Typically speaking, Italian-American blue-collar workers are portrayed as unambitious and ungrateful about their professional lives. In several Mafia films, the gangsters view blue-collar jobs as less desirable than organized crime. In Mean Streets, for example, Johnny Boy does not want to load carts at the restaurant. Similarly, in the beginning of Goodfellas, Henry Hill works part-time at a cab station, but it is not nearly as gratifying as mob life. John Turturro, however, defies this stereotype in his directorial debut Mac about a blue-collar construction worker in the 1950’s with the strong ambition to build houses. In Mac, Turturro deviates from stereotypes about blue-collar Italian-Americans as well as other stereotypes of the ethnic group often portrayed in cinema.

Oftentimes in gangster films, Italian-American men turn towards organized crime because they do not feel financially secure and supported with blue-collar jobs. Structurally speaking, this is why the beginnings of Goodfellas and Mac contrast with each other (Francke, 1993). The first line of Goodfellas is “As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster.” On the other hand, Mac does not consider the Mafia as an option. The Mafia is not even mentioned in the dialogue. Construction has always been his lifelong dream. One of the most striking lines in the film is when Mac tells Alice, “If you hate your life, you hate your work. I like my work.” It is no surprise that Vincent Canby (1993) from the New York Times calls Mac, “a movie that...expresses much affection for the craft of the actor as it does for the craft of the blue-collar laborer who takes pride in his work.” At Mac’s father’s funeral in the beginning of the film, there is a flashback to when Mac stood up to the man who stole from his father. This shows how Mac cares about his father’s construction business and wants to see it succeed. In this scene, Turturro does a great job with implying that construction is Mac’s lifetime dream rather than directly having Mac narrate about it in a voice over like Henry Hill in Goodfellas. Ultimately, Mac is John Turturro’s unique depiction of his own ethnic group as well as the use of his individual directorial voice.

When the film first introduces adult Mac and his brothers Vico and Bruno doing construction for their boss Polowski, they struggle with following his orders. One low-angle shot captures Polowski’s feet as he authoritatively stands above Mac watching him trying to hammer in a bent nail into a wood plank. This shot is later contrasted when Mac is first seen with his construction site. There is a low angle shot of Mac with authority saying, “There are only two ways to do things. The right way and my way. And they are both the same.” Shortly after his struggle to hammer in the nails, Mac is seen hammering the planks off of the house he is trying to build for Polowski. This is symbolic of Mac’s defying of Polowski’s authority along with his need to build for himself. Instead of having Mac quit construction for organized crime, Turturro has Mac tell his brothers with determination that they will begin their own construction company. Mac literally and metaphorically takes construction into his own hands. Furthermore, the marking of Mac’s name in the cement in the opening credits is metaphorical of him making his mark in his construction career. Essentially, when Mac constructs houses, he constructs his own identity.

Turturro cleverly depicts construction as a work of art itself. In the opening sequence of the film, the camera captures the smoothing of cement and the pushing of wheelbarrows. When Mac and his brothers first check out the neighborhood where they plan to have their houses sold, there is a close shot of a man layering bricks. Through this use of props and sets, Turturro illustrates the artistic abilities of Mac and his fellow blue-collar workers. Undoubtedly, Mac is not the only artistic character in the film. In fact, his brother Bruno is a painter with an art school degree. The Vitellis even have a graduation party for Bruno. He is shown wearing a cap and gown. This use of costuming defies the stereotype that Italian-Americans are uneducated. Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that the film won the Camera d’Or at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. Films about Italian-American rarely ever depict characters with the dream to become artists. The Godfather features actor/musician Johnny Fontaine but the film does not show him desiring since childhood. More importantly, Turturro depicts a different kind of art, visual art and craftsmanship. Above all, Turturro shows how Italian-Americans can have artistic talent in areas other than music, film, or even cooking.

