INDEX
Insights from Mary’s Late Son, Curtis
Here is another interesting depiction that reinforces this view. In this sequence, Mr. Hannam, Angus, Mary, and Danny (Naheem Garcia), a janitor at Barton School, attend a Christmas party at the home of Miss Lydia (Carrie Preston), the principal’s assistant. Here, Mary takes it upon herself to select the background music for the party. As the drinks are served and Mary becomes increasingly emotional, she plays “When Winter Comes” (originally released in 1939) by Artie Shaw and his orchestra, a musician who was a favorite of her late son’s before his death. The music of Artie Shaw, a bandleader who led the heyday of swing jazz from the late 1930s to the early 1940s, would be too “old-fashioned” (as Mary herself said with a tearful smile) for young people to like in the early 1970s. In fact, in the scene that follows, a young customer insists that the record be changed, but Mary rebuffs him with a mighty swagger.
What is the story being told here? Is she simply trying to say that “Mary’s beloved son had a rather unusual taste in music”? To me, I don’t think that’s all it is. Rather, I think that this scene presents one of the most important lessons in the film in a way that overlaps with what I have discussed above.
As indicated in the completion ceremony scene at the beginning of the film, Mary’s son Curtis unfortunately lost his life while serving in the Vietnam War. His creativity during his life was acknowledged by Mr. Hannam, who tends to be difficult with his students, and many of his schoolmates also express their condolences for his tragic death. Through his absence, Curtis represents a kind of nobility, wisdom, discernment, and discretion that Angus and the rest of the students (cunning and immature, according to Mr. Hannam) will never attain at this point in their lives (see his portrait displayed ostentatiously in the unoccupied lecture hall). (See how his portrait hangs proudly in an unoccupied auditorium).
(See his portrait displayed ostentatiously in an unoccupied auditorium.) Given this, the somewhat abrupt episode in which Curtis shows a taste for old-time music, which is not unlike that of a young man, seems to have a narrative inevitability to it. In other words, Curtis is paradoxically brought to life through his absence as a person with a sensitivity for old-fashioned culture, or more specifically, as a person who knows the wisdom of history, and thus commands the respect of all the characters in the story.
The subplot involving Curtis, a young Afro-American war veteran, also subtly conveys Payne’s socialist side. In the late 1960s, when the Vietnam War became a quagmire, Afro-Americans served in the U.S. military in a large proportion of the overall U.S. population, and the death rate was similarly high. In other words, at a time when young people were being deployed to the front lines one after another, while many children of wealthy whites were able to avoid military service by pursuing higher education, young Afro-Americans, who were economically and environmentally disadvantaged, were forced to join the war effort for a variety of reasons and were even forced to join ground troops, which did not require a high level of expertise. In addition, they tended to be preferentially assigned to ground troops, which did not require a high level of expertise. Curtis’ death is an example of the tragedy of such a severe disparity.
