SPOILER ALERT! The plot of the movie will be discussed.
We all are familiar with The Hunger Games. A futuristic deadly reality show with competing
individuals displayed for the amusement of society’s spectators, offering the
audience an escape from their daily situation and a taste of hope for the vast
majority of suffering citizens. Well, this 1969 film from director Sidney
Pollack pretty much follows that basic narrative, without the element of
fantasy, which makes it even more chilling.
The movie opens with the credits
displayed as we see a horse running freely in a field, and a youth watching in
happy observation. The music playing is serene, comforting. We then hear the
crashing sound of waves on a beach, which resembles the noise made by a
gunshot. We have an early foreshadowing of the tragedy to come. Robert (Michael
Sarrazin) is the boy in the field who has grown up, and who, as we learn,
drifts like those ocean waves through life. We have a voice-over from Rocky
(Gig Young, in an Oscar-winning supporting actor performance), the
master-of-ceremonies, saying they will fix a broken leg (which indicates that
something dangerous is about to happen) or provide aspirin, but that there will
be no liability on the management’s part. We immediately know that those in
charge care little for the people involved. We cut back to the field and a man
with a gun appears. We then go back to the beach and we see a sign that
indicates that a dance marathon will be held. These forms of “entertainment”
occurred in the 1930’s after the stock market crash in 1929 and during The
Great Depression years. Rocky says that the contest will run around the clock,
implying that this contest, which is presented as a metaphor for life, is a
never-ending endurance test, with no escape. We then see the horse again, who
falls and is injured, as we hear Rocky say, “When you’re out, you’re out,” connecting
the fate of the horse to those of the losing contestants. There is a cut back
to the man with a gun shooting the horse, and the viewers are again provided
with another omen of the inevitability of the narrative. The film returns to Robert
entering the dance arena, crashing into signs, the resultant noise again
discordant, and connecting him to the sound resembling the discharge of a gun.
Among the dance contestants is
Gloria (Jane Fonda), a bitter, cynical woman, who has had bad relationships with
men. After someone says that they are like cattle led to the slaughter (a
connection to the fate of humans to another animal other than a horse), Gloria
says that the cattle are one up on humans since they are blissfully unaware of
their imminent demise. Her inability to see anything positive in life is
reflected in other statements. She says after Robert asks her what she would do
if she wins, “Maybe I’d buy some good rat poison.” When a nurse asks if she can
get Gloria something for her sore feet after many hours on the dance floor, she
responds by saying, “How about a saw.” When she hears about someone being
sixty-five years old, she says she hopes she never lives that long, indicating
that to her life is just suffering. These lines show a desire to do harm to
herself. She even sees the act of birth not as a blessed event, but a cruel
act, as she tells the pregnant Ruby (Bonnie Bedelia), who has the name of an
expensive gem but who is dirt poor, “Yeah, why not drop another sucker into
this mess.”
Gloria’s initial coughing partner
is disqualified by Rocky, not out of concern for the man’s health, but because
he does not want any infection spreading to the other dancers, thus limiting
the success of the “show,” which is what he calls the proceedings. The outward
appearance of the spectacle is all that matters to this businessman. He allows
Ruby into the marathon, even though she is well into her pregnancy, because he
says it gives the audience someone to root for. His repetition of “Yowza,
yowza, yowza,” is an attempt to stir the dancers and the audience into a frenzy
of mob emotion and participation. He echoes President Herbert Hoover’s line of
“Prosperity is just around the corner,” and says that one couple will triumph
‘over the broken bodies” of the others. These lines are meant to offer a sliver
of hope to the downtrodden, but which also epitomize the worst aspects of
capitalism, where many must be defeated for a very few to succeed. Lies are
necessary to maintain the sham show, so Rocky spins a tale about the Sailor
(Red Buttons) having been a war hero who carries 32 shrapnel pieces in his
body. Again, the idea is to give the audience someone to cheer on. It conjures
up a person of heroism and patriotism, who continues to fight even in civilian
life. He talks about how he feels” sincerely’ about the Navy man, an ironic
statement, since there is nothing sincere about the man, but he knows that is
what the audience wants to hear. As he says, there must be a battle to win,
because “isn’t that the American way?” Which means true Americans selfishly try
to win no matter the cost to themselves or others.