Turturro crafts Mac with not only the motive to build houses but also to take on the role of leadership. Of course, Italian-American men in cinema usually have leadership positions in the Mafia (Warner & Riggio, 2012). Rather organized crime being the Vitelli family business, it is construction. Thus, Turturro’s direction of himself as a construction leader is positive not only because he steers away from depicting his ethnic group as mobsters but also in that he emphasizes how Italian-American blue-collar workers can rise rise professionally from followers to leaders.

Moreover, Turturro shows how there is more to construction than just building. He depicts the financial challenges associated with it. Mac’s quote “Happiness is to love your work” is paradoxical because while he loves building, he gets into fierce conflicts with his brothers and co-construction workers. In one scene, Mac frustratingly yells at his co-worker Joey for leaving his clothes in the wet cement. Before he can build anything, Mac has to buy land. This leads to the financial trouble with his brothers Vico and Bruno in terms of who will share the money from the houses, thereby causing them to quit the family business. When Mac, Vico, and Bruno have a meeting with one of the land associates, Bruno says, “I want my money. All of it.” In the following scene, Mac tells his brothers, “These are my houses! Take your dirty filthy money and get the fuck out of my life!” His perfectionism is emotionally unhealthy. When Mac and his wife Alice are sitting together outside one day, Alice says, “It would be nice to have one day off.” That being said, the film’s portrayal of the hardships of construction illustrates how blue-collar jobs can be just as difficult as white collar jobs.

Additionally, Mac worries that four of the houses will not be sold because of the manure smell in the neighborhood. Nevertheless, the houses are sold and one of the families that buy them thank Mac for building it. Similarly, at the end of the film, there is a time jump to Mac showing his son the houses he built. He says with proud gratitude, “See the detail...I built that. Me and my brothers. Again, Turturro is highlighting how Italian-American blue-collar workers have the ability to succeed professionally. One of the arguments against the media’s association between Italian-Americans and the Mafia is that gangsters do not serve as good heroic role models for young boys (Mitrano & Mitrano, 1994). Mac, however, serves as an influential professional role model to his son as illustrated by the way they hold each other’s hands looking at the houses. Beyond everything, Turturro writes and directs an Italian-American blue-collar worker with the willingness to take on challenges. After all, Mac’s success with his houses would not have occurred if it was not for his rigorous effort and determination. Simply stated, Turturro shows how patience and perseverance are just as important for construction work as building is.

In spite of Turturro’s positive portrayal of Italian-American blue-collar workers, it is arguable that the film still enforces the stereotype that Italian-American men are hot-tempered as illustrated by the fights Mac has with Vico, Bruno, Polowski, and his co-construction workers. In the middle of the film, Mac fights Polowski with his bear hands after he takes the keys to one of his houses. Likewise, when Bruno tells Mac “I’m clean,” he throws a hammer at Mac’s car window. Unlike Henry Hill and Michael Corleone, Mac does not murder people with guns to express his anger. A gun is not even used once in the film. John Turturro does not include these fights because his characters are Italian-American. Instead, he is trying to emphasize the challenges that construction workers face, especially during the time period in which the film is set.

Turturro does not make generalizations about blue-collar work life during the 1950’s and 1960’s. A Bronx Tale and the beginning of Goodfellas take place around this time period as well, but the portrayal of blue-collar workers is limited to food service and transportation. Lizzie Francke (1993) states, “The characters in Queens-born John Turturro’s Mac are from the same time period and same community. But there is not a whiff of a wise guy’s expensive cigar in the film.” Goodfellas and A Bronx Tale do not depict construction workers, nor do they show the nitty gritty elements of food service and transportation as Mac does with construction. Realistically, transportation and food service were not the only jobs Italian-Americans had in the early to mid-twentieth century. In fact, when many Italians immigrated to Long Island, their jobs ranged from road work, construction, sand mining, farming, and gardening (LaGumina, 2000). Hence, Turturro stays true to the history of the Italian-American labor experience in the 1900’s. This was one of his goals in writing and directing Mac. The film is a tribute to his late father Nicholas Turturro who was also a construction worker. The character Mac is primarily based on him (Seymour, 1993). All in all, Turturro’s effort in making the film historically accurate aids in his deviation of stereotypes about Italian-Americans.

