Based on the 1955 short story by Bud Schulberg, “Your Arkansas Traveler,” Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd (1957) is the cautionary tale of an American demogogue’s rise to -- and fall from -- power.
A demagogue might be defined, broadly, as a “political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than rational argument.”
The
film focuses on "Lonesome" Larry Rhodes (Andy Griffith), a small-time crook and fraud
plucked from obscurity in a county jail in Arkansas by a radio programmer,
Marcia Jeffries (Patricia O’Neal). She is seeking “local color” for her radio show, and Rhodes can spin a story and sing a folk tune like no other.
Marcia's search for an audience -- ratings, in modern lingo -- gives the charismatic but malicious Rhodes both exposure and a public platform. Before long, he’s moved to a bigger radio market. Then he transitions to national TV, talking politics and “telling it like it is” to a receptive, low-information audience that hangs on his every word and believes his every (false) piety.
Rhode’s rise to fame and fortune is aided and abetted by his sponsors and his network. They see his viewership swell to 65 million people. That's a lot of consumers who will buy products from sponsors.
Marcia's search for an audience -- ratings, in modern lingo -- gives the charismatic but malicious Rhodes both exposure and a public platform. Before long, he’s moved to a bigger radio market. Then he transitions to national TV, talking politics and “telling it like it is” to a receptive, low-information audience that hangs on his every word and believes his every (false) piety.
Rhode’s rise to fame and fortune is aided and abetted by his sponsors and his network. They see his viewership swell to 65 million people. That's a lot of consumers who will buy products from sponsors.
A
drunk, misogynist, mean-spirited narcissist, Rhodes appreciatively soaks up all
the adoration and power, coming eventually to believe his own press.
Eventually, he grows so powerful that he advises a presidential campaign in the art of slogans and sound-byes. He also begins hosting a political program, shrouding extreme right wing isolationist views under the soothing umbrella of Southern-fried common sense.
Eventually, he grows so powerful that he advises a presidential campaign in the art of slogans and sound-byes. He also begins hosting a political program, shrouding extreme right wing isolationist views under the soothing umbrella of Southern-fried common sense.
Eventually,
Marcia realizes the key to Rhodes’ downfall involves revealing his true colors to the
masses that worship his “home-spun” wisdom and apparent “truth telling.”
As
that synopsis makes clear, A Face in the Crowd is a terrifying
story of what can happen to America once “politics has entered a new stage: the
TV stage.”
One man’s hateful, ignorant words -- not to mention resentment and anti-intellectualism -- finds purchase in the psyches of millions of like-minded people. Kazan’s camera cuts, at one point to a veritable forest of TV antennae jutting upwards from the rooftops of an urban jungle in order to make his point. These receiving devices look like metal weeds, growing and stretching upwards to the sky.
The point, of course, is how the mass media can instantly amplify -- for its own enrichment -- one voice to a volume previously unimaginable in human history. Even Rhodes himself -- in a rare moment of apparent self-awareness – recognizes the danger inherent in this technology and its ability to broadcast an entertaining (albeit dangerous) voice to million.
“Power,” he says, “it’s dangerous. You gotta be a saint.”
One man’s hateful, ignorant words -- not to mention resentment and anti-intellectualism -- finds purchase in the psyches of millions of like-minded people. Kazan’s camera cuts, at one point to a veritable forest of TV antennae jutting upwards from the rooftops of an urban jungle in order to make his point. These receiving devices look like metal weeds, growing and stretching upwards to the sky.
The point, of course, is how the mass media can instantly amplify -- for its own enrichment -- one voice to a volume previously unimaginable in human history. Even Rhodes himself -- in a rare moment of apparent self-awareness – recognizes the danger inherent in this technology and its ability to broadcast an entertaining (albeit dangerous) voice to million.
“Power,” he says, “it’s dangerous. You gotta be a saint.”
But
as the film makes plain, Rhodes is no saint.
His father was a con-man who abandoned the family, and one feels that this is the galvanizing influence in Rhodes’ life. He has never been able to get past his father’s actions, or feel truly confident in himself. Accordingly, he hates authority in all its forms. He hates his father, who abandoned him. He hates the law, which punishes him for infractions. He hates establishment figures, who possess the power he covets.
Rhodes also hates those who are smarter than he is, like TV writer Mel Miller (Walter Mattthau). Miller represents the education and knowledge that could expose Rhodes as the ignorant lout he is.
