Preston Sturges – 1940
Struges’ direction is boring; not bad, just not really worth discussing (discuss the classical system if you want to discuss Sturges).
This is really a short, sharp, searing indictment of the sadism of capitalism. Based, like ‘The Crowd’, on that stupid dream of advertising slogans (again, a mediocre man is deceived), the entire ‘you can look, but you can’t touch’ ethos is shown. This film is really sadistic, in that the audience knows we’re going to be subjected to miseries (though they also know it won’t last, the pain remains acute). The sadism of the competition, the arbitrariness, that there really isn’t such a thing as skill at all; only really having a job based on ‘insurance’, i.e. capital of some sort. As its ideology, this film says the system can lead to some bad things; but at points, the film seems to almost be led to the conclusion, which is the logical one, that the whole system is unjustified. ‘Everyone deserves a chance’, precisely, because no one really does, the whole exercise is a sham.
Only an hour or so, an impressively thoughtful little vignette, with a logic taken far. If director’s are going to be classical, to extinguish deep particular interest there, then this is the kind of film that I like to see.
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