FILM CHRONICLE
109
film, is the chief vehicle for political thought in our films
(Casablanca,
Edge of Darkness, To Ha ve and Ha ve Not, North Star,
etc.). Melo–
drama, like the morality play, is a popular form ; structurally melodrama
is the morality play with the sermons omitted and the pattern of oppo–
sitions issuing in sensational action. Its intention is primarily to enter–
tain (by excitation) rather than to instruct (entertainingly). Labels
stand for the sermons that are dispensed with, and the action is central.
In some of the war and postwar films the writers and directors
seemed to feel they were triumphing
over
Hollywood and over melo–
drama itself by putting the form to worthwhile social ends: they put
sermons back in. The democratic messages delayed and impeded the
action, of course, but they helped to save the faces of those engaged in
the work. (Perhaps without the pseudo-justification provided by speeches
about democracy, the artists would have been shattered by the recogni–
tion that films like
Cornered
aroused and appealed to an appetite for
violence.) While the hypocrisy of the method made the films insulting
and the democratic moralizing became offensive dogma, the effort did
indicate the moral and political disturbances, and the sense of responsi–
bility, of the film makers.
Night People
reduces the poli tica l thought to
what it was anyway-labeling-and nothing impedes the action. The
film is almost "pure" melodrama. The author doesn't try to
convince
himself or the public that he's performing an educational service or
that the film should be taken seriously. The cynicism is easier to take
than hypocrisy, but it also shows just how far we are going.
Heroism is the substance of melodrama, as of standard vVesterns
and adventure films, but there is little effort in Hollywood to make it
convincing or even to relate it to the hero's character (in
Night Peo ple
a few additional labels-the hero went to a Catholic college, he was a
professional football player, etc.-suffice). We have come a long way
since the days when Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. winked at the audience as
he performed his feats; now the audience winks at the screen.
2
The political facts of life may shatter the stereotypes of Hollywood
melodrama but economic facts support them. The formula hero-defeats–
villains has been tested at the box-office since the beginning of film
history and it may last until the end. Melodrama is simple and rigid
and yet flexible enough to accommodate itself to historical changes.
2 The New
Y
orkl'T
carri es sophisticated consumption to extremes: it is
"knowing" about everything. The reader is supposed to "see through" what he
buys-whether it's
it
production of
A/acbeth,
a lace peignoir, a uiography
of
Freud, or a
$10
haircut (executed by Vergnes himself ). One must admit that
the consumer who doesn't take anything too seriously is aesthetically preferable
to
the unsportsmanlike consumer who takes buying so seriously that he pores
over
Consumer Reports.
