Hit Me With Your Best Shot: A Face in the Crowd

previously: Showgirls, Black Narcissus and Bring it On

For today's episode of this new participatory series, in which we choose our single favorite images from a feature, the topic is Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd (1957). The film was chosen to commemorate the recent passing of Patricia Neal (1926-2010) and to honor the gifted cinematographer Harry Stradling Sr who was born on this very day in 1901. He went on to shoot landmark musicals, numerous classics and win two Oscars.

Andy Griffith's spontaneous verbosity hypnotizes Americans.
Patricia Neal's expressive watchfulness hypnotizes movie buffs.

A Face in the Crowd (1957)
Confession: I never knew what Keith Olbermann was talking about when he referred to Glenn Beck as "Lonesome Rhodes" but now the association is all too clear. I don't pretend to know if Beck ever had pure motives, but when A Face in the Crowd begins, Lonesome Rhodes (Andy Griffith) is not a phony, but a bonafide man of the people. He's not what one would call a deep thinker but he's sly and he has an as yet unexploited ability to run his mouth off on any topic, and get people to listen, laugh and nod their heads in recognition. He's tailor made for the masses. And this 1957 Elia Kazan movie is so prescient it feels eerily of the moment in 2010.

The title of the film comes from a radio program created by whipsmart but emotionally unguarded Marcia (Patricia Neal). She recognizes Lonesome's potential almost immediately, making him the star of her show. She travels with him up through the ranks of radio and then television where Lonesome eventually becomes a star in the biggest market, New York City. By the film's final act he's a bonafide household name, a powerful opinion maker... and a monster. Rhodes, drunk on his own power, is contemptuous of both the truth and of "his flock" (i.e. the public) who he reasons will believe anything he tells them.

"♪ I'd like to have your money but I'd rather have my pride. ♫"

The still above is an emblematic loudmouth shot, a perfect distillation of early Lonesome. It's beautifully lit by Stradling, boisterously performed and plays a key note in the movie's symphony. Lonesome doesn't want to be controlled, he wants to control. In the scene he's supposed to be delivering a word from his sponsor but instead he rabidly bites the hand that feeds him. (Griffith's performance is as loud and in your face as Burt Lancaster's Elmer Gantry... and the characters are not dissimilar come to think of it.) Director Elia Kazan's staging is emotionally acute, too. This is Lonesome's first real test of his power. Note that he's facing away from the crowd even though he's speaking to them. He's already adopted them as flock; he's one of them, but immediately assuming a position as their representative speaker, rather than the entertainer he actually is.

That's my choice for best shot.

But because Patricia Neal is so special in the movie and there are a million great shots of her, I wanted to highlight one more scene (two shots).


Marcia's enigmatic seduction of Lonesome is lit so masterfully. The light seems to convey loneliness, sensuality and an ominous inchoate dread. Or maybe that's the power of great actressing? Marcia initiates the seduction but she's clearly already lost control of the relationship. Note how small she is with this shadowy giant in the long shot and then how she's shrinking back and blocked from view in the medium shot. The entire scene is moving and strange and their body language as she pulls (?) and he pushes (?) has weird beats of contradiction in it. Neal's face flashes aroused horror. But what is she aroused by and what is she scared of: Lonesome, her desire, the lengths she'll go to to find and keep success? We can't know and by the last beat of the scene, she's completely invisible to us.

[Oscar tangent: A Face in the Crowd is masterfully shot, edited, directed and acted and received a grand total of zero nominations. Uhhhh...]

Other Faces in the 'Best Shot' Crowd

• Movies Kick Ass "The bigger I get, the smaller you make me feel." This is quite an insightful read.
  
• Serious Film also chooses a meta moment..."up close it must be a nightmare."
• Against the Hype the blabmeister "plunged into darkness" I chose this shot, too, before I actually wrote my article. I'm glad I moved on since Colin says it better than I.
  
• Mierzwiak celebrates the expressive planes of Patricia Neal's face. Cinematographer Stradling Sr was famously beloved by Barbra Streisand and its easy to see why. Actresses could completely trust that he'd amp up their mystique and light them like the goddesses they were.
• Okinawa Assault "The Reverse Norma Desmond"
  

 Other Films in This Series

• Angels in America (2003)
• X-Men (2000)
• Showgirls (1995)
• Bring It On (2000)
• Black Narcissus (1946)
• Pandora's Box (1929)
• Se7en (1995) 
• Requiem for a Dream (2000)

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A Handful of Link

popbytes Mia Farrow vs. Naomi Campbell in the blood diamonds trial -- this is such a crazy story. Who will play Mia and Naomi in the tv movie? You know they'll make one.
Now Kindly Undo These Straps remembers The Witches of Eastwick. Are you an Alexandra, a Jane or a Sukie?
Sheila O'Malley a really fine Patricia Neal tribute with interesting notes from the two key romances of her life (Gary Cooper and Roald Dahl)
Rants of a Diva a playlist inspired by Best Actress nominees? It's a must download.
Nicks Flick Picks finally names his Best Actresses of 2009. Great tweet sized writeups.

