Father’s reluctant moral evolution, as pushed by circumstances rubbing against his sense of morality and self, is one of the story’s strands. When a naked black baby is found abandoned in their garden, and the mute frightened mother, Sarah (Debbie Allen), is apprehended nearby, Mother imposes her will upon the more conventional Father (James Olson) to give them a place in the house. His older sister, called Mother (Mary Steenburgen), is the most morally upright and generous person in Ragtime. When pursuing Miss Nesbit, he comes across as a poorer version of Thaw. He likes designing things that blow up, and he seems to chafe at his restricted opportunities. A junior partner in a fireworks factory, he’s a somewhat troubled and morose figure. This young man is only credited as Younger Brother (Brad Dourif) of New Rochelle. Witnessing the murder, and being spellbound by Nesbit’s presence, is a young man from the film’s central unnamed family of fictional characters who, with the equally fictional Walker, reach out to touch the historical figures mixed with the events. Nesbit is portrayed as something of a put-upon trophy wife, something of an airhead, someone whom the possessive, acquisitive, jealous, violent Thaw plucked from the life of a chorus girl and model. The first major event in the multi-character pageant that follows is the notorious public murder of White (Norman Mailer) by Thaw (Robert Joy) in the middle of a performance at the Garden. Before he enters the story and eventually dominates it, Walker is as mysterious and emblematic a figure as the waltzing Nesbit. Scoring the newsreel from his piano in the corner of the cinema is an African-American musician who will be identified as another of the film’s characters: Coalhouse Walker Jr. Thaw looks upset.Įven though all these were real historical figures, the newsreels are fabrications using the actors who will play them in the film at large. Washington (“first Negro in the White House” claims the title card with believable period inaccuracy), Harry Houdini preparing for an ocean voyage, and unveiling the statue of a nude Diana at Madison Square Garden, as designed by artist/architect Stanford White and supposedly modeled by the same Nesbit, while rich husband Harry K. The newsreels show such historical figures as Roosevelt visited by Booker T. Then we see silent newsreels whose events mark the action as belonging to the Teddy Roosevelt presidency during the first decade of the 20th Century. Viewers will soon identify the woman as Evelyn Nesbit (Elizabeth McGovern), who plays a part in the story. The two-and-a-half-hour film begins and ends symbolically with an elegantly dressed young couple on stage waltzing to a gentle ragtime tune. Doctorow, makes its Region 1 Blu-ray debut in time for its 40th anniversary, as mastered from a 4K transfer in the Paramount Presents line. Milos Forman‘s Ragtime (1981), based on the 1975 novel by E.L.
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