Bend It Like the Jazz Singer
The movie, ÒBend It Like Beckham,Ó is an exceptional movie on many counts. There are few sports movies that are as good, and almost none that I can think of about soccer. Usually the level of ability of the players in soccer movies is so questionable that it is difficult to suspend disbelief long enough to imagine that the actors really can play. In ÒBend ItÓ the actors do fairly well making the games seem credible – they are believable enough, and they seem more authentic than most actors who have played such roles. The next best soccer movie that I can think of, ÒGregoryÕs Girl,Ó was excellent in spite of, not because of the manner in which it depicted soccer. ÒFever PitchÓ was about Arsenal, which, for a Chelsea supporter, means it doesnÕt count; and anyway, the main actor didnÕt have to actually play the game; he only had to make it seem as though he was deranged enough to support the Gunners during a period when the Arsenal was a pretty dreary team to watch (ÒThe Full MontyÕsÓ tribute to the Arsenal offside trap, speaks to this quality in the teamÕs football).
So, ÒBend ItÓ works as football. It also works exceptionally well as a movie about an immigrant family in a society that was in many respects alien to it. One scene, when the father is hanging his traditional wedding-party lights on half of his semi-detached (twin) home, really speaks nicely to the modern situation of fostering community in suburbs, where the neighbors are not members of the same ethnic or religious group. But in presenting the immigrant experience so well, one canÕt help but feel that the director, Gurinda Chadha, had a little help in the creation of the narrative. The movie after all is very derivative, and owes a great deal to the Warner Brothers 1927 classic, ÒThe Jazz Singer.Ó This is not meant as criticism really; it is quite a good decision on ChadhaÕs part to mine the original movie about conflicts between immigrant and mainstream communities for a movie about Sikhs adjusting to living in England. Many other movies have done the same, and this film was made by Jews in America facing the difficulty of being a part of creating an American culture while trying to retain their Jewish roots.
In ÒThe Jazz Singer,Ó Jake Rabinowitz wants to be a singer on Broadway. His father thinks this is a sin and wants him to follow in his footsteps and become a cantor. In ÒBend ItÓ this is taken up a notch by making the protagonist a young woman who wants to play soccer. In a way, though, this is not so different from the original movie, since even though the daughter cannot literally follow in the footsteps of the father (and the father is a less dominant force in the more recent movie), she can still follow the traditional path of her mother and other women in the community. While Jake gets thrown out of the house and, taking on the name of Jack Robin, becomes a great singer, Jesminder Kaur Bhamra (who goes by the name Jess) stays within the household. However Jess uses deceit to allow her to join the soccer team and become a great success outside her community, following the path that Jack takes into mainstream society, though without pulling away from her family altogether.
Where the two movies come closest is in their denouements. ÒThe Jazz SingerÓ ends, it is true, with the Cantor expiring, and ÒBend ItÓ doesnÕt end with the death of the father, but in all other respects they finish on the same notes. Jack is confronted with the dilemma of either performing in the premier of his Broadway show or attending services for the Day of Atonement to take his fatherÕs place as the cantor for his congregation. Jess has the option of either playing in the Championship game or attending her sisterÕs wedding. In both cases, the children fulfill their duties and attend the ceremonies, thereby honoring their commitment to their communities. And, in both cases, the choice turns out not to be so stark as had been imagined. Jack had been told he would be fired if he forced the theater company to cancel its opening night performance; Jess was under the distinct impression that there would be no way for her to play in the final if she attended the wedding. For Jack, however, the opening night is held off for one day and, low and behold, he is able to perform before his mother, who had always been more sympathetic to his desire to become a singer. In the process he has become Òa Jazz singer singing to his god.Ó For Jess, similarly, while her family and friends are partying in the aftermath of the wedding ceremony, she is told by her father (the parent who has been more sympathetic to her yearnings) that she should go to play in the second half of the game. While Jack brings the house down with his black-faced rendering of ÒMammyÓ, Jess bends in the winning goal, curving her shot around the wall from a direct free kick, to win the trophy for her team. And, while Jack learns that he can pay respect to his community and continue to perform, Jess learns that her community can endorse her desire to become a footballer and that her parents will even support her when she heads off to Santa Barbara on a full scholarship.
And there are love stories in both also. Jack falls in love with Mary Dale, who may or may not be Jewish, but who is certainly integrated, and who teaches him the language of Òthe show must go on.Ó Jess meanwhile doesnÕt fall in love with her teammate, Juliette (played by Keira Knightley), though that seems as though it might have been a real option if they had wanted to bend the movie as far as ÒPersonal (George) Best,Ó but instead falls for her coach the Irish outsider, Joe. The love story is more developed in the soccer movie, but it remains as subordinate to the story of integration as it is in ÒThe Jazz Singer.Ó Mary Dale is the physical embodiment of the infatuation Jack has for Broadway. She is as successful as he wants to become. Joe is slightly more subtle than this, perhaps, since he too is an outsider – as an Irishman, as a man who could no longer play soccer owing to an injury, and as a man who is being derided by his own father for coaching Ògirls.Ó But he is a man coming to terms with a new world in which GregoryÕs girl has to be taken seriously, just as Jess has to come to terms with the fact that she, as a woman in a western society, has choices.
And here the ending is somewhat different. For although it ends reasonably happily – especially once Beckham is spied at Heathrow – the fact is that the two men, the father and Joe, are left playing cricket after the two young things have gone swanning off to the limelight of Santa Barbara. They have become anachronistic and alien in their own right, hardly necessary even for the real story. If only they could have bent it like Jake Rabinowitz.