Kansas City

Kansas City falls easily within the bounds of the gangster genre. There’s Johnnie, Blondie, Seldom Seen, a twist at the end, people “offed”, bad gangster imitation dialect, all the things we’d expect, no machine guns, though. Released in 1996, it’s the newest movie we’ve seen. So, it’s easy to see that, at this point, jazz has been canonized but is still squished into the same old types. It is noticeably different in the character of the jazz musician plays only a minor role, almost so small that he is almost lost in the background. We still get a performance by a character identified as Lester Young, but the audience wouldn’t have known this had it not been pointed out to them.
Jazz is, however, distinctly connected to the gang leader Seldom Seen. Most of his scenes are acted within the club or in the back of the club at the gambling tables he oversees. Jazz is still present in the sin filled den of iniquity. I can’t tell if jazz is included to further exemplify the time period, like all the discussion of motion pictures and an entire scene set in a theatre where the audience is watching a Clark Gable film, or if it is some more important part of the characterization of the narrative as a whole. It does seem mainstream, although the movie is supposed to be set in 1930’s.
There is an interesting bit of dialogue where Seldom Seen tells Johnnie he’s still alive because of the music. I can’t decipher exactly what this could mean. But, there’s plenty of talk about race relationships, even politics. In fact, Johnnie gives his race as the reason Seldom Seen should not kill him.
Kansas City is the hometown of jazz greats like Bird, and the soundtrack was heralded as an especially important work of Robert Altman. But, since I don’t know who Robert Altman is, I’ll just have to take that exertion how it’s presented.
Although there is not much call back to the importance of Kansas City to the jazz era, there are plenty of instances where the culture surrounding jazz pops up. There’s swing, gambling, the row of clubs, a cutting contest, and more. There’s plenty of political talk and discussion of race, including a monologue by Seldom Seen that includes the idea that white people are consumed with greed (i.e. they’re good capitalists), kill babies, rape women, colonization culture stuff.
Oh, and there’s the multiple Amos n’ Andy references. I’m sure we’ll discuss them in class.
Adios, guys.