Directed by Nicholas Ray.
Starring James Mason and Barbara Rush.
Starring James Mason and Barbara Rush.
In a Nutshell: An experimental miracle cure wrecks havoc on a teacher’s mental state.
Tapping deep into the yearning that defines the “Nicholas Ray hero,” Bigger Than Life makes the persuasive case for setting that man loose in bourgeois society. It is a film that rattles the chains of 50’s American life, far and away from any sly Douglas Sirk-ian understatement. We begin with the sort of drab ripped-from-the-headlines melodrama that many thought they were buying; prim schoolteacher Ed Avery (James Mason) becomes deathly ill and finds a cure with an experimental prescription of cortisone. In order to get back on his feet (including a night job as a taxi dispatcher to make ends meet), Ed takes dosage after dosage. Not only does he get better, but Ed also transforms into the idealized advertisement of 50’s patriarchdom (football lessons, shopping sprees and disciplinary lessons soon follow). Though once the drugs seize Ed’s mind, the American dream slides into expressionistic nightmare.
Tapping deep into the yearning that defines the “Nicholas Ray hero,” Bigger Than Life makes the persuasive case for setting that man loose in bourgeois society. It is a film that rattles the chains of 50’s American life, far and away from any sly Douglas Sirk-ian understatement. We begin with the sort of drab ripped-from-the-headlines melodrama that many thought they were buying; prim schoolteacher Ed Avery (James Mason) becomes deathly ill and finds a cure with an experimental prescription of cortisone. In order to get back on his feet (including a night job as a taxi dispatcher to make ends meet), Ed takes dosage after dosage. Not only does he get better, but Ed also transforms into the idealized advertisement of 50’s patriarchdom (football lessons, shopping sprees and disciplinary lessons soon follow). Though once the drugs seize Ed’s mind, the American dream slides into expressionistic nightmare.
Over the years, Bigger Than Life is upheld for its critique of 50’s values. While Ed may take these to frightening extremes, he nearly breaks free from his suburban conformity (or at least closer than Jim Stark and his hungry brooding). Even after a horror-movie showdown and a skeptically happy ending, the question remains. Is he a rebel or a monster? Ray either keeps his cards hidden or remains as divided. Within Ed’s megalomania is a drive for self-improvement with no room for lenience. It heightens, and nearly rips his family apart, but until then, Ed had mastered his life’s duties to live in comfort with all the gadgets a successful life could provide. Is that happiness? Even a tearful embrace at the end cannot tell.
Despite his conspicuous British accent, Mason hits every right note. From meek to might to menace, his performance is matched on by Ray who shifts genres without becoming a pastiche. Under Ray’s eye, the Avery house is a shadowy prison of domestic clutter and excess. Ed’s life peaks and bottoms out in such a scant amount of time that it beautifies the film’s brutality into a broad stroke. Bigger Than Life lives up to its title only to befit its study of our own inhibitions. Even as it weighs Ed’s struggle between conformity and liberation, the most unnerving impression one can take is that even Ray cannot give an easy answer. It is a puzzling, harrowing and outsize as life itself.
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