This clip is offered in hope of making available an English-language version of "Young Americans" (YA) of higher visual quality than seems to have been available online, together with comments (below) that may enhance appreciation of YA as dramatic art.
YA was aired in France on M6 in two-episode broadcasts. Credits for two episodes appear at the start of odd-numbered and at the end of even-numbered episodes.
The title of episode 6 is "Gone." Questions that may be worth asking about YA episode 6, part 1, include:
-- What is most conspicuously "gone" in this episode is YA's narrator. This is the only episode of YA not narrated by Will Krudski. Krudski, in succumbing to Ryder's temptation to gamble, has forfeited his mastery over Rawley and his access to the essence of his narrative perspective, namely the wisdom of maturity. What incompatibility of "gambling" with "providence" causes Krudski to lose control of events at Rawley?
-- Instead of Krudski, Bella Banks gives the opening narrating voice-over; this is the only episode of YA to lack a closing one. Why is Bella the character who substitutes for Krudski as narrator? Why, among YA's four protagonists other than Krudski, is she the only one qualified to do this? What features of her gas station betoken her qualification to do this? Why does Bella's opening narrating voice-over lack the depth typical of Krudski's? Why can she give no closing voice-over?
-- In YA, Krudski's narrating voice-overs generally perform the function of the chorus in ancient Greek drama, namely to set the story in context of traditional wisdom. In episode 6, that function is served not by Bella's opening voice-over, but rather by two scenes, both set at the Friendly's diner, at the start and at the end of the episode, in which "Jake" Pratt and Hamilton Fleming are shown together with Scout Calhoun and Krudski. These scenes, and another at the start of the next clip, are the first interaction between YA's Pratt-Fleming story-line and its Banks-Calhoun and Krudski-Rawley story-lines. In both scenes at Friendly's, Pratt hints to Calhoun and Krudski that she is a cross-dressing girl. In the opening scene, Pratt asks whether Calhoun prefers "Chloë Sevigny or Hilary Swank?", the two female stars of the 1999 film, "Boys Don't Cry," in which Swank plays a cross-dressing woman. To ask that question would be unwise if Pratt were keen to safeguard her gender deception. Fleming delightedly plays along, saying "Hilary, definitely Hilary," and looking straight at "Jake," who grins. However, Calhoun and Krudski miss these hints. Similarly, in the closing scene at Friendly's, Pratt compliments Bella on her "cute coat," a very feminine remark; Bella, as we learn in episode 7, immediately infers that Pratt is a girl, but Calhoun and Krudski again miss the hint. Pratt's "cute coat" remark, in isolation, might seem an unintentional slip; but in context of her plainly intentional prior hint by reference to "Boys Don't Cry," the "cute coat" comment, too, may be intentional. At least subconsciously, Pratt seems ready to share the truth about herself not only with Fleming, but also with their friends -- friends so close that, in the closing scene, Pratt and Fleming help themselves to food from Krudski's and Calhoun's plates without either invitation or adverse reaction. The underlying message that Krudski-as-narrator might elaborate, were he not "gone," is that "truth" in the sense of the Rawley motto gives rises to "truth" in the usual descriptive-accuracy sense. One's willingness to be honest with others depends on moral qualities of one's self and of those others; normative truth is prior to descriptive truth, a theme also developed in episode 3. How is the theme of truthfulness, and of the relationship between truth as virtue and as self-descriptive accuracy, developed in both the Pratt-Fleming and the Bella-Calhoun story-lines during episode 6?
-- Krudski, one of the poorest students at Rawley, seems an unprofitable "mark" for a poker shark in need of quick cash to cover gaming debts. However, Ryder goes to great lengths to lure Krudski into his poker game, even giving him an initial stake. In episode 3, Ryder's malice targeted Fleming; in this episode, it targets Krudski; in episode 7, it will target both. Why does it focus on these two characters?
The two still shots at the start of this clip are of a 4th century CE mosaic of Orpheus taming the beasts, excavated at Philipapolis, Syria, and of a scene from Jean Cocteau's 1946 film, "Beauty and the Beast." The lute music played during those still shots is Hans Neusiedler's "Gassenhauer" (a tune heard on the street, c. 1536). YA's musical theme for its Pratt/Fleming scenes, previous episode recapitulations, and most crew rowing scenes, Hans Zimmer's "True Romance" theme, is adapted from Carl Orff's "Gassenhauer nach Hans Neusiedler" (1935).
-- Ichabod Grubb, July 2010
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