Peopling of New York City, Spring 2012

First off I would like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie! Out of all the movies we have watched, this has been my definite favorite. Although I found the plot to be often predictable, it was very captivating and had me rooting for the protagonist, Elgar. There were times when I couldn’t help but scream out things like “What? Are you stupid?” and “Gosh, please don’t do that, idiot!” Nevertheless, I found Elgar to be very much a hero, especially in the end.

What I thought was the most interesting was how color was used to display the evident differences between the white and black people in the film. In the beginning of the film, Elgar is introduced as this naïve and fish-out-of-water white guy that wears bright and light clothing. Elgar was more often than not wearing white clothing, with the occasional pastel color for accent. Interesting enough, his family all wore white, as well. Even their furniture was white! It seemed to explain the complete cultural differences Elgar had to face while owning a black apartment building in Park Slope.

To an extent, I thought that Elgar was supposed to be the embodiment of gentrification. However, I don’t believe it lasted throughout the whole film. It was evident in the way he designed his basement apartment that there was a clear difference between his and those of his tenants. At the end of the film, I thought it was the complete opposite, he tried to assimilate and was not able to so he was driven out, literally! I couldn’t believe that he had a child and he took it! I pretty much fell in love with him then and there! Overall, I felt this was a great film expressing cultural differences. But, I’m not sure I believe that this film was about gentrification.

The Landlord is a very interesting, strange, and captivating movie that addresses multiple issues simultaneously. It addresses racial issues, interracial relationships, the lifestyles of poverty, and the concept of gentrification. Gentrification can be interpreted as being “the movement of middle class families into urban areas causing property values to increase and having the secondary effect of driving out poorer families.” In this case, although the first part of the definition was attempted, we see that the second part took reign.

Elgar, an enthusiastic and dedicated young man that embodies the spirit of gentrification, sets out to invest in real estate in the ghetto of Park Slope in order to remodel a house, primarily for his own benefit. The neighborhood he comes into is vandalized, filthy, full of crime, and full of people who are not too pleased to see a white man coming into their neighborhood and trying to change the way things are. He’s faced with all sorts of obstacles and characters, such as Marge; a woman that threatens to shoot him with her gun when he steps into the building, little kids that mess around with his car, and Walter G; a little boy that basically blackmails Elgar into giving him money and driving him home. Nevertheless, he continues to work on his gentrification process with the needs of the tenants in mind. He asks the tenants if they have any complaints, installs a new bell system, new plumbing, and other fixtures that help to better the building. He stands up to his family and defends his project as well as the “colored people” that live there. In fact, this is shown in one of my favorite lines when Elgar asks his parents if they know what NAACP stands for and says “Niggers Ain’t Always Colored People”, basically calling his parents niggers. We see Elgar slowly identifying himself with this culture and neighborhood and the consequences of such identification start to become more and more apparent as the movie progresses.

Elgar’s attempted integration and his rather foolish decisions lead to a big change in the neighborhood, and it is far from being for the better. Elgar’s love interest in Laney, his affair with Francine, and his many personal changes set the tone for the rest of the movie. Laney is a major tool (excuse my choice in words) in his integration process. Laney, being biracial, causes a riot when he introduces her to his parents. His father argues against this “business venture” and insults Elgar for being too afraid to collect rent money. As Elgar is trying to prove his father wrong, he finds out that his place was robbed. It seems as though Elgar would give up at this point but with the help of Laney, he manages to remodel the place (paint job, posters, curtains…) and change his identity (clothes, house, attitude…) Now we come to a turning point in the movie when his mother, who was once somewhat supportive of his project, orders him to stop. He replies, as he is trying to throw her out of the building, that he is 29 years old and has finally run away from home. *And in comes Francine* Francine brings devastating news: Her and Elgar’s one night stand resulted in her pregnancy. After this news everything starts spiraling downwards.Elgar gets attacked by Francine’s husband when he found out and her husband goes to the psychiatric hospital.While he is away, Elgar takes care of Francine until the delivery. Soon enough the baby comes and Francine refuses to take care of it. They agree that adoption is an option but Elgar decides to take the baby to Laney and they care for it together. So in the end we are left with an unsuccessful project, a husband-less wife, new challenging circumstances for Elgar and Laney, and worst of all — a rather negative view of gentrification.

