106
PARTISAN REVIEW
nation submit to extortion? Were some of the victims observers for the
U.S. and where does observation stop and espionage begin? We know
that our government must have espionage agents in Europe-can we
believe in the innocence of every victim?
If
they were guilty of some
charges but not guil ty of all the charges, wha t kind of protest is morally
possible? The drama in the case of a Robert Vogeler or a William
Oatis is in the fathoming of moral and political ambiguities. While pur–
portedly about an East-West kidnaping,
Night People
presents a crime
and a rescue. The hero has righ ted the wrong before we have even had
a chance to explore our recollections of what may be involved in political
kidnapings. Soviet ambitions and intrigue become a simple convenience
to the film maker: the label "Communism" is the guarantee that the
hero is up against a solid evil threat. For the sake of the melodrama,
the Communism cannot be more than a label.
N ight Peo jJle
is not much worse or much better than a lot of other
movi es- they're made cynically enough and they may, for all we know,
be accepted cynica lly. David Riesman has pointed out that nobody be–
lieves advertising, neither those who write it nor those who absorb it.
And the same can b e said for most of our movies. Somebody turns the
stuff out to make a living; it would seem naive to hold him responsible
for it. In a state of suspended belief a writer can put the conflict of
East and West into the capable h ands of Dick Tracy: the film wasn't
really wri tten, it was
turned out .
And the audiences that buy standard–
ized commodities may be too sophisticated about mass production to
believe films and advertising, but they are willing to absorb products
and claims-with suspended belief. Audiences don't believe, but they
don't
not
believe either. And when you accept something without be–
lieving it, you accept it on
faith .
You buy the product by name. Who
would
believe
in
R ose-Marie?
Yet the audience, after taking it in,
emerges singing the Indian Love Call and it becomes a substantial part
of American sen timental tone. Who would believe that
Night People
presents a political analysis? Yet the political attitudes that don't origin–
ate in political analysis become part of national political tone. Accep–
tance is not
belief)
but acceptance may imply thc willingness to let it
go at that and to prefer the accessible politics (to which one can feel
as cynical and "knowing" as toward an ad ) to political thought that
requires effort, attention, and involvement.
The bit players who once had steady employment as S.S. guards are
right at home in their new Soviet milieu ; the famili ar psychopathic faces
provide a kind of reassurance that the new world situation is not so
different from the old one (we bea t these bullies once already). Perhaps
Night People
can even seem realistic because it
is
so familiar. The
