There’s a reason why the Pulitzer Prize committee gave Dan Neil kudos, and it ain’t ’cause his hair stylist saw Eraserhead a few times too many. The LA Times carmudgeon’s eco-friendly posture can be a bit of a bore. And there are times when Neil geeks out but good. But there are columns where Neil drops it like he’s hot. His commentary on the symbolism of the 1972 Gran Turino in the movie Gran Torino is a prose poem that will, Samuel Johnson-like, stand the test of time (unlike the POS upon which the column and movie are based). “1972 was in many ways an inflection point for the U.S. automakers, the year that Detroit’s mighty cylinders began to seize. The Big Three would never again be as comfortable, and arrogant, and solipsistic, as they were then. The following year’s OPEC oil embargo sent them reeling. It was this generation of cars, which almost seemed to radiate contempt for their buyers, that drove Americans into the embrace of Japanese automakers when they came. It was this generation of carmakers, and indeed the one that came after, that failed to answer the challenges of an increasingly competitive global market. That failure took Detroit — a once-beautiful city of broad avenues and majestic public spaces — straight to hell.” Make the jump for Neil’s Talking Heads-style conclusion.
“So to say Walt Kowalski’s Gran Torino is a cinematic metaphor doesn’t really do it justice. The car — to whatever extent it is fractionally responsible for Detroit’s undoing — is an agent of the film’s action, a prime mover, an original sin. And Walt, a retired Ford autoworker, is an original sinner. One day in 1972 Walt is wrenching away on a Ford assembly line, stuffing a steering box into a shiny Gran Torino before going home to a comfortable middle-class home on a quiet street in Highland Park. Thirty-six years later, he raises the blinds of that same house to discover the world he knew is gone. The jobs have vanished, the factories closed, the prosperity replaced with desperation. How did he get here?”
I had a Gran Torino Squire wagon with a 351 Clevland. It was a rocket ship.
RF – The trailer posted is in Spanish? Maybe that was intentional, for some reason, but I thought I would point that out.
I may very well go see this movie today… I’m hoping the characters are a little deeper than they appear in the trailer.
Looks like a good effort –
I noticed that the dog on the porch in one scene was panting in Espanol – the only part that I understood.
You could pick just about any major industry in the United States – he could work for U.S. Steel, Briggs and Stratton, Zenith, Motorola, IBM computers, etc. – it would be the same. I personally would expand it beyond Detroit and the auto industry to this country as a whole. The financial meltdown is a natural result of a country and culture that is all about instant gratfication, and selfishness.
The Greatest Generation built a great nation on hard work, self reliance, and positive moral values – too bad they didn’t pass that on to their children.
According to an expert on National Public Whimpering and Whining Radio, financial services are typically 15% of our economy, but hit a high of 35% before the Troubles. We’re feeling that 20% blow-off now, but worse, we will continue to suffer as a result of the financial sector’s lowest cost by any means attitude. While you can still buy nominally domestic cars, there are many products that just aren’t made here anymore. But they can be made here once again – it will just be a long slog.
This is still America, still the place other nation’s best and brightest come to for the opportunity. And now with more opportunity to set things right than before…
@Taxman:
Well said. While just anecdotal, there is a profound difference between my grandparents (from the greatest generation) and my parents. I’ve wondered for a while what went wrong.
I was hoping after 9/11, Katrina and the financial meltdown that things would change, but I fear it will take something much larger in scope. Maybe if BO and the Dems spend another $800B on top of the $700B the Reps and Bush have spent, we’ll all be bankrupt through 2150. Maybe then? Nah.
Hey, Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!
Blame the 60’s flower generation. The first ever generation that refused to grow up. Sometimes I wonder if the Soviets secretly started the “counterculture” movement in hopes of derailing the United State’s future. Seems to have worked.
jkross22 said:
there is a profound difference between my grandparents (from the greatest generation) and my parents. I’ve wondered for a while what went wrong.
Fair enough. I’m an optimist and have hopes for the rising generation. A question for you all, though, especially those who would blame a generation rather than individuals in that age cohort. How many of you think, like Barbie dolls, that “Math is hard” and avoid it and consequently all the technical fields that build on it? How many of you are in, or planning to go into, law or finance, two areas that do not contribute to a nations’ wealth and prosperity? Don’t get me wrong, lawyers serve an important function, but like e. coli in the body politic, too many will kill you. Same comment to the Nth power for mortgage brokers, investment bankers and their ilk.
Just the observations of a boomer engineer – raised in a family where Mom, Dad and all four kids attained at least BS degrees…..
For all the college educated folks……
just hope and pray the working-poor underclass never tires of having to be bottom feeders.
Let the crops stay in the fields and those moving the food from source to destination decide to revolt and just stay home…..
well, famine is not your friend.
What changed in this country? People didn’t change. The law changed. More particularly, the laws regarding trade changed.
By modern standards, Americans had a miserable standard of living in 1955… but virtually everything they touched had been made in the United States by Americans earning a living wage. The American family of 1965 may have only had one car, one television, and a limited number of clothing and toys, but those purchases stayed in the economy.
The “economic boom” of the fiat-money era (small “F”) was a direct result of currency valuation, and it was prolonged by China’s understanding that they could build their manufacturing base by undercutting ours.
Manufacturing jobs will return once the dollar doesn’t buy anything overseas. That day is coming.
wtf, ’72 Torinos were great. It started going downhill in ’73.