According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, gentrification is a process of renewing and rebuilding deteriorating areas that is accompanied by the influx of middle class people and the displacement of poorer residents. Considering this definition, one can see that The Landlord (1970) touches only on the slightest of the preliminary steps of gentrification but leaves the concept midway in preference to assimilation. Elgar Enders (Beau Bridges) embodies the very concept of gentrification as he buys property in the impoverished neighborhood of Park Slope, Brooklyn in hopes of driving the tenants out to make a luxurious abode for himself. Establishing shots of the neighborhood leave no doubt in believing that the area is home to poor people. The small houses are built and clumped right next to each other, streets are vandalized with graffiti, and garbage lies everywhere. The poverty is highlighted many times in the movie when shots of the spacious Enders household reveal the striking contrast between the mansion itself and the cramped apartments of Park Slope residents. Furthermore, the film uses racial socioeconomic statuses in the 1970s to demonstrate its divisions of wealth vs. poverty. It plays on the idea of poor black people living in Park Slope and the rich white Enders family living in luxury. Hence, Elgar coming from an affluent family to replace a portion of Park Slope with renovation and luxury shows how gentrification is slowly infiltrating the area. At the beginning of the film, the real estate agent talks to Elgar about the “urban renewal” and “restored landmarks” of Park Slope. Elgar enthusiastically tells Lanie about the drastic changes he plans on bringing to his new home. The film presents an aerial shot of the dirty backyard as Elgar explains he’ll place bird fountains or statues there. A low angle shot of the apartment’s staircase is used when Elgar shows Lanie where he plans to hang his chandelier. Whether it may be for personal reasons or for the betterment of the neighborhood (which we know isn’t the case; Elgar just wants a nice space for himself), Elgar does embody the spirit of gentrification that necessitates urban renewal and displacement of poorer residents. This embodiment of gentrification however, is no longer visible by the end of the film. Elgar does not actually manage to gentrify the apartment building, let alone the neighborhood. Elgar assimilates into the community rather than displacing it. Although he decides to leave the apartment building eventually, signs of integration are still visible. He leaves the building in the hands of Lanie and Copee, visits Professor DuBois’ class, keeps his racially mixed baby and goes to live with his mulatto girlfriend. On a broader level, we see that in addition to the failure of Elgar’s efforts of gentrifying the apartment, Park Slope itself is not completely renewed or displaced. Gentrification is a time consuming process that affects an entire neighborhood rather than a single apartment building. It is for this reason that I chose to say that The Landlord leaves gentrification midway to pursue the concept of assimilation.

Park Slope or even the apartment building don’t drastically change enough to be labeled under gentrification. However, Park Slope does go under a slight change over the course of the movie. I would like to argue that the residents of Park Slope slightly change and seem to become a little more accepting. Elgar is no longer seen as the white villain, and this is exemplified in his positive relationship with his tenants and the joyous atmosphere of the party that Marge throws. Part of this can be because he chose not to drive away the tenants and dealt with their problems as much as he could. He is seen fixing their toilets and doorknobs. This brings me to my second point, which is the acceptance and assimilation of Elgar into the poor community. He begins to communicate and relate with women like Marge, Lanie, and Fanny with ease. Instead of renovating the entire building and driving tenants out, Elgar choses to live in the basement and decorate his own little space. So although he walked into Park Slope as a one-man army of gentrification, he walked out having mixed into the community. The preliminary step of gentrification that might’ve attracted tons more middle class people, was stopped right at its roots as Elgar chose to keep one (yet significant) apartment building just the way it was.

At first, when I read the prompt for this post, I did not think the the film was a narrative about gentrification but upon reading Gentrification of Harlem, my views on the movie TOTALLY changed. In this article, the fact that gentrification includes the displacement of current residents and a loss of their culture was brought to my attention.