His father was a con-man who abandoned the family, and one feels that this is the galvanizing influence in Rhodes’ life. He has never been able to get past his father’s actions, or feel truly confident in himself. Accordingly, he hates authority in all its forms. He hates his father, who abandoned him. He hates the law, which punishes him for infractions. He hates establishment figures, who possess the power he covets.
Rhodes also hates those who are smarter than he is, like TV writer Mel Miller (Walter Mattthau). Miller represents the education and knowledge that could expose Rhodes as the ignorant lout he is.
One
of the most intriguing aspects of the film involves Miller’s impotence in the
face of Rhodes’ continuing disdain and hatred for him. We are led to the conclusion
that is easier for a demagogue to to hate and attack than it is for a rational
person to respond meaningfully to that demagogue.
That’s undoubtedly because demogogue’s rely on powerful emotions (anger, rage, resentment) and mob-like followers who repeat mindlessly their every word and slogan. Educated intelligent people are like deer in a headlight by comparison, making logical cases and appealing to cerebral arguments.
Miller simply can’t conceive of the fact that a nativist, bigoted simpleton could have a better innate understanding of human nature and human foibles than he does. But Miller knows what makes his people tick.
Importantly, Miller fails to fully understand his role in Rhodes’ rise. Like Marcia, he is culpable for elevating a demagogue to the status of national treasure. Rhodes is a distraction, a joke, a fad when it is good for Miller’s wallet or career.
Only later is the coarseness of the superstar a danger to freedom itself.
That’s undoubtedly because demogogue’s rely on powerful emotions (anger, rage, resentment) and mob-like followers who repeat mindlessly their every word and slogan. Educated intelligent people are like deer in a headlight by comparison, making logical cases and appealing to cerebral arguments.
Miller simply can’t conceive of the fact that a nativist, bigoted simpleton could have a better innate understanding of human nature and human foibles than he does. But Miller knows what makes his people tick.
Importantly, Miller fails to fully understand his role in Rhodes’ rise. Like Marcia, he is culpable for elevating a demagogue to the status of national treasure. Rhodes is a distraction, a joke, a fad when it is good for Miller’s wallet or career.
Only later is the coarseness of the superstar a danger to freedom itself.
What’s
amazing about Rhodes, the film subtly observes, is the yawning chasm of
cognitive dissonance between his public “persona” and his real personality.
Rhodes lives in a luxurious penthouse apartment, surrounds himself with wealth and women, and covets his TV ratings. In short, he is a coddled, entitled rich man. But his public shtick -- his fake, media-driven image -- is as “The voice of grass roots wisdom.”
On stage, he voices syrupy Christian platitudes like “the family that prays together, stays together,” from his humble “cracker-barrel” sound stage. In real life, he is a philanderer who marries a 17 year old girl and then cheats on her.
In real life, he is also being supported by a political establishment that wants his audience’s votes.
So Rhodes is a text-book fraud.
He pretends to be a common-sense, salt-of-the-earth, plain talker when in fact he is a messenger boy for the wealthy elite. Rhodes claims he believes in the common man, but he hates and derides the common man.
His ambitions are bottomless. “The whole country is just like my flock of sheep,” he enthuses at one point.
Rhodes lives in a luxurious penthouse apartment, surrounds himself with wealth and women, and covets his TV ratings. In short, he is a coddled, entitled rich man. But his public shtick -- his fake, media-driven image -- is as “The voice of grass roots wisdom.”
On stage, he voices syrupy Christian platitudes like “the family that prays together, stays together,” from his humble “cracker-barrel” sound stage. In real life, he is a philanderer who marries a 17 year old girl and then cheats on her.
In real life, he is also being supported by a political establishment that wants his audience’s votes.
So Rhodes is a text-book fraud.
He pretends to be a common-sense, salt-of-the-earth, plain talker when in fact he is a messenger boy for the wealthy elite. Rhodes claims he believes in the common man, but he hates and derides the common man.
His ambitions are bottomless. “The whole country is just like my flock of sheep,” he enthuses at one point.
Delightfully,
A Face in the Crowd provides a prescription for the destruction of Rhodes and
demogogues just like him.
Realizing she has created a monster, Marcia turns up the studio sound during a live broadcast, and she lets Rhodes hang himself on-air. Believing the sound is off, Rhodes expresses his true feelings for his audience. “I can make ‘em eat dog food like it is steak!” He reports.
