Jack, a reporter, is sent by his editor to the Kanoma city to cover a hot new treasury candidate, an ordinary farmer, Willie Stark, who is facing enormous opposition by the oppressive local government. Jack is so fascinated by Stark's idealism and speeches about justice for the poor people, that he joins his cause as his PR man. When he runs for a second time, Stark loses again to the mainstream candidate, but doesn't give up. Years later, Stark runs again and finally gets elected as the Governor, hiring Jack and Sadie as his associates. However, once in power, Stark adopts oppressive tactics, as well: he bribes, blackmails, has an affair with Anne Stanton, Jack's girlfriend, whereas his adoptive son, Tom, has a car crash that kills a girl, and her father is later found dead before he can press any charges. When judge Stanton, Anne's uncle, starts an impeachment against Stark, the politician blackmails him with evidence of how the judge got his first job. In shame, the judge then commits suicide. Anne's brother, Adam, then shoots Stark.
This quality and ambitious political drama explores the theme of the often used proverbial saying "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" through the fictional story of politician Willie Stark (excellent Broderick Crawford) who undergoes a transformation from a humble, honest, philanthropic candidate to a greedy, dishonest, megalomaniac and oppressive Governor, symbolizing the tale of small people who fight against the upper class, only to in the end become the new upper class themselves. Winner of 3 Oscars, including for Best Picture, this film shows this in a rather clever way, though the critics still concluded that the movie lost some of the layers and richness of the original novel, "All the King's Men" by Robert Penn Warren. The director Robert Rossen uses a few great shot compositions with depth of field to make the ordinary scenes stand out, whereas he knows how to deliver an "actor's film". The story is subversive in exploring the notion of "right is might" through several scenes: in one of them, Jack is surprised that his editor is cancelling his articles about Stark in the newspaper since the latter is endangering the establishment ("We are now supporting Harrison!"), whereas in the next chapter, it is revealed how Stark, now Governor, took one of the first steps in buying off newspapers and radio stations to secure his position. However, the film lacks highlights. It has one great moment—after he lost the election, Stark goes to a bar and takes a drink with a mysterious smile, surprising his associates with these words: "I learned something. How to win."—yet "All the King's Men" needed more of such scenes since it ended up too didactic, schematic and grey in the second half, struggling to find true inspiration instead of just queuing dry symbolism again and again, which makes it not that fresh anymore, in spite its other virtues.
Grade:++
No comments:
Post a Comment