Throughout the movie, various residents of the apartment building expressed their distaste for the landlord. Marge called him a rapist, another tenant called him a child molester, and this was just on his first day in his new home. The differences between Elgar and the residents were emphasized throughout the film. Elgar lived with his parents in a luxurious house in an affluent neighborhood and the tenants lived in a rundown apartment building. Elgar constantly dressed in white, and he painted his room white while the tenants wore dark clothing and their apartments were decorated in darker shades. The tenants rarely called Elgar by his name, calling him “landlord” to distance themselves from him. These are but a few ways that the filmmakers told the audience that Elgar was the stereotypical rich white man responsible for the gentrification of this apartment building in Harlem. The events occurring in this specific building clearly act as a model for the process of gentrification in Harlem in general. For example, when Elgar started renovating the apartment complex, the social recluses residing in the basement felt threatened, they left and Elgar moved into their apartment.

The aspect of gentrification involving the loss of black culture with black residents was portrayed in multiple ways. Viewers were introduced to the idea that being black was a state of mind when, for example, Francine complained that her husband did not think she was “black” enough. Viewers later learned that the “black” state of mind could only be understood by black individuals when the professor showed Elgar that he did not belong in his classroom. This understanding that the “black” state of mind is restricted to black individuals  was connected to gentrification because as more black people are displaced due to gentrification, as the basement residents were, their culture goes with them.

In my opinion The Landlord shows general neighborhood change because it is essentially about a stranger moving into an already established community.  Even though the racial tensions don’t make the adjustment any easier, I would say that a period of awkwardness and displacement happens whenever a new family moves into a neighborhood, no matter how welcoming (or not) the neighbors are.  Of course, it also doesn’t help your case when you’re the only white guy in the building, and you just happen to be becoming the new landlord.

As for the film being a narrative on gentrification, I would say that it tries to show the feelings of displacement experienced by those being gentrified.  The one scene that sticks out in my mind as showing the negative impact of gentrification is at the very end when Elgar is in the school and each child says in turn “I’m black and I’m beautiful”.  It was sad to me that the teacher even needed to encourage them to say that, and I felt that it showed how gentrification can cause the people being gentrified to feel as though they’re not “good enough” and need to undergo some sort of change in order to be fit for society.

Gentrification is such a tricky thing for me to form an opinion on—for example, Times Square has gotten so much safer as a result of gentrification, but what about the people who were forced out as a result?  It’s just one of those issues that makes my head hurt!  This is why I think Elgar embodies the “spirit” of gentrification, because he’s such a polarizing character.  On one hand he continually opposes his family’s racism and eventually reconciles with Lanie, but on the other he treats Lanie terribly when he breaks the news of Fanny’s pregnancy to her and at one point doesn’t care if Fanny puts the baby up for adoption.  Oh Elgar—what a sad, strange little man you are! 

What I find interesting is that I didn’t see a drastic change in either neighborhood throughout the movie. However, what I did see is Elgar’s determination to make change during the movie. It’s not the stereotypical change that you usually see in a movie about segregation; in fact, the movie is less about segregation and more about culture differences.

When Elgar takes on the challenge of remodeling the building, I think his intentions are good. He wants to improve the living environment for the tenants and also invest in his new piece of real estate. As someone who’s interested in interior design, I was excited to see the final product of the building. I noticed that in this decade, the way to upgrade a room was to just paint everything white. It’s almost like rubbing off the “purity” of white people in other neighborhoods. However, what disappointed me most and what ends up as a huge message of The Landlord is the fact that the building never gets redone. The gentrification attempt turns out to be a disaster.

The scene that stands out to me is the scene where Mrs. Enders comes to the tenement house and has quite a time with Marge. This one stood out to me for many reasons! I’m even excited to hit all the points that I want to make! At first, I was pleased to see that she brought the fabric for the new drapes, but as we all know, the drapes are not what took up most of her time there. So once I realized that the drape session turned into a mingling session, I was interested to see how Mrs. Enders develops a new understanding of blacks. In the frame where Mrs. Enders is lying on the table and Marge is sitting next to her, the lighting accents her white dress and hides Marge in the darkness next to her. At this point, I realized that the separation was still there. And when Mrs. Enders leaves without having made any progress on the drapes, I realized that the house probably wasn’t going to go through the transformation I thought it would.

By the time Elgar leaves the tenement, he removes himself and his belongings but a part of him has been left inside Fanny.