Turturro is also flexible with the film’s setting. Similar to other films about Italian-Americans, it takes place in one of the five boroughs. However, Mac and his brothers reside in Queens, whereas other films about Italian-Americans take place in Brooklyn or The Bronx. More importantly, when films such as Mean Streets and A Bronx Tale depict blue-collar labor, it is in urban settings. By contrast, Mac shows construction workers building in rural settings. In one scene, Mac and his brothers go to a farm to gather manure. Thus, Turturro gives a more expansive look at the history of Italian-American labor.

John Turturro also steers away from the typical portrayal of husband and wife relations in films about Italian-Americans. The ethnicity of Mac’s wife Alice is not stated. Italian or not, Alice does not fit the Mamma Mia archetype, nor does she fall into the Madonna/Whore dichotomy. For the most part, Mac and Alice have a stable marriage. Mac does not beat her. Also, her purpose in the narrative goes beyond cooking, cleaning, and raising children like Robert De Niro's wife in A Bronx Tale. She gives Mac some help with his business. When Mac tells Alice that he and his brothers are starting a construction company, she tells him that she will give money for land. Alice even assists Mac with his geometric mathematics during his architectural planning. She is also there for emotional support. To exemplify, after Vico and Bruno announce that they are quitting the business, there is a medium shot of Alice holding Mac as he is crying. Turturro not only defies stereotypes about the wives of Italian-Americans but also Italian-American men. He is not afraid to show the men crying. In addition, Turturro does not have Mac displace his anger about business onto Alice like Scorsese and Coppola do in their films. Despite Alice providing Mac with the money for land, he does not really use her business-related help beyond that. According to Turturro, “There were drafts where we made her stronger, but it came across that she knew too much. It was wrong for the time period” (Francke, 1993). Nonetheless, Alice serves as more than just a domestic prop like the wives in The Godfather and A Bronx Tale.

In summary, Mac is a film to remember for not only John Turturro’s depiction of Italian-American blue-collar workers but also the nature of work in general. Ultimately, Turturro is stating in Mac that the achievement of professional dreams take times and rigorous effort, regardless of whether they are blue or white collar. Even so, Turturro does not place so much stress on the fact that the Vitelli brothers are Italian-American but rather that Mac has the goal to construct. Most of all, he illustrates just by the very last shot of the film of Mac and his son holding hands that one should be grateful for their work and effort despite the accompanying challenges. Gratitude, after all, is the main characteristic that blue-collar Italian-American workers typically lack in cinema.

References

Canby, V. (1993, February 19). Review/film: Pride and craftsmanship in a blue-collar family. New York Times, p. 1. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F0CE7DA1F3EF93AA25751C0A965958260

Francke, L. (1993, December 30). A labour of love Italian-Americans are invariable portrayed as wise guys, hustlers or hoodlums. But his first film, Mac, John Turturro pays homage to their honest blue-collar tradition, which is so often overlooked. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.libproxy.adelphi.edu:2443/docview/293491558?accountid=8204

LaGumina, S. J. (2000). Images of America: Long Island Italians. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing.

Mitrano, J.R., & Mitrano, J.G. (1994). That’s Italian...or is it: (Un)popular images of Italians in American mass media. In Juliani, R., & Juliani, S.P. (Eds.), New Explorations of Italian American Studies (pp.125-146). Staten Island, NY: American Historical Association.

Neary, L. (1993, February 22). Actor John Turturro discusses ‘Mac.’ Morning Edition, p. 1. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.libproxy.adelphi.edu:2443/docview/189858536?accountid=8204

Seymour, G. (1993, March 5). John Turturro builds on his father’s life story for ‘Mac.’ Newsday. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.libproxy.adelphi.edu:2443/docview/303756278?accountid=8204

Warner, N.O., & Riggio, R.E. (2012). Italian-American leadership in Hollywood films: Images and realities. Leadership, 8(3), 211-227.