The Green Book featured at N.O. Film Fest

By Victoria Clark
Contributing Writer

The real-life story of a famous African-American pianist, played by Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali, kicked off the 29th New Orleans Film Festival. “The Green Book,” a film that takes place in the 1960s tells the story of two men from different racial backgrounds who form a bond during a time of social unrest.

Scheduled to hit theatres on November 21, “The Green Book,” is already carrying Oscar-buzz.

The film tells the story of Don Shirley and Italian American, Frank ‘Tony Lip’ Vallelonga, who is played by Viggo Mortensen. Shirley travels the country for concerts and is accompanied by Vallelonga after he recruited him as his driver. During their two-month journey, a bond is formed by seeing the world from each other’s perspectives.

The title of the movie comes from a guidebook called the “The Green Book” which was a 1930s travel guide created for African Americans who wanted to safely enjoy travelling cross-country in a divided America. The book showed destinations of hotels, restaurants, and shops that offered African Americans service during times when Jim Crow laws were on the books in many states.

From start to finish, the screening evoked laughs and silence in the Orpheum Theater to represent the comedy and seriousness intertwined throughout the movie. This was the intention of the renowned director, Peter Farrelly, known for films like “Something About Mary” and “Dumb and Dumber,” and Vallelonga’s son, Nick Vallelonga, who also served as a producer for the film, to help bring its authenticity.

“My father could not believe the treatment that was going on the South. The humor takes the edge off, but the seriousness of the tones was there,” Vallelonga said.

There are moments in the film when Shirley receives condescending glares or violence because of the color of his skin. He endured racism from police officers, restaurant owners, and ordinary citizens. The extent of the discrimination shocked Vallelonga when he was researching to make the film, but he said it also explains how much White people are oblivious to what Black people face on a regular basis in today’s society. Farrelly explained that even though the movie had scenes with bad police officers, he wanted viewers to see that racism had little to do with someone’s profession and is more rooted in what type of person you are.

This article originally published in the October 22, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.