The Light That Failed
In recognition of tomorrow’s (4.27) DVD release of Sidney Lumet and Tennessee Williams‘ The Fugitive Kind, or more precisely the Criterion Collection’s rendering, an appreciation by David Thomson currently sits on the Criterion site.
Sidney Lumet, Marlon Brando on the set of The Fugitive Kind.
“Movies are not just the sum of the stories that can be told about their shooting,” Thomson says toward the end. “The Fugitive Kind was unlike other films, and it was something Lumet had never tried before: a portrait of small-town meanness in which the outward action was to be fired by internal demons.
“In that sense, it was not too far from the wasteland of Psycho, which was filmed at the same time. Is Psycho a crime story from local papers (like In Cold Blood) or is it a movie that stirs at dysfunction in America? In the same spirit, The Fugitive Kind is true to the stark paranoia in Williams, minus the lush color and starry glory that marked the films of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Sweet Bird of Youth. Those hit movies look so much less now than Streetcar, Baby Doll and The Fugitive Kind.
“This is a mood picture, where, if you pay close attention, you can feel the lights come up and fade away to match the eloquence of the speeches. You can see the decor giving an emotional or spiritual force to the text. And you begin to hear Marlon Brando‘s shy lyricism rising in the long speeches — this Orpheus in a snakeskin jacket sings. Joanne Woodward gives one of the least guarded performances of her odd career. And Anna Magnani looks like a great sensualist terrified of getting her last chance.
“There’s no question that Magnani could do too much, but Lumet restrains her here and urges his cameraman to trust her tragic face and wounded voice. It was not often in this era that an actress shared the screen with Brando — so many were erased by his light. Lumet began by using markedly different lenses on the two leads, but as the film progressed, he let Magnani have more and more long-lens close-ups to match Brando’s. And so we feel their relationship growing in the most natural way.
“No one went to see the movie in 1960. It got no nominations at Oscar time. It lost a fortune. But it may be one of the most intriguing Tennessee Williams pictures, in that we are asked to weigh and consider the faults of its provincial society. It is about time we yielded our trust in box office, the Academy, and journalistic critics as measures of quality. We have to see the pictures for ourselves. In which case, it’s natural enough to notice that The Fugitive Kind is only two films before Lumet’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, another study of the light fading in a small town.”
“Bill Murray IS Sidney Lumet!”
“Orpheus Descending” the play is wonderful and it too was not very successful in its time.
No doubt that Thomsom can write beautifully, as he does here. He nails it. Too bad that he also has a streak of meanness and unnecessary capriciousness that puts me off at times.
I studied Orpheus Descending at uni. It’s great stuff. One of the things my tutor mentioned about the film was that Anna Magnani was one of the few leading ladies Brando sexually rejected. Damn, that had to have hurt, coming from a major slattern like Marlon.
David Thomson’s Biography of film is one of the best presents I ever received, and is one of the few film guides in paper I still consult. The man writes like the devil. But austin111 is right about Thomson’s proclivities. I read bits of his Nicole Kidman biography at an airport bookshop with my mouth gaping open. Words fail me. I felt humiliated for him. It was like watching someone thinking he masturbating privately, when in fact he is being broadcast on TV.
He also wrote some utter bullshit about “Letter From An Unknown Woman” as part of his regular newspaper column a few weeks back, in which he revisited and then rejected the film by watching it through the lens of his Oedipal Complex. It was as terrible to read as it sounds.
Marlon Brando was best known for his role as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire and his Academy Award-winning performance as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront, both directed by Elia Kazan in the early 1950s. Love to watch him
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