Cinema Styles: ‘A Face In The Crowd’ celebrates 65 years
Film: A Face in the Crowd (1957)
Director: Elia Kazan (On the Waterfront)
Cast: Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Walter Matthau
How to Watch: $3 Rental on Youtube or Amazon Runtime: 126 minutes Genres: Drama, Satire, Music
Note: This review is part of our legacy series. A Face in the Crowd celebrates its 65th anniversary this year.
A Face in the Crowd is Elia Kazan’s 1957 satirical drama based on the 1953 short story “Your Arkansas Traveler” by Budd Schulberg. It tells the rags-to-riches story of Lonesome Rhodes (Griffith), a nomadic musician locked up in an Arkansas prison. A radio reporter, Marcia Jeffries (Neal), visits the prison to hear from regular folk for her series “A Face in the Crowd.” She befriends Rhodes, and inadvertently assists him in his transformation from a singing drifter to a master of media manipulation. Lonesome Rhodes was inspired by Will Rogers Jr., Arthur Godfrey, and Tennessee Ernie Ford.
A Face in the Crowd is a biting satire of the media, and depicts a man whose rise to power coincides with his fall from grace. Lonesome Rhodes’ segment on Marcia’s radio program becomes popular and that gets leveraged into a television deal. Rhodes discovers the power of the camera and realizes he can manipulate others using this new technology.
This is a film that puts the media on trial, and unsparingly serves as an indictment of the advertising industry. Director Kazan and writer Schulberg spent months researching the advertising world, gaining access to meetings at ad agencies to help them better understand the conscious decisions that go into creating marketing material for the general public.
Between 1950 and 1957, the percent of homes that had televisions rose from 12 percent to 80 percent. This drastic change helped to make TV one of the most effective communication tools in human history. Like anything, it wasn’t good or bad on its own. Aspects of it could be used to benefit society while other aspects could be used for selfish, nefarious, and manipulative purposes. This film primarily explores the latter use.
Several aspects of this movie are as relevant today as they were 65 years ago. Audiences can be easily manipulated through the television, and in its early days, politicians quickly realized they could use this to their advantage. This film explores the melding of politics with entertainment, and how the distinction between the two is dwindling at a rapid rate. It bitterly examines the problematic comingling between the political world and the media, each helping the other to fuel one persistent deceit after another.
A Face in the Crowd is also about the dark side of power and the corruptive influence of celebrity. As Lonesome Rhodes becomes more of a public figure, he forgets the golden rule of treating others the way he wants to be treated. Television, and other forms of media, have a way of distancing the performer from the general public. Rhodes starts to lose respect for his audience and the people who helped him along the way.
By the film’s conclusion, Rhodes is a shadow of his former self. He has fabricated a reality
as artificial as an image on a screen. From the highest floor of a skyscraper, he has literally risen as high as he possibly can. However, as he shouts “you’re gonna love me” to no one in particular and only shares the company of a machine that generates artificial applause, he has sunk into the deepest depths of loneliness.
This film on its own is exceptional, but it only works because of Andy Griffith’s incredible performance as Lonesome Rhodes. Like his character, Griffith uses his charismatic nature to woo the audience and persuade them to see things his way. Griffith has always been charming, but never before or since has he depicted a character that uses these charms with heinous intent. Fans of his work on the Andy Griffith Show and Matlock might be surprised by how complex, dark, and unhinged his performance is in this movie. This movie served as his on-screen debut, and he put every ounce of his being into the character. Lonesome Rhodes is an often boisterous and wild personality, and Griffith breathes life into him with his fullbodied physical performance and the exaggerated laugh that becomes one of his character’s trademarks.
A Face in the Crowd becomes more relevant with each passing year.
Films like this one offer unfortunate evidence of the negative aspects of modern media, especially at a time now when politics has become less about rational thought and more about appealing to the prejudices and fears of the American people. This movie was meant to serve as a cautionary tale. Instead of heeding that warning, we allowed the creation of a whole system of government intent on manipulating the electorate into voting their way. Lonesome Rhodes isn’t so lonesome anymore. His unethical behavior has plenty of company in the modern snake oil salesman that comprise the majority of politicians in our country today.