Essay Questions

What legendary Hollywood figure called this film “the greatest movie ever made about America” and what does his critique suggest?

One of the most famous names associated with the early days of the movie industry is Charlie Chaplin. He is one of those figures whom even people who’ve never actually seen one of his movies can readily identify. Chaplin’s own career in Hollywood was cut short, however, by his own real-life criticism of the capitalist system. Unabashedly expressing communist viewpoints in the new post-WWII paradigm which destroyed careers even of people wrongly identified as expressing communist sympathies who couldn’t distinguish Karl Marx from Groucho Marx, there was simply no place for Chaplin in the company town he helped build. His recognition of the brutally corrosive attack against the lies of American capitalism are very suggestive of just how brilliantly Stevens pulled off his intent: to masquerade a politically explosive film as an inoffensive story of tragic love. It is one of the premier examples revealing the full extent to which the best films work their magic on a subconscious and often subliminal level.

In what way does director George Stevens effectively critique the emptiness of American capitalism by what he doesn’t show?

George Eastman is presented as a kind of typical member of the 99% who has fully bought into the idea that all it takes to achieve the America Dream is hard work, effort, and the occasional boost by those with influence. He is ambitious and clearly desires the wealth that the richer side of his family line enjoys and as the narrative plays out it becomes clear that he is willing to do almost anything that is required to get to that standard of living. Imagery that reveals the ambition of George to become wealthy is abundant, however not one single moment of film throughout its entire running time ever hints at what George would actually if he realized his ambition. George desperately wants to maintain his position among the wealthy elite in which he suddenly finds himself, but it is never made clear why. He simply wants to be rich in order to be rich. This aspect of the film is perhaps the single most important stimulus behind Charlie Chaplin’s famous assessment.

Many have called what Elizabeth Taylor delivers after learning that prosecutors want to sentence George to death if he’s found guilty the greatest movie faint ever. What does this say about Steven’s directorial style?

Montgomery Clift had been quite excited about working with George Stevens for the first time before shooting began. Afterward, however, his position had shifted somewhat in that he referred to Stevens less an the artist he’d considered before and more as craftsman whose vision of film only began away from the set once he settled in the editing room. This view reflects George Stevens approach to filming: shoot every scene in every conceivable way and then assemble like a jigsaw puzzle afterward. Admittedly, it lacks vision in the sense of knowing what you want beforehand, but the results speak for themselves.

It is not easily determined just how many takes was required for Elizabeth Taylor to deliver what is routinely called the greatest movie faint of all time—because she drops to the floor face first and hits face first without that protective jerk just before contact that puts so many lesser contenders out of the competition. It is fairly safe to assume, however, that at the very least this scene is not one of those examples of first-take magic so perfect a second take isn’t even required. The jigsaw-puzzle vision-in-edit style of George Stevens may lack the dramatic flair of more guerrilla style New Wave cinema-verité directors and it may well be entirely deserving of Clift’s criticism, but the proof is in the pudding and the pudding is that Taylor’s faint remains just as impressive and highly regarded as ever.