He is so confident in the fact that his followers will mindlessly follow wherever he leads that he actually says he could “murder” people, and they’d still be on his side.
Realizing she has created a monster, Marcia turns up the studio sound during a live broadcast, and she lets Rhodes hang himself on-air. Believing the sound is off, Rhodes expresses his true feelings for his audience. “I can make ‘em eat dog food like it is steak!” He reports.
He is so confident in the fact that his followers will mindlessly follow wherever he leads that he actually says he could “murder” people, and they’d still be on his side.
But
that’s not the case. He has overestimated his appeal.
The audience at home finally realizes that Larry is not one of them at all. He is an impostor, and just as much a tool of the hated “elite” as any conventional politician or leader. He has not “told them like it is,” at all.
He has, contrarily, pandered to them in the worst ways possible, and they have taken his words as the God’s honest truth. He has not only played them and abused them at every turn...he has gotten rich doing so.
The audience at home finally realizes that Larry is not one of them at all. He is an impostor, and just as much a tool of the hated “elite” as any conventional politician or leader. He has not “told them like it is,” at all.
He has, contrarily, pandered to them in the worst ways possible, and they have taken his words as the God’s honest truth. He has not only played them and abused them at every turn...he has gotten rich doing so.
Kazan
finds a clever visual to express Rhodes’ sudden and dramatic fall from grace. We see the elevator
lights going down, quickly, in his apartment building, floor to floor. He starts at the
penthouse, and drops to ground level, before our eyes, in seconds. The fall is more than symbolic. It is a
meteoric crash he experiences, one even faster than his surprising, relentless
rise.
A
Face in the Crowd
is a terrifying drama in part because of its plausibility. The mass media often
gives irresponsible voices of hate, bigotry, and false piety a platform and open
mic to influence the nation.
The film notes the media’s inherent culpability for creating such a demogogue, and rightly so. If you willingly invite the devil to dance with you, you can’t complain, later, when you don’t like how he treats his dance partner.
The film notes the media’s inherent culpability for creating such a demogogue, and rightly so. If you willingly invite the devil to dance with you, you can’t complain, later, when you don’t like how he treats his dance partner.
The
film also thrives because of Griffith’s unforgettable performance. He portrays
a monster of such high energy and narcissistic pride. Rhodes is a monster of
considerable charisma and, hauntingly, occasional moments of insight. But he
has no loyalty or feelings of responsibility to anyone or anything beyond his
own self-glorification. The thought have him possessing real power is terrifying.
A
Face in the Crowd
is a sobering reminder of how a dangerous, narcissistic demagogue can use and exploit the
media (in a symbiotic relationship…) to change the face and values of a whole
nation.
But the film also reminds us how to stop such monsters.
Journalists, concerned citizens, politicians, and voters all possess a responsibility to see that his “personality finally comes through,” preferably on the very channel that created him.
“When we get wise to him, that’s our strength,” the film knowingly concludes.
But the film also reminds us how to stop such monsters.
Journalists, concerned citizens, politicians, and voters all possess a responsibility to see that his “personality finally comes through,” preferably on the very channel that created him.
“When we get wise to him, that’s our strength,” the film knowingly concludes.
The question that makes A
Face in the Crowd such an intense, anxiety-provoking experience is one
for the ages.
What happens if we get wise to the demagogue too late?
What happens if we get wise to the demagogue too late?
To answer that interrogative, one
need only look at some of the worst historical tragedies of the 20th century.
The funny part of this is, John, that your reaction to this film is mostly about what it suggests about the American political scene in general, "A Face in the Crowd" was meant to be more about the presumed dangers of the influence of television--which was first borne out with the rise of John F. Kennedy on the other side of the political spectrum from the point of view people presume the movie is about! Recall that the majority of people who listened to the Kennedy-Nixon debates on radio thought Nixon got the better of Kennedy, whereas those watching on television thought the reverse.
ReplyDelete"A Face in the Crowd", like "Citizen Kane" today, is taken to be a story about right vs. left political demagoguery rather than what it actually was: a strike about the medium as well as the messenger, and one messenger in particular. Just as "Kane" was really about William Randolph Hearst's burgeoning influence, "Face" was really about Arthur Godfrey's--and from everything I've read, and heard from some people in the 60's who had worked for Godfrey, Arthur Godfrey was indeed pretty much just like Griffith's portrayal.
