Elia Kazan - A Face in the Crowd (1957)

Andy Griffith makes a spectacular film debut in this searing drama as Lonesome Rhodes, a philosophical country-western singer discovered in a tanktown jail by radio talent scout Patricia Neal and her assistant Walter Matthau. They decide that Rhodes is worthy of a radio spot, but the unforeseen result is that the gangly, aw-shucks entertainer becomes an overnight sensation not simply on radio but, thereafter, on television. As he ascends to stardom, Rhodes attracts fans, sponsors and endorsements by the carload, and soon he is the most powerful and influential entertainer on the airwaves. Beloved by his audience, Rhodes reveals himself to his intimates as a scheming, power-hungry manipulator, with Machiavellian political aspirations...





More timely now, perhaps, than when it was first released in 1957, Elia Kazan's overheated political melodrama explores the dangerous manipulative power of pop culture. It exposes the underside of Capra-corn populism, as exemplified in the optimistic fable of grassroots punditry Meet John Doe. In Kazan's account, scripted by Budd Schulberg, the common-man pontificator (Andy Griffith) is no Gary Cooper-style aw-shucks paragon. Promoted to national fame as a folksy TV idol by radio producer Patricia Neal, Griffith's Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes turns out to be a megalomaniacal rat bastard. The film turns apocalyptic as Rhodes exploits his power to sway the masses, helping to elect a reactionary presidential candidate. The parodies of television commercials and opinion polling were cutting edge in their day (Face in the Crowd was the Network of the Eisenhower era), and there are some startling, near-documentary sequences shot on location in Arkansas. An extraordinary supporting cast (led by Walter Matthau and Lee Remick) helps keep the energy level high, even when the satire turns shrill and unpersuasive in the final reel. There's an interesting parallel in Tim Robbins's snide pseudodocumentary Bob Roberts: both these pictures have almost as much contempt for the lemmings in the audience as for the manipulative monsters who herd them over the cliff.







Un rostro en la multitud
El ascenso y posterior caída de un vagabundo que llega a convertirse en lo que denominaríamos ahora como un personaje mediático. También podría describirse como de alguien que consigue llegar a uno de los sueños americanos: la fama y la celebridad. El vagabundo en cuestión se llama Lonesome (Solitario) Rhodes, interpretado por Andy Griffith, que realiza su primera intervención en el mundo del cine y seguramente el mejor papel que ha hecho. Griffith llega a crear a un vagabundo excéntrico en ocasiones, descarado en la mayoría de veces, con cierto aire de vivir la vida tal vez demasiado alegremente y que fruto de la casualidad, llega a convertirse en una especie de ídolo de masas.



Un Homme dans la foule
Un vagabond, doué pour la chanson, est remarqué par une station de radio puis devient une vedette de la télévision nationale. Enivré par le succès médiatique, cet homme aimable et affable devient un monstre de vanité et d'arrivisme...





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