Death of a Salesman (1985 film)

Death of a Salesman

DVD cover
Directed by Volker Schlöndorff
Based on Death of a Salesman 
by Arthur Miller
Starring Dustin Hoffman
Kate Reid
John Malkovich
Release dates
  • August 16, 1985 (United States)
Running time
 136 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Death of a Salesman (German: Tod eines Handlungsreisenden) is a 1985 CBS made for television film directed by Volker Schlöndorff, based on the 1949 play of the same name by Arthur Miller. It stars Dustin Hoffman, Kate Reid, John Malkovich, Stephen Lang and Charles Durning. The film follows the script of the 1949 play almost exactly. The film earned 10 Emmy nominations at the 38th Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony and 4 Golden Globe nominations at the 43rd Golden Globe Awards ceremony, winning 3 and 1, respectively.[1][2][3][4][5]

Plot

Willy Loman (Dustin Hoffman) returns home exhausted after a canceled business trip. Worried over Willy's state of mind and recent car crash, his wife Linda (Kate Reid) suggests that he ask his boss Howard Wagner (Jon Polito) to allow him to work in his home city so he will not have to travel. Willy complains to Linda that their son Biff (John Malkovich), who is visiting, has yet to make good on his life. Despite Biff's promise as an athlete in high school, he flunked senior year math and never went to college.

Biff and his brother Happy (Stephen Lang), who is also visiting, reminisce about their childhood together. They discuss their father's mental degeneration, which they have witnessed by his constant vacillations and talking to himself. When Willy walks in, angry that the two boys have never amounted to anything, Biff and Happy tell Willy that Biff plans to make a business proposition the next day in an effort to pacify their father.

The next day, Willy goes to ask Howard for a job in town while Biff goes to make a business proposition, but neither are successful. Willy gets angry and ends up getting fired when Howard tells him that he needs a rest and can no longer represent the company. Biff waits hours to see a former employer who does not remember him and turns him down. Biff impulsively steals a fountain pen. Willy then goes to the office of his neighbor Charley (Charles Durning), where he runs into Charley's son Bernard (David S. Chandler) (now a successful lawyer). Bernard tells him that Biff originally wanted to do well in summer school, but something happened in Boston when Biff went to visit Willy that changed his mind.

Happy, Biff, and Willy meet for dinner at a restaurant, but Willy refuses to hear bad news from Biff. Happy tries to get Biff to lie to their father. Biff tries to tell him what happened as Willy gets angry and slips into a flashback of what happened in Boston the day Biff came to see him. Willy had been in a hotel on a sales trip with a young woman named Miss Francis (Kathryn Rossetter) when Biff arrived. From that moment, Biff's view of his father changed and set Biff adrift.

Biff leaves the restaurant in frustration, followed by Happy and two girls (Linda Kozlowski and Karen Needle) that Happy has picked up. They leave a confused and upset Willy behind in the restaurant. When they later return home, their mother angrily confronts them for abandoning their father while Willy remains talking to himself outside. Biff goes outside to try to reconcile with Willy. The discussion quickly escalates into another argument, at which point Biff forcefully tries to convey to his father that he is not meant for anything great, that he is simply ordinary, insisting that they both are. The feud culminates with Biff hugging Willy and crying as he tries to get him to let go of the unrealistic dreams that he still carries for Biff and wants instead for Willy to accept him for who he really is. He tells his father he loves him.

Rather than listen to what Biff actually says, Willy realizes that his son has forgiven him and thinks that Biff will now pursue a career as a businessman. Willy kills himself by intentionally crashing his car so that Biff can use the life insurance money to start his business. However, at the funeral, Biff retains his belief that he does not want to become a businessman. Happy, on the other hand, chooses to follow in his father's footsteps.

Cast

Reception

The film received critical acclaim. On review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an overall 100% approval rating based on 8 reviews, with a rating average of 8.4 out of 10.[6]

Style

The film is mostly told from the point of view of the protagonist, Willy, and the previous parts of Willy's life are revealed in the analepsis, sometimes during a present day scene. It does this by having a scene begin in the present time, and adding characters onto the screen whom only Willy can see and hear, representing characters and conversations from other times and places.

Many dramatic techniques are also used to represent these time shifts. For example, leaves often appear around the current setting (representing the leaves of the two elm trees which were situated next to the house, prior to the development of the apartment blocks). Biff and Happy are dressed in high school football sweaters and are accompanied with the "gay music of the boys". The characters will also be allowed to pass through the walls that are impassable in the present, as told in Miller's original stage directions in the opening of ACT 1, "Whenever the action is in the present the actors observe the imaginary wall-lines, entering the house only through its door at the left. But in the scenes of the past these boundaries are broken and characters enter or leave a room by stepping 'through' a wall onto the fore-stage."

However some of these time shifts/imaginings occur when there are present characters on-screen. For example, during a conversation between Willy and his neighbor Charley, Willy's brother Ben comes on screen and begins talking to Willy while Charley speaks to Willy. When Willy begins talking to his brother, the other characters do not understand to whom he is talking, and some of them even begin to suspect that he has "lost it." However, at times it breaks away from Willy's point of view and focuses on the other characters: Linda, Biff, and Happy. During these parts of the film, the time and place stay constant without any abrupt flashbacks that usually happen while the play takes Willy's point of view.

The film's structure resembles a stream of consciousness account. Willy drifts between his living room, downstage, to the apron and flashbacks of an idyllic past, and also to fantasized conversations with Ben. When we are in the present the characters abide by the rules of the set, entering only through the stage door to the left. However, when we visit Willy's "past" these rules are removed, with characters openly moving through walls. Whereas the term "flashback" as a form of cinematography for these scenes is often heard, Miller himself rather speaks of "mobile concurrences." In fact, flashbacks would show an objective image of the past. Miller's mobile concurrences, however, rather show highly subjective memories. Furthermore, as Willy's mental state deteriorates, the boundaries between past and present are destroyed, and the two start to exist in parallel.

Awards and nominations

References

  1. ↑ Macdonald, Scott. "Death Of A Salesman". eyeforfilm.co.uk. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  2. ↑ Chessman, Michael Rizzo. "Death of a salesman (1985) - starring Mr. Dustin Hoffman". moviesbyrizzo.info. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  3. ↑ Travers, James. "Death of a Salesman (1985)". filmtravers.com. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  4. ↑ Hampton, Wilborn. "'Death Of A Salesman': Beyond A Smile And A Shoeshine". huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  5. ↑ Haflidason, Almar. "Death of a Salesman DVD (1985)". bbc.com.uk. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  6. ↑ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1005521-death_of_a_salesman/

External links