I understand from your inclusion of this movie, along with "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Seven Days in May", that your intent is to warn about the dangers of what you think of as dangerous right-wing demagogues. That's fine, but if one wanted to be fair, one might work in a couple of others about the same dangers from the left side of the spectrum: "All the King's Men", which was really about Huey Long, and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", in which the "bad" old-values hero, John Wayne, acts to enable the ill-equipped "good" new-values hero, Jimmy Stewart, to look good for the community's sake.
Ideological demagoguery exists on all sides, every side, and usually simultaneously. It's neither fair nor helpful to the community at large to pretend otherwise.
I always love reading your comments, and respect your opinion, Sheri.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you 100% about the importance of TV in A Face in the Crowd (1957), which is why I devote so much space to the subject of TV in my review. I wrote (and perhaps you glossed over it):
“As that synopsis makes clear, A Face in the Crowd is a terrifying story of what can happen to America once “politics has entered a new stage: the TV stage.”
One man’s hateful, ignorant words -- not to mention resentment and anti-intellectualism -- finds purchase in the psyches of millions of like-minded people. Kazan’s camera cuts, at one point to a veritable forest of TV antennae jutting upwards from the rooftops of an urban jungle in order to make his point. These receiving devices look like metal weeds, growing and stretching upwards to the sky.
The point, of course, is how the mass media can instantly amplify -- for its own enrichment -- one voice to a volume previously unimaginable in human history. Even Rhodes himself -- in a rare moment of apparent self-awareness – recognizes the danger inherent in this technology and its ability to broadcast an entertaining (albeit dangerous) voice to million.”
I think we're on the same page there, and my review reflects what you were seeking.
Regarding fairness in my reviews, I am not a big fan of both-sider-ism when it comes to film interpretation. It normalizes bad behavior, and sometimes illegal behavior, by arguing that each side engages in it.
I am also against it in a film a review because most films feature a particular point of view, not two points of view.
To recap:
Seven Days in May: A right wing general tries to take over America. Is foiled by a right-wing patriot.
The Manchurian Candidate: A right wing populist is a secret communist agent, opposed by a right wing patriot.
A Face in the Crowd: A demagogue populist advises a right wing
political campaign and runs a right wing show.
There isn’t any “both siderism” in the text of any of these films, so I did not report on any. My job is not to appease or please all political sides in a review, but convey and interpret the arguments of the film in question.
But, sadly, I do think you missed my review of It Can’t Happen Here, also posted on Friday, which involves a left wing demagogue whom I explicitly called out as being inspired by Huey Long! I posted a lot on Friday, so maybe you didn't go back to see that one.
In terms of "fairness," I am not at all certain that is the highest good. I think the greatest danger here is actually to ignore abnormal, extreme behavior in governance by pretending that both sides are equally guilty of it, all the time. False equivalency...it helps politicians get away with a lot of crap.
best,
John
Thanks for your reply, John. Two things: I did skim and missed the sentence in your "Face" review that you highlighted. Thanks for pointing it out. Second, I wasn't so much looking for duality in your review of one movie, or each movie, so much as just pointing out that that three you chose to highlight as a cluster were fairly obviously meant to reflect a point of view--which is absolutely fine and is your absolute right, no question. I merely wanted to point out there are other points of view, and after reading what you wrote here I even agree that I used the wrong term: I shouldn't have used the word "fairness", as that clearly led you down the path of thinking I was advocating for equivalency. I may not have been clear, but I really wasn't trying to do so. I guess the right word would have been "simultaneity"--that is, whenever a cultural or political or philosophical point of view seems ascendant and/or demogogued at a given moment, its opposite is also present (and often equally demogogued by different voices and mediia) at the same time. Culture and counterculture, movement and countermovement, moving in tandem. I didn't mean to give the impression it was necessary to strike equivalency in the sense you mean, but rather to suggest that the push-pull tensions present in art, culture, politics, etc., are always reacting to one another and neither simply arises in a vacuum without countervailing opinion or weight being present as well.
ReplyDeleteWhoops, John, I forgot to say before hitting "publish" that I did miss your review of "It Can't Happen Here"--which I've only ever seen the beginning of and never have gone back to view in its entirety. I'll go read your review after checking out the movie first. Thank you for the pointer!
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, you DID post a lot on Friday that I didn't go back to find!