A question I've heard thrown out during a time as contentious as 2025 America (or anywhere, really) is some variation of, "What good are movies during a time like this?" And there are a lot of answers to that.
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| Cinderella (2015) |
But the deeper I immerse myself into film and the culture that springs around it, the more secure I become in the idea that film can also have direct application to understanding the state of the union--helping us understand how it is the world came to be so volatile in the first place.
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| 13th (2016) |
A pattern you'll notice with these films is ... they're all movies from Classic Hollywood. No, that's not a coincidence, and, no, it's not just because I'm a champion of old film. It's because in order to understand the issue, you need to have some sense of its genealogy.
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| The Breakfast Club (1985) |
The problem is ... this is like ignoring half of a math equation ("I just can't abide exponents") and then getting furious at why the sum isn't coming out right. There is no moving forward without reflecting on what's come before.
And what a lot of younger film participants haven't internalized is that this examination doesn't always have to be bad. There is more to film history than just tracking which film started which hurtful stereotype. Many films were actually gateways to humanizing marginalized groups or preaching human goodness. A lot of the films we're going to discuss here were actually quite ahead of their time in terms of the fights we're facing today.
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| The Hunger Games: Mockingjay pt. 1 (2014) |
But none of this is to instill a sense of nihilism. I don't say any of this believing that resignation is our only option. Just because we haven't yet corrected an issue doesn't mean the issue itself is beyond correction. But change begins when we understand patterns and turning points.
Without further ado ...
1. A Face in the Crowd (1957) - How the world fell for liars and demagogues
Three years before he made his debut as the loveable Sheriff Andy Taylor, Andy Griffith made his film debut as the charming but roguish Lonesome Rhodes, a lowly drifter who gets discovered by a radio journalist, Marsha (Patricia Neal). She finds out he's a natural behind the microphone, which moves her to promote his presence on the airwaves. As his platform grows larger, so does his influence. All the while, something beastly starts to emerge in him, and Marsha's not sure she can contain it. Not when he's giving the masses exactly what they want.
A lot of people have drawn parallels between Lonesome Rhodes and, as one example, a certain U.S. President who is also hailed by his supporters as finally preaching truth to power even as his message is primed for anarchy. The basic draw is the same. These kinds of figures know how to dress themselves as liberators, thus securing the hearts and minds of the crowd for their own violent purposes. These are things that A Face in the Crowd foresaw nearly half a century before the introduction of social media.
The big difference, of course, is that A Face in the Crowd assumes that if you can just point the camera at the man at the right time, let the masses see their champion for who he really is, then they will snap out of their spell and withdraw their affection, and history has shown that this isn't the case. I don't think this movie anticipated how developments like "fake news" would give the masses an excuse to just dismiss something that doesn't fit their narrative. I can't really fault the movie for that, though. None of us really anticipated that.
But I still think Walter Matthau's final admonition, "When we get wise to him, that's our strength. We get wise to him," has applicability, whatever that takes in this environment.
2. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968) - How the world became so lonely
This film sees Alan Arkin playing Mr. John Singer, a deaf-mute shopworker with an uncommonly kind heart. Though others are initially unsure at how to treat him, they soon become grateful for his sensitivity and intuition, as well as how these things always leave his environment a little bit better. If only someone would ask him every now and then how he's feeling.
The film exposes a collective impulse to be seen and recognized. It shows how everyone needs this, but some people are not in a position to make those necessary bids for connection--even the people themselves are the most generous with their own heart. Nobody recognizes how maybe Mr. Singer feels a little lonely as well. Mr. Singer's voicelessness becomes a symbol of his inability to ask for the kind of charity and consideration he extends to others, which is why we're talking about it here today.
And the film puts a face to how benign this kind of indifference can feel as you're perpetuating it. Mr. Blount isn't being callous or selfish as he keeps putting off that chess game he keeps promising Mr. Singer. He's just busy. Everyone is busy, or else caught up in their own mess, such that the Mr. Singers of the world get looked over.
Of all the films and issues we're examining here, this one is probably the least tied to what we'd call societal discord. But I wanted to give some space to reflect on chronic loneliness, what Atlantic Writer Derek Thompson said might be the most important social fact of the 21st century, as a social ill that merits discussion.
The story doesn't pinpoint the exact moment the human race went wrong here or fault any specific institution. It seems to be more of a system error that keeps the world from prioritizing human interaction. There is nearly a thirty-year gap between when Carson McCullers published her book and when this movie adaptation came to fruition, yet its observations about loneliness and connection are transferable to either generation--as they are in whatever era the audience discovers this story.
3. Pressure Point (1962) - How the world gave in to hate
This film sees a Black psychiatrist working in a prison as he treats a white supremacist in the 1940s. In diving into his fraught history and twisted psyche, the doctor sees the face of something terrifying making its way into America.
