Analysis of The Big Money by John Dos Passos

"Adagio Dancer" tells the story of actor Rudolph Valentino. After arriving from Italy, he took odd jobs in New York but longed for a life in the "brightlights." The handsome young man eventually ended up on a vaudeville tour where he adopted his new name. Soon, in Hollywood, he got his big break in the film The Four Horsemen. Valentino lived the life of luxury and was the object of worship and scandal. He died at the age of thirty-one from complications from a gastric ulcer. His funeral was a chaotic mob scene.

Adagio dancer is a chapter in the novel The Big Money written by John Dos Passos and published in 1937. The Big Money is the 3rd book in the USA trilogy. John dos Passos is an American writer close to socialist realism. In this extract , the life of Rudolph Valentino is depicted. 
2 sequences are distinct: his artistic beginnings and his successes. In the first part o f m y presentation, I will show to what extent we can say that this portrait is cinematographic. Then, I will explain that this extract correspond with the tradition of American Dream. Finally, I will focus on the depersonalization of Valentino. 



I. A cinematographic portrait

A - A fast portrait with simple images

It’s a biography of Rudolph Valentino, a character who actually existed. The excerpt is a summary of his artistic debut to his successes: after doing small jobs « he hung about cabarets doing odd jobs», he becomes a tango dancer», «he began to get engagements dancing the tango in ballrooms and cabarets» until his first success with his first film «He got his chance in The Four Horsemen». Moreover, we notice that long periods are told in a few words (lines 22 - 24), these scenes accelerate the rhythm, and the reader is caught in a whirlwind of the star ’s success . 

B - Lack of punctuation, lexical invention : poetical creativity. 
We can observe a dance of the text, the words dance on the page in a fluid and regular way. The meticulous work of rhythm, acceleration and deceleration allow to highlight the stages of the dancer’s life. The text is like poetry.

L.5: artistic beginnings of Valentino: the 3 main propositions are disjointed by the semicolons in a sentence. We skip a line and start over. The rhythm is fast and hectic, there is a reduction of all the punctuation marks therefore highlighting the semicolons. The drawee has been removed to “good tempered” and no space to “tango dancer” so the pause is only introduced by semicolons. While line jumps slow down the reading .

C - Mix between reality and cinema. 
The facts are real but the director, the plans and the camera eye of the narrator gives us the impression of being in a cinematography. Moreover, we observe a play of light «flashlight», «glare of the million dollar searchlights», «glare of klieg lights», this brings us to a place of shooting, with the scenery we do not know anymore if Valentino is an actor for real or for fake, including lines 22 - 24. Even Valentino’s life is like a Hollywood movie . 

II. The perfect illustration of American Dream

A - Portrait of determined ambitions immigrant

Valentino by his real name Rodolfo Guglielmi (l5) leaves Italy for the USA to succeed in life «to sink or swim». But Valentino is looking for celebrity at

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