But, Rocky, just like President
Snow in The Hunger Games, knows that
there must be a bit of hope to keep people playing the game. (These
contestants, just like the ones in The
Hunger Games, need sponsors who use them as dancing advertisements as the
contestants wear sweatshirts plugging businesses). So, when the Sailor’s
partner is having a psychotic break, thinking she is covered in bugs, Rocky uses
his smooth manipulation to buy into the fantasy, and pretends to rid her of the
insects. When Gloria shows surprise that he didn’t include the scene into the
act on the floor, he responds by saying no, “It’s too real.” As Rocky tells
Robert, the people “want to see a little misery out there so they can feel a
little better” about their plight. If the reality show becomes “too real” it
becomes scary, and instead of the audience being entertained, they will leave
their seats, trying to escape the realization of how dire the situation truly
is. Rocky learned the tricks of his phony trade from his father, a fake faith
healer, who employed his son as a shill. As a child, Rocky pretended to be a
cripple who the healer made walk again. Hope, even if unfounded, in the presence
of misery, closes the deal. That is why he lets Ruby sing the song, ironic
given the desperate times, “The Best Things in Life Are Free.”
The movie also associates the tiny
hope for Hollywood stardom with the minuscule possibility of winning in the staged
marathon dance, and in American society as a whole. Rocky introduces a couple
of movie types in the audience, offering up the possibility that some of the
dancers will be “discovered.” Gloria is a woman who came to Los Angeles wishing
to become a successful actress, but as was the case for most hopefuls, her
dreams were dashed, and she later says life is like “central casting: They got
it all rigged before you ever show up.” She hooks up with the
just-passing-through Robert since Gloria’s partner was eliminated. When Robert
says to Gloria that another contestant doesn’t appear to have a brain tumor
because the symptoms aren’t the way it was depicted in a film, Gloria comments
that if there was no pain depicted, then it wasn’t real. For Gloria, life is equated
with pain, and the movies are a lie. The audience on the surface sees Robert’s
liking of the beach, his enjoying sunsets and the light shining through the
window on his head raised toward the heavens, as someone whose optimism and
innocence may redeem Gloria, maybe causing her to live up to her worshipful
name. But, he says he, too, dabbled in show business, playing the part of a
dead French villager in a movie entitled Fallen
Angels. So, in effect, Gloria has come to the City of Angels, and encountered
Robert who is an Angel of Death. He is the one who finds the ripped dress which
Rocky took from another actress down on her luck, Alice (Susannah York) because
he wanted to bring her down a peg to make her someone the audience might
empathize with. Robert later rips Gloria’s stockings. Perhaps he is associated
with torn dreams. He is almost seduced by Alice who is looking for a connection
and acceptance. However, when Gloria sees him coming out of an alcove with
Alice, Robert becomes the instrument for Gloria losing all hope for a redeeming
relationship, and she gives into sex with Rocky, basically selling her soul to
the devil. The stylized flash-forwards showing Robert arrested, incarcerated,
and sentenced prepare the audience for the violence at the end of the film.
There is a cut between one of these scenes and Rocky firing a gun for one of
the marathon’s events, solidifying pictorially the connection between Robert
(the “robber” of life?) and the killing at the end.
One of the eliminating events performed at the marathon is
“The Derby.” The seasoned contestants know how devastating this part of the
tournament is because it forces the dancers to walk quickly, heel-to-toe, after
many hours of being on their feet, around a track to a finish line after a
ten-minute period. The last three couples are eliminated. This competition
occurs twice in the marathon. In the second one, the Sailor has a heart attack
and dies. But, of course, that would be too real, so Rocky just says he has
heat prostration, and can’t continue. The title of the event sounds like a
horse race, as in The Kentucky Derby, and connects the competition to the horse
seen at the beginning. It also shows how people are treated the way animals are
in a race, for the amusement of paying customers. The dance marathon is also a
race, and if horses that are losers are injured, and are put out of their
misery, so why not people, too. The film satirizes the fact that the capitalist
system failed people in the early part of the 20th Century, and then
tried to make money off of the misery of those that were left with nothing. The
contest diverts anger away from the ruling class by putting on a show. By
seeing others suffer, it makes the masses feel better about their lot. The
marathon is used as a carrot for a couple to regain some of their wealth, and
the spectators participate vicariously. The contestants compete against each
other instead of fighting against the privileged.
At the end of the film, when Gloria learns from Rocky that
the winners have their share drastically reduced by expenses charged by
management, she wants to leave. But, not just leave this contest, but the game
of life itself. She says to Robert “I’m gonna get off this merry-go-around.” An
interesting comparison, and an ironic one, since she refers to an amusement
ride, featuring fake horses. As a child’s ride it is fun for a time. But, if
all of life is this way, with just an eternal return to the same misery, where
we are “right back where we stared from,” as the words form “Alexander’s
Ragtime Band” says earlier in the film, then life is depressing. Gloria pulls
out a gun and asks Robert to end her suffering. Robert learned from his father,
as did Rocky. He shoots Gloria, and we see an image of her falling in the
pasture as she now takes the place of the horse at the beginning of the film.
When asked why he did it, Robert tells the policeman, “They shoot horses, don’t
they?”
The next movie will be The
Godfather.
The Godfather is next ? I cannot wait
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