At the turn of the 20th century, architect Stanford White unveils a nude statue atop Madison Square Garden, modeled after former chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit. After learning of this, Nesbit's husband, millionaire industrialist Harry Kendall Thaw, becomes convinced White has corrupted her and publicly shoots him dead.
An upper-class family resides in New Rochelle, New York, where Father owns a factory where his wife's Younger Brother makes fireworks. An African American baby is abandoned in their garden, and upon learning the police intend to charge the child's mother, Sarah, with child abandonment and attempted murder, Mother takes Sarah and her child into the home despite Father's objections. Ragtime pianist Coalhouse Walker arrives in search of Sarah, driving a new Ford Model T, and realizing he is the baby's father, announces his intention to marry Sarah.
Younger Brother witnesses White's murder and becomes obsessed with Evelyn. Thaw's lawyer Delmas bribes Evelyn with a million-dollar divorce settlement to keep silent about Thaw's mental instability and to testify that White abused her. Passing through the Lower East Side, Evelyn encounters street artist Tateh, who throws out his unfaithful wife. He leaves New York with their daughter and sells the flip book he created. Evelyn and Younger Brother begin an affair as she prepares her return to the stage, while he assumes they will eventually marry. After Thaw is found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity, his lawyers inform Evelyn that Thaw will sue her for divorce on the grounds of infidelity and she accepts a smaller settlement. The affair ends, leaving Younger Brother adrift.
In New Rochelle, Coalhouse is targeted by bigoted volunteer firemen led by Willie Conklin, who refuse to allow his automobile to pass by. Coalhouse finds a policeman and returns to find his car soiled with horse manure. Coalhouse attempts to force the policeman to intervene, but the policeman insists that Coalhouse should clean the manure off his car and move on, giving him the choice to do so or be arrested. Coalhouse refuses, and is hauled in to the local precinct. After Father arranges for Coalhouse's release, they discover his car has been further vandalized. Coalhouse pursues legal action, but can find no lawyer willing to represent him. Father and Younger Brother argue over Coalhouse's legal recourse. At a presidential rally, Sarah attempts to tell President Roosevelt about Coalhouse's case but is beaten by guards and dies.
After Sarah's funeral, Coalhouse and his supporters kill several firemen. He threatens to attack other firehouses, demanding his car be restored and Conklin be turned over to him. Father is disgusted at the violence but Younger Brother joins Coalhouse's gang with his knowledge of explosives. Ostracized by their own white community and hounded by reporters, Father and Mother leave for Atlantic City. They encounter Tateh, now a film director on a photoplay with Evelyn. Mother is attracted to Tateh and she and Father quarrel. Coalhouse's gang hold the Pierpont Morgan Library's collection hostage. Police Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo sends for Coalhouse's child as a bargaining chip but Mother refuses to give him up. Father demands she turn the child over and returns to New York to assist Waldo and Mother leaves.
Booker T. Washington fails to persuade Coalhouse to surrender, as does Father. Conklin is captured by police and forced to apologize to Coalhouse. Waldo is disgusted by Conklin's bigotry but cannot submit to terrorist demands and has him arrested. Coalhouse agrees to surrender if Waldo permits his supporters to depart in his restored car and Waldo agrees after Father volunteers to stay as a hostage. Coalhouse's supporters escape and he drives Father out of the library. Ready to blow himself up, Coalhouse instead surrenders but is shot dead on Waldo's orders. The film ends with another newsreel: Evelyn dances in vaudeville and Thaw is released from an asylum. Houdini escapes from a straitjacket several stories above the ground, while newspapers announce that the First World War has begun. Younger Brother returns to his fireworks job and Father watches from the house in New Rochelle as Mother departs with Tateh and Coalhouse's son.[3]
The Eternal Question, a portrait of Evelyn Nesbit by Charles Dana Gibson, inspired the film's poster.
