Today on TCM, Michael Ritchie’s The Candidate airs, one of my favorite political movies out there. It basically details the day to day workings of the campaign of Bill McKay (Robert Redford) as it descends further and further into utter meaninglessness. And that’s why it works. It’s a movie about politics, not a political movie. The movie is about the failure of the political machines to produce anything of substance, and that even if they start with something solid, eventually, a bland, neutral, non-committal center will be arrived at that hardly feels worth the effort. If you haven’t seen it, give it a look. It’s well worth your time. But what about movies that are political? No, I don’t mean some documentary with an ax to grind or some behind the scenes movie about political infighting, like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or The Best Man. I mean political, like On the Waterfront. Political, like Unforgiven. Political, like It’s a Wonderful Life. When movies have a message that’s not exactly hidden from view, is it better to watch them with that in mind or ignore it for the greater good of art?
Let’s take these one at a time, starting with On the Waterfront. I don’t have much else to say about its backstory that fans of classic cinema won’t already know but for those somehow unaware, both director Elia Kazan and writer Budd Schulberg were initially targeted by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) after being named by other witnesses before them. Kazan and Schulberg both became friendly witnesses themselves, helping the committee and keeping off of Hollywood’s unwritten blacklist, by naming other Hollywood insiders who had been members of the Communist Party. Then, they made On the Waterfront, a movie in which the lead character, Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando), after initially working for the mob boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb), has pangs of conscience that lead him to become a witness against Friendly thus making him, literally, a Friendly witness (cue sledgehammer).
Now, my purpose here is not stand with my mouth agape, shocked at such an outrageous turn of events and exclaim, before swooning, “Well, I never!” Yes, they clearly made the movie to make themselves look like the heroes of the story and, I don’t know, who the hell can really blame them, right? Whether it’s something you or I or anyone else would do is really an impossible hypothetical since I am not currently in a position to know if I would sell my principles for a job or not.
No, my purpose is to ask, “Did it work?” Did the political inspiration of their experience with HUAC in turn produce a great piece of cinema? My answer: Yes. Hell yes. It did. Do I have to like that inspiration? No, but does that really matter? In the end, isn’t On the Waterfront a character study of one man coming to terms with what he’s done wrong in his life? And with his life? And trying to make amends? And when all is said and done, and it’s a hundred and fifty years from now and HUAC is little more than a historical curiosity or obscurity for most people born in, say, the year 2132, what will be left will be the movie itself and if the movie itself works, who are we to argue with that? This isn’t some argument about the great technical feats of cinematic storytelling triumphing over changing attitudes over what is acceptable or not either. In other words, it’s not Birth of a Nation where many can argue that the technique of the film is without flaw while the content of the film is abhorrent. No, this about movies, like On the Waterfront, in which there is nothing contained within the story that will make it any more or less acceptable or unacceptable with time. This is purely about the movie itself and what inspired it and if that inspiration matters a lick.
How about Unforgiven? Like On the Waterfront, it’s a movie I find to be absolutely amazing in almost every area of execution. One of the inspirations, of the script by David Webb Peoples and the direction of said script by Clint Eastwood was, according to Eastwood, to portray the dangers inherent in cartoonishly exploiting violence as entertainment or glorifying it as honorable. As such, a vital character in the film is W. W. Beauchamp, played by Saul Rubinak, who makes a living writing comic book biographies of gunfighters. His first subject is “The Duke of Death,” English Bob, played by Richard Harris. Brilliantly, the movie has Beauchamp inch ever closer to the real thing until at last he arrives at the bloody climax, a witness in person to events surely more horrifying than anything he could have ever imagined or documented in his comic books. He starts with English Bob but as Bob turns out to be a dud, he moves on to Sheriff Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman) who seems clearly more capable but more importantly, more real. Daggett teaches Beauchamp that being fast on the draw isn’t nearly as important as nerves and simply planning accordingly. Then comes Will Munny (Clint Eastwood) and Beauchamp graduates to witnessing the fully realized gunfighter and there is nothing fun or cartoonish about it.
Unforgiven is clearly a political movie in that it is a movie inspired by the violence that cinema glorifies and making a point to show the awfulness of it in reality. Does that mean the movie is lesser because it’s teaching me a lesson? Will its inspiration matter to anyone on the planet in a hundred years? Does it matter to anyone now? Did it matter to anyone in 1992? Honestly, I doubt it on all counts. Before examining why, let’s take that last example.
Frank Capra directed It’s a Wonderful Life as a movie pitting the hometown hero, George Bailey, against the big business villain, Old Man Potter, played by James Stewart and Lionel Barrymore, respectively. The movie is a clash of both liberal and conservative ideals inspiring its story and execution. Capra, Stewart, and Barrymore were all three conservatives while the two primary screenwriters, husband and wife team Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, were liberals. At the time, both sides had ideas that merged in many ways. All wanted to reflect, in the wake of the depression and world war, the importance of community, working together, and building on ideals instead of profit. They all succeeded, in writing, direction, and acting, so marvelously that the movie as it now stands could be interpreted to fit just about any political ideal anyone chooses to hoist upon it and, indeed, has been (in fact, in the book Cinema, Theory, and Political Responsibility in Contemporary Culture (how’s that for a catchy title?), author Patrick McGee argues that the movie essentially negates itself politically by having every side of the political equation essentially mushed together into a neutral, homogenized center). But does a collection of conflicting ideas from a bunch of liberals and conservatives really matter when a person is actually watching It’s a Wonderful Life? Does anyone come to the end of that movie, having just witnessed one of the greatest performances in cinema history, and think, “I see what they’re getting at, and I don’t like it!” No. No for It’s a Wonderful Life, no for Unforgiven, and no for On the Waterfront.
If we’re to take politics at face value, which is, after all, simply the act of influencing people towards firmly held ideals and positions, then most all of cinema is politics. But when cinema is directly inspired by political values and ideals, the results can be glorious. They can, also, be obvious and unpleasant. It’s not where the inspiration comes in, it’s how. In the end, it’s not what inspired the movie but how well the artists involved pulled it off. A clunky political picture, wearing its message on its sleeve, will likely fail and, though I’ve avoided mentioning them here, usually do. I’ve avoided mentioning them on purpose. You see, when people make lists of movies with political inspirations or messages, they usually include the lousy ones with the greats, as if there’s no difference. But there is a difference and it’s a huge one. The difference is that if the movie is made well enough, the political inspiration disappears into the background and what we’re left with is a work of art beholden to nothing but itself. On the Waterfront still fires some people up because they know where it came from. Some people still think that Unforgiven is the height of hypocrisy coming from someone who made their whole career glorifying violence. And others think, though I admit, very few I’ve ever met, that It’s a Wonderful Life, is a pie in the sky fairy tale about community stepping in where the market, or the government, fails. Well, let them think what they will, I suppose. I can think of On the Waterfront, Unforgiven, and It’s a Wonderful Life as nothing other than great works of cinema. They all had solid political inspirations, ones that may or may not sit in agreement with many viewers, and they all came out as works of art.