Fascinating movie
Is there such a thing as a "normal man"? And if there were, how would he react to extraordinary circumstances such as a life-or-death struggle? Superficially, this film directed by Nick Ray from Cyril Hume and Richard Maibaum's story seems to fit an exploration of these kind of ideas. Within the film's mechanics however is a story that sows more doubt into the soil of middle America -- we feel at times as if the psychotic delusions that have overtaken our schoolteacher family man Ed Avery (James Mason) might actually have more truth to them than the bland and self-consciously "dull" life he previously shared with his reserved and dutiful wife Lou (Barbara Rush).That's not to say that the addictive effects of cortisone are all beneficial, either to himself or his family. The substance saves his life and then slowly turns him into a psychotic. But along the way, he punctures through the malaise of the suburbs almost like a grown-up version of director Ray's "Rebel Without a Cause" -- throwing into question the complacent attitudes he finds around him. As a teacher, he begins to realize that education is slipping because teachers are told to bolster students' confidence and esteem instead of making them realize how little they know; this is just one of the pearls he drops that we as a culture would have been well-advised to pay attention to. The messenger may have been quite confused, but his message comes in clear at times.
At other times, his rigor when focused on his son takes on a form of abuse that would surely crush the boy's spirit, so we can see that some of the Mason character's ideas have been already taken too far. It's as if the film is saying that the moment of insight is just a fleeting one separating two chasms of confusion. There are only two states of being for our hero -- numbed contentment or delusional hyper-engagement. But in the transition between the two the movie seems to reach its peak of black humor and subdued drama, much more powerful for me than some of the moments later when his psychosis took a physical form.
This film deserves to be seen in a double feature with "Man in the Gray Flannel Suit." Or watched in a concert with Leonard Bernstein's "Trouble in Tahiti." It's amazing how these works of art were already psychoanalyzing the phenomenon of the suburbs itself. Is this a viable way of life? What kind of damage does it do to the human spirit, to be crammed in with so many others in a sort of simulation of wealth and luxury? For Ed Avery and his wife simply going into a different department store is a major social dilemma fraught with peril. How could they be expected to deal with such a major crisis as a drug addiction? What about the wife particularly, wanting to cling to the very last moment to her husband's prerogative? And the son so accustomed to trusting his judgment?
Just as Avery's mental illness lays bare fundamental problems in his life and with his relationships, the film itself exposes weaknesses in the patriarchal and provincial spirit of the suburbs. Much like again "Rebel", this movie doesn't just typify the suburban scene and depicts its complexities -- if you want to see the 1960s as an explosion in American culture, this film is showing you that the fuse was already lit.
score /10
funkyfry 26 April 2010
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2241458/35005
Pages:
[1]