For all that it degrades and demeans, debilitates and destroys, deprivation does have one virtue. For while it rips apart those too weak of character to hold together under its stresses, it strengthens the wills of the resilient to go on, transforming them into spiritually hardened warriors able to endure any challenge. It provokes the resourceful to generate new methods and alternatives, new standards and practices, that will keep churning the wheels of society in the hope of a better tomorrow. In no aspect of our culture is this more apparent than in the arts which have always been utterly recast and refocused by hard dips in the fortunes of civilization. This point is vividly demonstrated in Mr. Dickstein's cultural history of the Great Depression.
From the stock crash of 1929 to the dawn of World War II, human civilization was convulsed by one of the worst economic downturns in its history. Triggered by a series of catastrophic decisions by both government and enterprise, this severe recession, later to be termed the Great Depression, not only erased the life-savings of millions of individuals, its toxicity directly contributed to the rise of Nazi Germany and the onset of what remains, 70 years on, the costliest war in the history of man. Though economists are divided on precisely what extricated the world economy from this depression, they agree on this much. It was a devastating shock to the capitalist system which, by empowering its critics, altered the course of human events while leaving its mark upon all those it touched.
But while the most obvious externality of this economic crash (WWII) has been exhaustively covered by every form of media, less known is the degree to which it impacted the culture of this tumultuous era. From Michael Gold to Frank Capra, from John Steinbeck to Astaire and Rogers, Mr. Dickstein, a cultural historian and professor of English and Theatre, delves into the literature, the cinema and the stageplays of these twelve tortured years to create a captivatingly bleak portrait of an unimaginable time. He demonstrates how the Depression created room for eviscerating critiques of capitalism, thunderous condemnations of cold corporate giants, and sweeping works of cultural and societal reform which, in the united States, helped catalyzed a remarkable shift towards modernization in all aspects of civilization. It's little wonder, then, that this remains, at least for Americans, the golden age of literature and film.
Though hampered at times by the sprawling nature of its subject, Dancing In The Dark largely succeeds in realizing its grand ambitions. In bringing together artists both treasured and ignored by history, he summons the era's loudest critics and unleashes their words upon the reader at a time when the world is feeling the aftershocks of its own contemporary financial crisis. This point of unfortunate synergy causes the artistic voices vivified here to take on prophetic tones that have the power to both chill and enchant.
By and large, Dancing In The Dark reads like an exceptionally long review, in this case, of a culture and how it performed while being battered by a tempest the likes of which its victims had never seen. Mr. Dickstein's thorough understanding of the politicized tracts that shaped the era leaves the reader with the strong impression that the author has spent years toiling in the basements of uncounted libraries, unearthing the gems that are winningly recounted here. This vision, coupled with strong prose that never loses its sense of flow, makes digestible this 600-plus-page read which would have otherwise been both interminable and uninteresting.
However, for all its thoroughness, for all that we are made aware of the dominance of Bing Crosby and Cary Grant, George Gershwin and Katherine Hepburn, his account devotes too much time to the period's literary history. While the socially charged texts of a dozen authors are cleverly and expansively picked apart, we learn almost nothing about the theatre during a time when, prior to television, it was culturally dominant. Music, too, receives fairly short shrift, shoved aside for yet more books, some of which appear to have been ignored in their own times, much less in ours. It is difficult to blame Mr. Dickstein for this decision when the written word is clearly the most expeditious vehicle for social criticism. And yet I can't help but think that some brilliant plays were unfairly dropped from what is otherwise a pleasingly thorough chronicle.
This is a difficult but rewarding work with the power to leave the reader both amazed and depressed, humbled and disheartened. For it clearly communicates the reality that our socioeconomic problems have happened before and will happen again, a challenging thought to come to grips with considering that it leaves us largely helpless to permanently repair what is so eminently breakable. But while it is delivering this proverbial gutpunch, it is encouraging us with the universal notion that the human spirit is not so easily cowed. In fact, it is safe to say that it may well be our greatest and most enduring strength. (3/5 Stars)
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