So you have this snapshot of pre-WWII America being used to comment on the state of the union right at the start of America's Civil Rights Movement. The patient even draws this link specifically for the doctor, and for the audience. When Sidney Poitier insists, "They will be stopped, because everything you're driving for is founded on a lie," his patient chillingly returns, "Where are you going to find a bigger lie than the one this country is founded on? 'All men are created equal.'" He says this to an audience in the 1960s.
Tragically, very little about the movie's observations have aged poorly. This movie caught onto the idea that the reason why people flock to naziism and fascism is because they themselves feel left behind or bruised (the subject of this conflict was tormented by an authoritarian father), and so they fall into prepositions that they are the real victims. (Of course, these people tend to arrive to these conclusions by entirely bypassing the systemic obstacles that are punishing groups who are actually marginalized.) This film understands that the men who become drawn to hate groups are transferring onto other communities the feelings that they have internalized about themselves--feelings they lack the ability to understand.
Maybe even more than that specific diagnosis, what these groups would probably hate to find out the most is that ... there is nothing new, mysterious, or groundbreaking about their ideas or their histories. The problem groups of today are textbook cases, which is exactly why they are so easily swayed. If they really want to disprove the equation, they can do something really radical and resolve these feelings on their own.
4. Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) - How the world believed the young would live forever
Based on the play by Tennesse Williams, the film sees young-and-in-love Chance Wayne returning home to his beloved Heavenly after years of trying to make it as a movie star. Chance embarked on this fool's errand imagining that his efforts will result in some lottery ticket that will secure his future with Heavenly, not realizing that Heavenly's father, a corrupt politician, sent him on this mission specifically to keep him away from his daughter. Chance thinks that he has time to spare, and that any price he pays now will be worth it for the pay-off tomorrow, but at the rate he's running, how many tomorrows will be left for them?
So this is about America's worship of youth and the unhinged antics people will go to so they can get their hands on it, even as they squander that precious helping that life offers to them freely. Chance left to become a movie star and has made ends meet working as a male escort, essentially profiting off of youth. This drive is reflected by the character of Alexandra del Lago. As an aging actress, she has essentially built her livelihood off of her youth, same as Chance. His return to town is marked by him scoring a deal with del Lago, believing he can persuade her (or coerce her, if he must) into sling-shotting him to fame. Years down the road, though, that well has dried. The only emotions left in her, like the last drops in a bottle of alcohol, are those of bitterness and disdain.
The bitter irony is all too much on display: this insatiable pursuit of wealth and beauty has cost him that precious time with the woman he loved. Chance and Heavenly could have had years together of bliss and companionship if he had not left on this trek, and they would have been years where she would not have been under the thumb of her unscrupulous and domineering father. In chasing youth, he has lost time.
5. The Crowd (1928) - How the world fell for corporate brainwashing
This film tracks John, a young man in New York City, who was told by his father that he was going to be somebody important. John took this all to mean that he would become a titan of industry, or find some other station that would secure his financial standing. And so, John allows himself to be swept up in "the crowd," losing himself in the swell of the masses, imagining that the current will lead him to the Promised Land. But learning to quack the way "the crowd" wants him to only takes him so far. "The crowd" does not care if he is square with the woman he loves or the family that depends on him, and he throws himself into the workplace inertia at his own expense.
And so even in 1920s America, we already kinda knew how capitalistic indoctrination worked, and also just how closely tied this was to the very fabric of the American identity. John was literally born on the 4th of July, and so becomes a torchbearer for the American spirit. Our protagonist becomes a microcosm for the American Dream and how ultimately hollow it is.
Moreover, a huge part of that is the momentum of wanting to be swept up in the same current as everyone else. There is a simulation of security with the crowd, but only ever fleetingly. One of the intertitles observes, "The crowd laughs with you always... but it will cry with you for only a day." That forward drive will not wait for you to catch up if you stumble.
Neither group mentality nor material gain bring fulfilment or peace. Individuality does. Or rather, individual connection. And it's only in bringing his sense of purpose in alignment with these things that John finds what he's looking for.
_________
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| Don't Look Up (2021) |
The danger with this mindset is that it assumes that the future is set and that all efforts to redirect it are futile. There is a kind of comfort in that kind of despair, the assurance that there's nothing to be done, so we might as well all go home and not give a hoot ... which is certainly just what the bad-faith players in this game would want us to believe.
There are a lot of fights to win from capitalistic trapping to systemic racism to chronic isolation and everything in between. Each one no doubt requires its own unique battle strategy, but each one will also require the full presence of all good-minded individuals. That's fine. Good things happen one move, one conflict, at a time.
Perhaps I'm something of an optimist believing these issues can be corrected, even more so for imagining that movies could have anything to do with it, but when you look at all that needs to be corrected in the world, you have to ask ... what happens when we stop trying?
--The Professor
For Further Reading:
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
You Can't Take it With You (1938)
The 400 Blows (1959)
On the Waterfront (1954)
Metropolis (1927)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
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