If you have read "L'Uomo in Frac" you are going to squirm a bit at what looks a lot like plagiarism. I am no expert on the law but it seems a bit nasty to rip off another artist as the press has noted may have occurred with this film.
On the film itself, I have to agree with the several other reviewers here who find it problematic. It is entirely fictionalized and gives a poor representation of process at Ellis Island when it was operating. EG The hospital area was for a tiny, very small fraction of a percentage of immigrants who had serious diseases, mostly communicable disease at a time before antibiotics or much in terms of vaccines etc. The disease people were held or sent back for were permanent lifetime disabilities, and permanent profound lifetime threats to public health including pandemic type disease.
A far as the rest of the rumination of Di Niro during the 15 minute film, Eliis island was not comparable to todays immigration issues. Not one iota.
Yes the *immigrants* themselves were not so different, but the US was very different as was the world economy. They did not change but we, the US changed. The US needed low skilled and unskilled labor, where demand was increasing at profound rates -- while today demand for unskilled and low skilled labor keeps dropping in the US. The amount of taxpayer funded social benefits re also profoundly higher today
the entire point of Ellis island and two or three smaller centers like it was focusing all immigration in a handful of entry points. This is very different than having thousands of miles of open border.
Also the US had a very strong assimilationist culture which was part of the well understood agreement with incoming immigrants. The peer reviewed work on immigrants shows less and less have a feeling of loyalty toward the US, less and less want to think of themselves as Americans. Ellis Immigrants had to renounce their loyalty to their former country. Heck today a major of Latin American immigrants maintain dual citizenship, vote in both countries (thereby diluting and disenfranchising native born voters).
Lastly the imagery of Ellis is severely cherry picked. Ellis Island had millions and million sin restoration work. This film picked one or two out of the many buildings that were not restored, which is why the film would look completely unrepresentative to the millions of tourists who have visited Ellis Island since it was mostly restored