The Landlord, a film about a wealthy white man moving into a poverty-stricken black neighborhood, is a quirky and engaging one. The dialogue throughout the film is terrific, and I felt myself sympathizing with pretty much every character, except Elgar at first. Elgar was a rich, overindulged kid that grew into an overindulged man. He decides to move out of his mother’s mansion to gain independence, to finally have control of his life.

Watching the film The Landlord, I did not see any gentrification. There is an attempted gentrification, as Elgar the landlord makes a shot at turning an apartment complex into a home for himself. And throughout the movie there is also an obvious comparison of the black community to the white, sometimes with Elgar making off-center comparisons himself.

“I swear he thinks the Lord put white people on this earth as a punishment.” Throughout The Landlord, the word white is synonymous with wealth, extravagance, and fun. The wealthy white characters mainly wear white (perhaps to emphasize how “regal” they are?) and in the scenes held in the ­­­Enders’ mansion, the words spoken are often silly and superficial. According to the film, white people do not have problems, and if they do, they’re insignificant snags that they blow out of proportion. Elgar’s has had enough of his trivial game. He leaves to find something more, and for a while he thinks he’s found it. “Do you know what NAACP means…” Almost immediately Elgar begins to identify with the black community, as they are not as justified or arrogant. He finds them to have much more substance than the people he as grown with. And as Elgar pulls away from the lifestyle he has grown up with we see him wearing less lightly colored clothes. In fact, in the scene in which Francine admits she’s pregnant, we see Elgar “fully assimilated” wearing a traditional African garment. Through dating a mixed woman, and living in an under-served community, Elgar feels as if he is an honorary black person, though he doesn’t really understand what is to be black.

“Christ has never known the horror of nappy hair in America.” These are the words Copee says as he is hauled into an ambulance after he nearly kills Elgar. In the film, the word black is synonymous with poverty, crime, and illiteracy. When Elgar tells his mother he is in love with a black woman, the image that comes to her mind is of a plump African woman dancing in her village. Apparently black people are rural, barbaric. They are not ambitious. They live in horrible conditions. But with their modest lifestyles comes a freedom that Elgar has never known. These people don’t have to act a certain way or portray a certain image of themselves to fully function. They do as they please. They sleep around, they steal, and they fight. And it is not until the last few moments of the movie that Elgar fully realizes that they are more than black, that they are more than their stereotype. Professor Du Bois brings Elgar to his class and through the words of the students and their proud chants of “I am black and I am beautiful,” Elgar realizes that as much as he has pretended to understand the black struggle, he still has much to learn.

I didn’t see much gentrification actually happen within the film, though through The Landlord I’m given a glimpse of what drives it: greed, selfishness. It’s not really about bettering a community, but advancing a community for oneself, and driving out the people who used to call the area home.  This film, The Landlord reveals the true motivations behind gentrification. But this film is also a story of hope, as we see one man come out the attempted process a much better person.

The Landlord does show a hint of gentrification if not much. At 5:09, the lady mentions the “trending urban renewal”. After a few seconds later,  Mr.Farcus, a white man who moved into this neighborhood before Elgar, enters the scene. At that scene, Elgar is visiting Mr.Farcus’s house which is going well under reconstruction. Comparing to Elgar’s tenement, Mr.Farcus’s reconstructed house looks brighter and nicer, which indicates the white middle class’s intention to gentrify the old physical landscape. A better condition of house means higher cost, which is possible to force the relatively poorer black residents to move out.

If we say Elgar’s moving to this black neighborhood actually involves the aim of gentrifying this community, we have to agree that his aim ends up failing. He envisions his tenement would become his beautiful home, but eventually he transfers his tenement to Fanny who gives birth to his baby. Elgar embodies the spirit of gentrification because he intends to improve his tenement and dreams to renovate his roof as a relaxing place. However, his vision does not come true after he encounter his tenants.

Also the force in the black community also prevents the gentrification from happening. As seen in the scene where Mr.Farcus’s window is hit by a little voodoo, which is a black religious cult. This suggests that black community members take mischievous actions against the white” invader”. Other than Mr.Farcus, Elgar is also being mistreated. Elgar is chased by several black men when he tries to enter his tenement with his flowers and he also experiences black children’s naughty actions against his car. All these might be the obstacles of gentrifying the old black neighborhood.