (Olson), Mother (Steenburgen), and Younger Brother (Dourif) in unexpected ways.    Their life of privilege and wealth in upstate New York is now
irretrievably upended due to their friendship with Coalhouse, Sarah, and their child whom Mother wants to take care of after the tragedies involving Sarah and Coalhouse.    They were not prepared for the upheaval and it shakes what seemed to be a strong familial bond to the core.  

There are other subplots, one based on fact involving dancer/actress Evelyn Nesbit (McGovern), who was involved in a deadly love triangle which caused irreparable scandal and harm to Nesbit's career.   All of these in one way or another lead back to Coalhouse.    Forman, like he did in Hair and later in Amadeus, pools his considerable talent and resources to present us with an authentic glimpse into a historical period in which things looked gorgeous on the outside, but couldn't hide the terrible natures of some of its people from emerging in sad and tragic ways.