This was fine, until the interviewer decided to talk about herself and her career, and then insisted on putting this magisterial play into an identity political strait-jacket. Can Americans ever stop moralising? It is not a ‘morality play’, that is one of its strengths as a non-judgemental and often moving account of three brothers and the dynasty they created. And that childish question ‘what is the take- away’! Mendes expressed his contempt for this kind of reductionism, thank God. (‘American capitalism was corrupted from the start, as it is based on a sin’? How to reduce a complex issue to some sixth grade ‘lesson’.)