Pre-production
Ragtime was adapted from E. L. Doctorow's acclaimed novel that earned the National Book Critics Award and secured a spot in numerous critics' top-ten lists. Bantam Books acquired paperback rights for a record $1.8 million, recovering their investment after selling four million copies. An additional one million copies were sold, and half a million more were printed in conjunction with the film's release.[1]
In 1975, producer Dino De Laurentiis purchased the film rights for $250,000, with filmmaker Robert Altman joining the project as director. However, challenges arose during the screenplay development. Altman and Doctorow rejected Joan Tewkesbury's initial draft in 1976, as it focused primarily on Mother's journey, deviating from their shared vision of the movie's structure. Consequently, Tewkesbury was removed from the project.[1]
The film's production encountered obstacles in condensing the 270-page novel into a two-hour format. Originally slated at Columbia Pictures with a $10 million budget, the project was dropped when President David Begelman was fired in 1977 after an embezzlement scandal. Altman, envisioning Ragtime as two three-hour movies, was dismissed after a dispute with Laurentiis over the final edit of his 1976 film, Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson. Miloš Forman took over, replacing Altman, and had to start anew, rejecting Doctorow's nearly 1,000-page screenplay in favor of a more streamlined script by Michael Weller. Forman further streamlined the story by omitting notable figures like Henry Ford and Sigmund Freud.[1]
Casting
Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen expressed interest in the role of "Younger Brother," while Redd Foxx, Muhammad Ali, and O. J. Simpson considered playing "Coalhouse Walker." To achieve the desired appearance of characters, particularly those with limited screen time, Forman conducted auditions for 1,500 actors. He preferred selecting lesser-known performers to bring vitality to characters in the prime of their lives. Renowned actor James Cagney, enticed back to the screen after a two-decade retirement that began in 1960, agreed to return at the age of eighty-two. Knowing Forman socially, Cagney allowed the director to choose his part, resulting in his casting as "New York Police Commissioner Rheinlander Waldo." Elizabeth McGovern, researching her role as "Evelyn Nesbit," gathered insights from a friend of her mother who knew Nesbit in the latter part of her life. Despite Forman's desire to keep Mariclare Costello's portrayal of radical feminist "Emma Goldman" in the film, the scenes were ultimately cut.[1]
Filming
Principal photography took place in 1980 over twenty weeks, divided between the U.S. and London. Ten days were spent filming in the Lower East Side of New York City, with additional days in uptown Manhattan. Seven weeks of filming covered various locations in Westchester, New York, the state of Connecticut, and along the New Jersey shore. Shepperton Studios in London constructed significant sets, including a meticulous reproduction of a six-and-a-half-acre stretch of Madison Avenue circa 1900 and the formal façade and lush interiors of the J. P. Morgan Library. St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Harlem, New York, served as the backdrop for Sarah's funeral scene. The film's budget amounted to $32 million. Ragtime was among thirty theatrical features that entered into an interim agreement with the Screen Actors Guild to avoid a production shutdown caused by an actors strike.[1]
Art director Patrizia Von Brandenstein described the transformation of East 11th Street between Avenues A and B into the backdrop for Evelyn's encounter with the street silhouette artist "Tateh" on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Carpenters and painters worked on this location due to a blend of existing period architecture and moderate commercial activity, choosing it over the more familiar and bustling Orchard Street. The production altered storefronts, replacing Spanish signage with Hebrew writing to better suit the historical context. To secure this location, the production agreed to donate "$5,000 to a community-sponsored project," along with the standard compensation for property owners. Additional arrangements included providing garage parking for contemporary cars and setting up a temporary "Ragtime Summer Camp" behind Kalish's Shoestore for over forty children who could not play on the street during filming. One address on the street was reverted to its original function as a livery stable to accommodate the production's fifteen horses, with inspection by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.[1]
In Mount Kisco, New York, Von Brandenstein spent three months converting a fifteen-room Victorian home to represent the film's archetypical middle-class family setting. The transformation involved rebuilding porches, graveling the driveway, installing an antique kitchen, hanging hand-blocked period wallpaper, and adding a gazebo to evoke a turn-of-the-century ambiance. The production rented the home for $20,000 for a three-week shoot, investing an additional $40,000 in permanent improvements while accommodating the homeowners' preferences by removing any alterations they disliked.[1]
Music
Composer Randy Newman crafted an original score to capture the mood of the film's historical period, avoiding the use of music from that era. The decision was influenced by the perception that most original recordings from the early 1900s were "too tinny or scratchy" for practical use. Tracking down pristine recordings would have required extensive research, leading Newman to choose the option of recreating popular music from that time.[1]
Marketing
To appeal to black audiences, Paramount Pictures launched a second print advertising campaign. The poster featured actors Howard E. Rollins, Moses Gunn, Debbie Allen, and James Cagney, accompanied by the statement: "A black man said 'Respect me or kill me!' They took away Coalhouse's wife, child, and pride. He made them pay in a way America will never forget. It was a tough time... it was Ragtime."[1]
Reception
The film holds an aggregated score of 84% from Rotten Tomatoes, based on 19 reviews, and a 57/100 from Metacritic, indicating mixed or average reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, writing that "'Ragtime' is a loving, beautifully mounted, graceful film that creates its characters with great clarity. We understand where everyone stands, and most of the time we even know why."[3]Vincent Canby gave the film a more mixed review, praising the performances and cinematography but criticizing Forman's narrative choices that created an unclear sense of time and prioritized certain storylines at the cost of others: "[Ragtime] is sorrowful, funny and beautiful. It is also, finally, very unsatisfactory."[4]Christopher Null gave the film a negative review, calling it "a jumbled and largely uninteresting mess".[5] It was nominated for eight Academy Awards, though it did not win any.
