A Face in the Crowd

So, it seems that Trump’s presidential campaign was inspired by a sixty-year-old movie that foreshadowed the era in which anyone could become someone thanks to mass media. Andy Griffith plays Larry, a white-trash nobody from Arkansas who grasps an opportunity at the right moment and, with the help of radio, print and television, works his way up to the position of a public-opinion influencer (there is a certain similarity to Being There). Though he doesn’t know or understand anything, the masses listen to him. He is everywhere, so surely he must know something. Fame serves as a measure of credibility. Larry’s popularity stems from the fact that, as a model populist, he tells people what they want to hear (which is often the opposite of what they actually think). The media-constructed identity is thus in stark contrast to his true self, and therein lies the main weakness of the protagonist, who becomes a victim of the media. The question arises as to who actually serves whom. The film and the protagonist’s life not only accelerate as the minutes pass, but also become darker. Satire turns into a noirish psychological drama, though not as cynical as Sweet Smell of Success from the same year or the later Network. The whole film is excellently directed and acted, only the allusions to the power of the media to turn people into corrupt attention whores are too on the nose in places, and Kazan can’t eschew his characteristic moralising. Even so, A Face in the Crowd is timeless commentary on the dangers of the close connections between the media, politics and pop culture. 75% (2021-08-09)