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Mass Insanity

      The current campaign season has subjected us to something incredibly bizarre masquerading as political discourse. Someone used the term 'mass insanity' to characterize some of the extremes that routinely fill the daily media coverage. This idea of mass insanity seemed as good an explanation as any to me and it made me turn my attention -- naturally, to a  film, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original, of course, from 1956, directed by Don Siegel). Because when I scan the faces at the various rallies, I find myself trying to discern some telltale sign -- a glassy stare, particularly smooth skin, something detectably alien that explains how they are enthusiastically cheering for such vacuous platitudes, recycled phrases, and never-to-be-realized promises.

     For those of you unfamiliar with the plot of  the film, an ordinary, small town in California is the location of a UFO landing, following which, the residents of the town begin to notice that people they know very well are behaving out of character, as if they were someone else, which it turns out they are.  Alien life forms have taken them over.  The star of the film, Kevin McCarthy, starts to piece this together and discovers that the aliens have installed human-size 'pods' throughout the town which form into duplicate humans, replacing the originals when they fall asleep. When he finally discovers one of the pods in the basement of a friend's home, the pod is just beginning to look like his friend, but the features are still only lightly etched.  Having figured out how they replace the humans, he tells his friend, "Don't fall asleep!"

     Now I ask you -- isn't this one way of explaining the things that come out of people's mouths these days, people that look like regular humans with functioning brains, and others who seem in a rapture when listening to their blather?  Mass insanity is a possible explanation, but I think if you looked in the basements across America, you would find the evidence of hatched pods. Originally released during the Cold War, with communist witch hunts and blacklists still instilling fear and paranoia, it was thought to be a warning against conformity, in general, and against going along with scapegoating and being afraid to speak up.  But when you consider that alien life forms are possibly in the cheering crowds these days, you have to remember Kevin McCarthy's warning at the end of the film, "They're already here!"


       On the other hand, if you would prefer to reflect on a time when a more principled individual could actually refuse to wade in the mud to get to the top, I recommend The Best Man (1964) written by Gore Vidal and directed by Franklin Schaffner. Vidal was being pretty cynical when he wrote this so I can't imagine what he would have made of today's political swamp.  In the film, Henry Fonda stars as William Russell, the leading candidate coming to his party's presidential convention.  Cliff Robertson plays the rival candidate, Joe Cantwell, and since their party is expected to win, one of the two men will surely be the next president. Fonda's character is principled, Robertson's is a street fighter, willing to stoop to any level to corral the extra vote.  The incumbent, who is popular, is reluctant to endorse Fonda's character, because he doesn't think he is tough enough, particularly when he learns that Russell has come into possession of some dirt on Cantwell that he will not use. Both he and Russell think that Joe Cantwell would be a disaster as president and there is the eternal dilemma:  Do you suspend your principles for the greater good or go down to defeat, leaving your country to the scoundrels, while feeling pure at heart? Vidal gives Fonda a rather neat way out that isn't always available in real life, but we sure wish people would at least try a little harder to find one.


       If you want to go even more cynical, you might take a look at A Face In the Crowd (1957), Budd Schulberg's look at the appeal of the 'ordinary guy', directed by Elia Kazan and starring Andy Griffith in a masterful performance as Lonesome Rhodes.  If you only know Griffith as the Sheriff of Mayberry, this will be a revelation. Also starring Patricia Neal, Walter Matthau, Anthony Franciosa and Lee Remick, the film exposes the corruption beneath the country-bumpkin charm of Lonesome Rhodes and his manufactured image.




                                                                                             Speaking of a manufactured image, Gary Cooper stars in the Frank Capra classic, Meet John Doe (1941) as another ordinary guy that the media builds into a movement.  Co-starring Barbara Stanwyck, the film shows that people looking for someone to believe in are easy prey for the Edward Arnold character, the media mogul with nefarious motives.



      Personal charisma also works when people are looking for answers.  No one did that better than Burt Lancaster in his Academy Award winning performance in Elmer Gantry (1960).  From the novel by Sinclair Lewis, directed by Richard Brooks, the film illustrates how charm and a silver tongue allow a huckster to sell anything to anyone, including himself. Jean Simmons, Shirley Jones, Arhtur Kennedy, and Dean Jagger co-star.

There are other good films about politics and elections.  I may get to them later, but right now this is where my head is.