4/1/2023 0 Comments Greenbooks film![]() ![]() Tony works on his letters for Dolores, and they're terrible, so Don helps him make them more poetic and beautiful. Don Shirley is even black, and when he drives by a Kentucky Fried Chicken and finds out Don has never had fried chicken, he stops. In the car, Tony plays contemporary music on the radio and is shocked when Don doesn't know popular music like Aretha Franklin. Tony wants to know why Don is giving him such a hard time and no one else - and Don says it's because unlike the other help, Tony had the option of being inside. Afterwards, he gambles with the other help who are all also outside, and Don is upset with him for being so low-class. From outside he watches Don play piano and is impressed with how brilliant he is. As they approach their first tour stop, Don suggests that Tony use a different last name and try to talk better around the guests, but Tony says if they have a problem with how he talks, he'll wait outside, which he does. Tony is a loudmouth and a talker, and gets on Don's nerves a lot during the drive. They also give him the 'Green Book', a tourist guide and list of safe places for black people to stay in the segregated Jim Crow southern states. The record company rents Tony a nice car, and gives him half the money up front, and tells him he'll get half at the end of the tour - if Don misses a show, he won't get the money. ![]() Dolores asks Tony to write her letters, much to his chagrin. He asks her if she's okay with her husband being gone for so long. Early the next morning, Don calls Tony's house and asks to speak to Dolores. He declines, lying that he's got money saved. Tony goes to a bar, upset he fumbled the interview, and a couple of mobsters he knows from the club offer him unsavory work. But when Don insists that Tony be prepared to iron his clothes and shine his shoes, Tony refuses, saying he's not a butler. He asks Tony if he can be away from his family that long, and Tony agrees for the right money. The tour is two months long, and ends right before Christmas. Don has asked around specifically for someone who could handle trouble - he knows there's going to be racism against him. He's doing a concert tour going from the Midwest into the deep south, and needs a driver because Don does not have a drivers license. He's not a medical doctor, but a concert pianist. It's ornate and filled with objects around the world. He mistakenly goes to the venue, but learns there's an apartment upstairs. An old contact gets him an interview to be a driver for a doctor, and he goes to Carnegie Hall for the interview. Tony makes fifty bucks in a hot dog eating contest to make ends meet. When two black men come over to repair the sink, Dolores gives them lemonade - and Tony throws out their glasses after they use them, much to Dolores's disappointment at her husband's racial views. He and his wife, Dolores (Linda Cardellini), are having trouble making the rent and keeping a roof over their two kids' home. The club closes for a few months for renovations, leaving Tony out of work. He pays the coat check girl to take a rich patron's prized hat so he can "find" it and return it to him for a very big tip. ![]() When two men start getting into a fist fight, he tosses one out onto the street and gives him a few punches in the face when he resists. He does what he has to to put food on his family's table. He's known as Tony Lip because he's an amazing "bullshitter" - getting people to do what they don't want to. New York City, 1962 Tony "Tony Lip" Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) is a doorman and peacekeeper/bouncer at the Copacabana nightclub. He instructs Don not to go out without him for the rest of the tour. After a bar incident leads to a group of white men threatening Don's life, Tony rescues him by threatening to pull a gun on them. Regardless, Tony finds himself impressed with Don's talent on the piano-and increasingly disgusted by the discriminatory treatment the latter receives from the hosts when he is not on stage. As they begin the tour in the Midwest, then head further south, Tony and Don clash over their differences Tony feels uncomfortable being asked to act properly, while Don is disgusted by Tony's habits. Don's recording studio gives Tony a copy of the "Green Book": a guide for Black travelers to find safe havens throughout the segregated South. They embark with plans to return home on Christmas Eve. However, Don eventually hires Tony on the strength of others' word, as he needs someone to help him stay out of trouble during an eight-week concert tour through the Deep South. Their first encounter does not go well, as Tony's flippant, uncultured behavior clashes with Don's sophisticated, reserved demeanor. New York City bouncer Frank "Tony Lip" Vallelonga is searching for new employment after his nightclub is closed for renovations, eventually landing an interview as a driver for "Doc" Don Shirley, a famed pianist. ![]()
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