American Pastime

Posted on 10. Nov, 2007 @ 11:26 am by in Culture, Media, Society Views: 792

I’ve never seen American Pastime, but I think I should. A friend recommended it to me a while back and I’m just getting around to posting about it.

Has anyone here seen it? Let me know what you thought in the comments if you have, I’m interested.

Apparently the DVD includes interviews with Japanese-Americans who experienced the internment camps in the US during World War II, and is just as interesting as the movie itself. In addition, there are interviews with Japanese-Americans who fought for the US during the war, while their own families were being stowed away in the internment camps. Fighting for your country… while your country treats your family like criminals… Not a particularly bright spot in US history.

So what’s the baseball thing all about? From what I gather from my web research… The end of the movie has a baseball game played between the internment camp baseball team versus one of the “top”? US teams at the time. Apparently the overly used baseball metaphor works well in this film.

Interestingly, Picture Bride is one of the movies that Amazon says people ultimately buy after checking out the American Pastime. I guess the English language Japan-related film seekers run in tight circles! A few other internment camp related WWII movies that are mentioned frequently in the Amazon reviews are Come See The Paradise and Snow Falling on Ceders. I have seen Snow Falling on Ceders and really enjoyed it, but have never seen Come See the Paradise.

More movies to add to my ever growing list of “must see movies.”

- Harvey

  • http://slashandburn.typepad.com/slash_and_burn/ Adam

    Haven’t seen the movie, although my father lives in Wyoming near the site of the former Heart Mountain camp. Went out there one time. Pretty depressing. A really shameful time in American history.

  • http://www.japannewbie.com Harvey

    Hey Adam, is the site now open for tourism with a mini-museum and everything? Curious…

    If it’s not… I think it should be.

  • http://slashandburn.typepad.com/slash_and_burn/ Adam

    No, there’s not much left. There’s a small monument, and there used to be an old wooden building like a storage shed but my dad said it burned down recently. Most of what used to be the grounds is farmland now. It gets really cold out there. The wind gets going fast—must have been difficult in those drafty barracks. I don’t know if there are museums at any of the other sites I somehow doubt it. Seems like it’s the kind of thing the government would like forgotten.

  • http://www.mafu.us Matthew Stevens

    I live in Salt Lake City, and I play with the local taiko group. Many of the members of the taiko group appeared in the movie. Some of them were decendents of people who were in the internment camps. For many, being an extra in that movie was a very emotional experience.

  • mike h

    I did see this movie. Rented it from Netflix. I’m a baseball fan so I enjoyed it. It told the story of Japanese Americans at that time well.

  • http://atypicallife.wordpress.com/ Shane

    You wouldn’t believe it but my husband received a copy of this in the mail today from his friend who actually helped create the film. I am really looking forward to watching it and was going to look for it after reading your post…what timing…

  • http://onlinemariogames.net Susan

    I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

    Susan

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