Film Review
Arthur Miller's sour critique of the American dream is powerfully
rendered in this made-for-television film adaptation, which came hot on
the heels of a successful revival of the play on Broadway in
1984. Dustin Hoffman played the central character, Willy Loman,
in both the stage revival and this film version, confounding the
critics with a character performance that does justice to the part and
is easily one of his finest. The film was directed by the
acclaimed German filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff who had previously
scored a notable international success with
The Tin Drum (1979). The
excellent cast includes a young John Malkovich in one of his earliest
screen roles and Kate Reid, a renowned actress of stage and screen who
was best-known at the time for playing Aunt Lil Trotter in the TV
series
Dallas.
The 1980s revival of
Death of a
Salesman was timely and the play remains highly relevant to this
day. Originally written in the post-war boom of the late 1940s,
Miller's play exposes the crass hollowness of the American dream and
laments the fact that in today's society a man is measured far more by
what he sells than by what he does. In our present
profit-oriented world, man has become a mere unit of economic worth, so
that success and failure are judged only by what he earns, not on his
wider contribution to society. The play struck a chord when it
was first performed but it probably had even greater resonance when it
was revived in the mid-1980s during the me-me-me boom of the Regan-Bush
years, an era when materialism and greedy self-interest were at their
most rampant. Of all the great works that Arthur Miller wrote,
Death of a Salesman is the one that
has greatest social and moral resonance today, and what is most
striking when watching Volker Schlöndorff's adaptation is how
relevant it still is. Sixty years after the play was first performed,
we still plod along on the same old
economic treadmill like mindless sheep, wasting our lives in pursuit of
a dream that is so manifestly a blatant lie. Like Willy, freedom
only comes when we are dead.
Dustin Hoffman's portrayal of Willy Loman is far from
sympathetic. He is a deluded, sour-tempered, prematurely aged man
who rails against his family, his employer and his friends, unable to
admit the failure of his life, unwilling to accept help from
others. Yet, oddly, it is Loman's complete inability to extricate
himself from the phoney reality he has chosen to inhabit that makes him
an engaging tragic anti-hero. We see in him something of
ourselves, just one of countless well-meaning suckers who have been
seduced by the Dream, conned into thinking that success lies only in a
mountain of greenbacks. Willy Loman believes too much in his own
ability and fails to see that the world around him has changed.
To succeed, it is not sufficient to be liked - you must also be
ruthless and single-minded. It would have been easy to
portray Loman as a foolish and pathetic old man, but Hoffman gives him
a vitality and nobility that compels us to identify with him as his
world slowly and inevitably falls to pieces amid the detritus of spent
hopes and fractured dreams.
John Malkovich's portrayal of Biff is just as compelling, even if the
character is somewhat less convincingly developed than Loman's.
It takes a while before we understand why Biff fell so far of his
father's expectations, but from the outset we see that the wayward son
represents the extent of Loman's failure and delusion. In a
performance of a rare intensity and poignancy, Malkovich brings home
the full tragedy of a father-son relationship that has been poisoned by
the failure of each to live up to the other's expectations. If
the final heart-wrenching confrontation between Biff and his father
doesn't bring a lump to your throat you must have had an emotional
bypass. Hoffman and Malkovich's performances, supplemented
by the arresting contributions of Kate Reid and Stephen Lang, lend a
viscerally cruel edge to Willy Loman's tragic tale and make this one of
the most stirring interpretations of Miller's play that you are ever
likely to see.
© James Travers 2011
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Film Synopsis
Travelling salesman Willy Loman has lived his life convinced that he
and his family are destined for success. Now aged 63 he realises
the hollowness of his dreams. Knowing that he is worth more dead
than alive, he contemplates killing himself. Willy once had great
hopes for his two sons, Biff and Happy, but now he can hardly bare to
look at them - the first is a drifter who cannot decide what to do with
his life, the second is a cynical puffed-up womaniser. Concerned
by Willy's deteriorating state of mind, his wife Linda persuades Biff
to return to the family home for a while. Despite his antipathy
towards his father, Biff decides to make an effort to find a well-paid
job. Meanwhile, Willy, tired of fruitless round trips, makes up
his mind to ask his employer for a job in town. His boss is not
sympathetic and, after a heated exchange, dismisses him. When he
learns that Biff has notched up yet another failure, Willy knows what
he must do next...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.