"The Promise", Kirk Kerkorian's "Song of America"

Vahe H. Apelian

 

The title might be ambiguous. Let me state beforehand that it is about my take of the film “The Promise”. I saw it twice. I have always enjoyed seeing the same film over again. Nuances in the film that I missed the first time become evident to me. I may not be an exception and that many others may also like to see the movies they liked for the second time. It is often because of the brevity of the leisure time we have at our hands that we give preference seeing another movie instead of the same.

The film was aired all over the world. I came across commentaries about the film from Lebanon, Syria, Europe and the Americas. Some had liked the movie. Others had found the move to be a sanitized version of the Armenian experience and not a true reflection of it. Some had found that the move rightfully depicted the cosmopolitan Constantinople was at the time; others had found the intimate scenes out of place for the times. Some noted spending such an amount of money was a waste and that it could have been put to better use; others argued against it in favor of Kirk Kerkorian spending his money as he saw fit.

It is natural that we view things differently and make contradicting comments about the film as well. We, as second and third generation post-genocide Diaspora Armenians have become hyphenated Armenians. For the past century we have been living among larger societies and have naturally absorbed the norms and values of the greater society and at times its language as well to the exclusion of our own. We view things from our own differing cultural and social experiences.

The thing that seemed to be missing in such comments was the realization that the film is born out of the Armenian-American experience. I do not know whether Kirk Kerkorian made the funds available to make the film and henceforth completely disassociated himself from the theme of the movie or if he had his own views known as to how the theme or the plot of the movie should be best structured. I am inclined to believe that he had his say, drawn from his and his parental family’s experiences.

The film encompassed a period of twenty-five years, from the onset of the first great war in 1914/1915 to the onset of the second great war in 1938/1939. America formally entered the WWII on December 7, 1941. But the war had caught the American society across the Atlantic in a no less heightened mood. The film made amply evident that during those twenty-five years the survivors of the Armenian genocide who lost all their worldly possessions, if not also their dignity, largely overcame the odds in America with reasonable degree of historical accuracy. In the concluding scene,  in Watertown, MA., the survivors of the genocide and their grown up children had come together in a festive mood to celebrate the wedding of the protagonist's, himself a survivor, adopted daughter. They projected the image of middle to upper middle class denizens of the their adopted country.

I understand that the United States of America during those years was a far different country. The survivors of the Armenian genocide indeed had found on its hospitable shores a fulfillment of a promise for a better life in ways they might not have envisioned possible in their wildest dreams. During that mere twenty-five years the protagonist Mikael had become a practicing physician and had carved for himself a life that had not only all the trappings of a comfortable upper middle class but he also had integrated himself in the greater society with ease having found acceptance. He celebrated his adopted daughter's marriage who was not marrying an ethnic Armenian. The children of the survivors were now serving in the armed forces of the country their parents had made their own.

It has been my impression that the survivors of the Armenian genocide rightfully felt indebted to their adopted country, America. George Mardigian penned his appreciation of the United States of America in his book he titled “Song of America”. The book was translated in Armenian. I had a copy of the book in my teenage years. I do not recall having read it. For that matter, I also do not have a recollection of having not read it either. Decades ago when we were visiting Disney’s Epcot Center I saw a passage from that book depicted in a section of the park devoted to the American history.

Kirk Kerkorian, by his own admission, was not literary inclined and avoided the limelight even though he was instrumental in creating the city of Las Vegas that thrives on limelight. The country that his parents had adopted for their own gave him the opportunity to realize his ambitions in uniquely spectacular ways. There seemed to have been more in the naming the film than the promise Mikael had made to Yeva, his adopted daughter, the young girl he saved from drowning when they were attempting to reach their rescue ship. It would not surprise me that the film was also Kirk Kerkorian’s tribute to the promise of the United States to the Kerkorian family. I am inclined to believe that the film was also Kirk Kerkorian’s “Song of America”.

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