A hundred years ago, Pittsburgh was one of the richest cities in the world; it was the Silicon
Valley of the Industry Revolution with Andrew Carnegie as Bill Gates and Andrew Mellon as Warren
Buffet. Then in the late 1970's things changed overnight. The mighty steel mills shut down and,
in the years since, Pittsburgh has lost fifty percent of its population, as its steel-related jobs
have disappeared.
This of course foreshadowed what has become an epidemic change in American culture-a shift away from
the manufacturing base that fueled the last century. On his program, Mr. Rogers' mailman, Mr.
McFeeley, would bring Fred short films of things that were made in the neighborhood--from plastic
combs to steel drums. Unfortunately, many of those things are not made in this country anymore.
So, as actor David Newell, who played McFeeley, asks in the film, "What can we replace that with?
Because the steel mills are not coming back... We hope they do, but they won't." And with that,
Newell touches on the theme of the movie - Pittsburgh's struggle, like many cities, to let go of its
once glorious past and move on.
The theme of "can you go home again" strikes a universal chord for anyone who has ever left home in
search of bigger dreams, only to feel that something was lost in the achieving those dreams.
Ironically, it is a dramatic event involving Kurlander's own mother who "ran away from home" decades
earlier, that seems to haunt Carl. And like Pittsburgh, Carl has trouble letting go of that past
and moving on.
The film should find an audience with many rust belt cities - Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Memphis - who
are facing similar struggles as Pittsburgh. Yet it can be equally powerful in big cities like Los
Angeles, New York, and Chicago where people often long for a more "livable" existence. Are cities
like Pittsburgh doomed to live in the shadow of their once grand pasts, or can they be transformed
for a new age? And what roles can individuals play in this transformation?
In this time when the nation is looking for a way to transcend the "us against them" rancor that too
often defines our psyche, My Tale of Two Cities reminds us that it is the collective "we" that will
make the difference. Ultimately, it is a story of being honest about where we have been, and
realizing that we can move forward if we make a difference in ourselves and our neighborhoods.
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