‘I’ll say one thing for him, he’s got the courage of his ignorance...’
Elia Kazan is a filmmaker whose legacy will already be tarnished by his decision to act as a ‘friendly witness’ for the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952 at the height of the Hollywood blacklist. This is a shame because until then, Kazan was a radical filmmaker who pioneered activist cinema. His 1949 film Pinky was one of the first to tackle racial prejudice, and On the Waterfront, perhaps Kazan’s most celebrated work, took on corruption within powerful organisations. A Face in the Crowd is similarly didactic but about a wholly different subject matter…
Larry ‘Lonesome’ Rhodes (Andy Griffith) is plucked from obscurity by radio reporter Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) for his rootsy, everyman charm and considerable musical skill. He soon becomes a nationwide American phenomenon, which inevitably attracts the attention of bad actors who want to use Rhodes’ fame for their own gain.
A Face in the Crowd is a particularly unique film because, in some ways, it’s very old-fashioned (the choppy editing and shoehorned-in musical numbers are jarring), but in other ways, Kazan’s film remains prescient. We live in an age in which the power of celebrity has never been more influential, seen everywhere from the rise of Donald Trump to the ubiquity of Joe Rogan. Griffith’s protagonist, in what is a bravura performance in his film debut, is both exploiter and exploited, soon realising that he has forgotten the things that made him so lovable in the first place. By the end, Rhodes, ranting and raving in his penthouse apartment like a Hollywood Macbeth, is indistinguishable from some of the more toxic influencers that have flooded social media in recent years. A word too for Neal, who has to absorb all of Griffith’s ostentatious charisma whilst managing to deliver a performance that is nuanced and powerful.
While the world has changed a lot since 1957, society’s obsession with celebrity is as prevalent as ever. A Face in the Crowd successfully explores the dangers of allowing one person to yield awesome power over an easily swayed population – plus ça change…