Psssst. Angels in America 'best shot' participatory post is coming tonight. might be a bit late. Are you joining in?

Don't Be Afraid of the Link

<-- The poster and the teaser for the British noir Jack Falls. Hmmm, somebody has been mainlining Sin City!

Victim of the Time on Susannah York. My god I love this scene in They Shoot Horses Don't They
Guardian Stanley Kubrick's widow speaks. How they met, how he danced (?) and more...
Cinema Obsessed is spooked by the Don't Be Afraid of the Dark teaser. I am too. Guillermo Del Toro found created his scaried creature yet called "Katie Holmes"!
And Your Little Blog, Too shares memories of meeting Patricia Neal (RIP)
Videogum Inception themed casual encounter [NSFW... and by Not Safe For Work I mean NSFP... Not Safe for the Prudish]. You know it's funny. I was just going to post about how I'm just DONE with reading about Inception on the internets and then this hit. Hee.


Tribeca Film my column "best in show" spotlights John Hawkes and Dale Dickey in Winter's Bone
52 Bad Dudes This is a cool tumblr. Adam Sidwell is drawing badasses from the movies each week
50 Best Illustration Blogs If you're like me and you love drawrings, check these out.
Daventry Blue "12 Songs About Movie Stars" Can you think of any more?
Quiet Earth isn't too happy about these plans for Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter

On a final note, I read Sunset Gun's piece on a meeting with Lindsay Lohan before that infamous trip to Cannes with great interest. Like Kim, I think Lohan is gifted and like Kim I'm all for forgiving stars their scandals. I have roughly zero use for the weird media demand that they also be role models. But I'm not defensive about LiLo anymore. Give me fine movie appearances and I'll forgive all but Lohan isn't delivering in the movies... or even in the movies so I can't rally. I wish she'd come back but until she recovers her acting focus, I have no real use for her. Party girls bore me. Give me actresses!

Patricia Neal (1926-2010)

Sad news. The Oscar winning actress Patricia Neal (Hud) has passed away at 84. She had been battling lung cancer. Neal had a memorably husky voice and something like tragedy in her beautiful eyes. And that was even before tragedy hit.

She first hit screens in the late 40s but the 1960s were a particularly volatile time for the great actress. Consider the Everest sized career peaks and tragic personal valleys: In 1960 she was co-starring with Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke in the Broadway hit The Miracle Worker (she didn't travel with them to the film version); Her infant son's carriage was hit by a taxi in 1961 (he survived); her seven year old daughter died suddenly in 1962; in 1963 Hud was released; In April 1964 she won the Oscar for that indelible housekeeper role (she did not attend the ceremony); in 1965 while pregnant with her fifth and last child, she suffered a multiple stroke that put her in a coma for three weeks. Miraculously her daughter was born healthy months later. But Neal had to learn to walk and talk again. She felt she had to pass on The Graduate (which became a classic role for former co-star Anne Bancroft) due to the recovery period but she returned to film twice in 1968 for the short documentary about her rehabilitation Pat Neal is Back and the drama The Subject Was Roses. She received her second (and last) nomination for Best Actress for the latter.

Neal didn't work so often late in life but made a memorable appearance as the title character in Robert Altman Cookie's Fortune (1999). Her death in that film -- was it a murder or suicide? -- causes abundant family infighting (Glenn Close is such a bitch!) and comic confusion (Julianne Moore is rather dim).

How many Oscar winners get to be played by other Oscar winners? Not even Katharine Hepburn got that (since Cate Blanchett hadn't won yet when she acted out the role in The Aviator). Neal's life was dramatized in 1981 for a telefilm called "The Patricia Neal Story" starring two time winner Glenda Jackson.

Glenda Jackson as Neal and Dirk Bogarde as her husband,
author Roald Dahl (yes, that Roald Dahl), in "The Patricia Neal Story"

Do you have any favorite Patricia Neal movie memories? Please share them as I need viewing tips. Apart from the 1960s films, I'm afraid I'm not that familiar with her work.

With co-star/lover Gary Cooper in The Fountainhead (1949)
And with Paul Newman in Hud (1963)

Please tell me you've seen Hud (1963), though. If not, it should be your absolute tippity top rental priority. I don't care what your priority was before. Guy Lodge recently called Hud 'hard, precise, ineffably sad' in a tweet and I marvelled at his own precision with that description. The movie is insanely good and should've won the Best Picture Oscar (that it wasn't nominated for). It's one of the best movies of the 1960s... or any decade for that matter. Though her screen time is limited, Neal is magnificent in her crucially observant sideline role.
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