The Landlord shows the gradual growth and change of relationships in an ethnic neighborhood between the “natives” and the “outsider.” At first Elgar, a wealthy young man from the suburbs, does not fit in with the tenants of his tenement house in Park Slope. He is definitely not understood by these inner city natives and comes into strange confrontations with them. As the film progresses, however, these relations definitely improve as Elgar earns the trust and respect of his tenants. Though the tenants’ tolerance of Elgar at first comes from a degree of fear and intimidation because he is their landlord, as can be seen when Elgar first meets Marge and Fanny, his relationships become more genuine as he gains their respect.
This movie seems to start out as a movie about gentrification. Elgar plans on driving out the residents of the building and renovating the tenement house into a posh flat for himself to live in. These actions would be ones that indicate gentrification and “upscaling” of the neighborhood. There is a definite clear distinction between the world of the tenement house in Park Slope and the Ender family’s world. Everything in Elgar’s family’s house is extremely white and bright and clean or sterile looking while the world of Park Slope was dark and dingy, reflecting the inhabitants of both scenes. These striking differences seem kind of odd thinking about it in present times since Park Slope is a very wealthy community. This indicates that yes, gentrification did occur in Park Slope and is probably still acting on the community and those surrounding it. However, I think that a sort of anti-gentrification happened in this movie. When I think of gentrification I think of wealthy people moving into a neighborhood and kicking the current residents out. While this was the initial goal of Elgar, it isn’t how it ended up. Instead, he blended and integrated himself into their lifestyle. He didn’t drive people out, he mixed, he became a member of the already existing community of Park Slope, both by his physical residence and by the relationships he forms and the relationships he breaks. The fact that he eventually left the house to residents of the building further shows how he doesn’t embody the gentrification spirit of today that occurs throughout New York City. Gentrifiers don’t seek to integrate themselves into existing culture, but rather to make their own culture the dominant force.
