Reviews

I just saw this movie very late the other night, and I must say WOW! Like the rest of you, I saw "A Face In the Crowd" on a regular VHS edition, but it wouldn't matter which edition I saw it in because this was one of the few movies recently that made the jaw of this movie snob literally DROP with amazement over how daring, how edgy, and how much mastery this movie had over the film-making craft.

I'm beginning to realize that in the 1950's there was a short period of time (1955-1960, say) where the world of Broadway and the theater, Television, and Hollywood came together, and the careers of people like Rod Serling, Sidney Lumet, and "A Face In the Crowd"'s own Budd Schulberg were started. The best screenwriters in the movie business became innately aware of the increasing importance and influence of the new media form Television, while the best directors (like Elia Kazan), many of whom had directed numerous plays, knew how to cull the talents of Broadways hottest and most gifted performers, and at least for a couple of years, managed to get some awesome performances out of them. That's why I view this movie in the same sort of category as "The Sweet Smell of Success", that ever so sour and bitingly satiric parable on the corruption of American glamour and fame, and how publicity is just as much of a curse as a blessing. The performances in that film are like few others in the same era, and I think its no coincidence that "A Face In the Crowd" came out the same year as the other film. The main scribes of both those films, Clifford Odets and Budd Schulberg, were experienced with TV work by the time they penned their masterpieces (though Schulberg could also claim as his masterpiece 'On the Waterfront').

So anyway, I suggest to all who can hear me and have a love enough for this film to want to see it given the presentation it deserves, that we all write to the Criterion Collection and other DVD distributing companies and ask, no DEMAND that a restored, cleaned up version of "A Face In the Crowd", with as many special features as can be rustled up, be released as soon as possible. It's like writing your congressman, except instead of asking for a new factory of national park, we're asking for the wider availability of a piece of art that has gone with far too little acclaim for far too long. Who's with me?!?

God, I love this movie. People can think what they want about it; I watch it again and again and find I am basing my own philosophy, my own view of the world on it. It's like Mecca; I keep going back to it, finding new forms of enlightenment and and new layers of wisdom. It also appears to be of the 'love it or leave it' variety, judging from the comments on the review page. I first saw it a couple of years ago, and now I have both the video and the soundtrack to the film, which I thought was unbelievably great and a masterpiece in it's right. But I do respect it if people find the film simply doesn't 'speak' to them. People respond to many different kinds of movies, and we all have movies that we claim as favorites and hold to our heart because there's some indefineable SOMETHING about the film that just touches the deepest chords of our soul every time we think about it or see it. What other people think about it doesn't really matter to us, when it comes to those kinds of films. I could endlessly praise this film, but it's late at night here so I'll just finish by saying that I think "The Thin Red Line" is the wisest cinematic examination of the human experience ever put to film. The dialogue, the voiceovers, the exposistion, the music, the photography-everthing is miles beyond in it's intent focus on the strange and wonderful behavior of the human race. I also find it to be the brainest, most intelligent film I have ever seen without a shred of prentention. That's what I think is Terrence Malick's greatest strength: an ability to express his ideas in a rather obtuse and arty way, without it SOUNDING arty and obtuse. It just sounds true. That's all I have to say for now.