I’ve been on a Criterion Collection kick lately. I tend to watch movies in short, obsessive spurts of some connecting property. While the Criterion Collection releases a wide variety of films and don‘t really connect outside of the brand name, that has been my obsession lately. A few weeks ago it was Anthony Mann westerns. Who knows what I’ll glom onto next.
Let me get back to “Bigger Than Life.” Wow. This is not exactly a well known movie outside of cinephile circuits, but it should be. Produced by and starring James Mason, I was blown away by the power of the performances, the lighting, the direction. If you love “American Beauty” or know someone who does, this is a film that destroys the nuclear, suburban family with much greater ferocity.
“Bigger Than Life” was released in 1956 during the height of the very idealism it works so hard to tear down. This caused considerable controversy at the time and audiences stayed away. The story revolves around a school teacher, Ed Avery, who must begin taking an experimental new drug to ward off a rare arterial inflammation that will claim his life. That drug is cortisone. Soon, Avery is taking more than the recommended dosage to keep the pain away and a descent in to addiction and madness begins.
The use of cortisone did bother me a little. Probably because today we use cortisone in various forms like it’s nothing. Side effects do exist with prolonged use but it still seemed like an odd choice of drug. Regardless, James Mason pulls off a performance of a life-time. In an age of film when the acting style seems to me to be a little over the top (maybe due to the relative proximity to vaudeville and silent film), Mason and actress Barbara Rush (portraying his wife) give incredibly subtle, realistic performances. This aspect may help contemporary audiences (many of whom have a problem with old movies) connect with the film. The acting just feels modern.
Ed Avery is established as a teacher loved and respected by both his students and fellow teachers. Before too long, his chronic pain begins to show (the episodes of pain are a little melodramatic). As if this isn’t enough, he is hurting for money and must work a second job as a cab dispatcher at night. Pride keeps him from telling his wife the truth of his nightly absence. The compounding stress of finances, two jobs, a nervous wife, and a neglected son pushes his condition to require hospitalization. There the doctors inform him that he has months to live, unless he wants to try a new “miracle drug.” Despite the stated side effects, Avery agrees to go on a cortisone regimen. Soon, his life is everything it should be. He tells his wife the truth of his night job and begins doting on her. He has energy and time to connect with his son. Once the perfect 50s family is established, Nicholas Ray starts showing us how fragile and unsustainable that ideal is. Avery’s addiction is more like a manic-depressive on meth and Mason pulls it off with an unearthly ease. His erratic behavior affords plenty of opportunity to chip away at marriage, family, and even education in the 50s, while the filmmakers can hide behind his “psychosis.” The deconstruction of this nuclear family is all the more heartbreaking when we see what is being destroyed. He has a loving wife who refuses to let him take the suburban dream away and a son who reveres him. The film cranks up to 11 when the increasingly large and menacing shadows Avery casts culminate in a decision that the only way to save his son is to murder him.
Let it be known that Mason’s performance in “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” is one of my all-time favorites. However, his work in this is infinitely better. He plays the loving father/husband so well that his fall alone is torture, say nothing of its effect on his family. But his addiction is the real high point of this film. He still has all the sinister air that makes “20,000 Leagues” or his turn in “North by Northwest” so compelling. But when a mind so deranged and calculating is turned on a family, it becomes monstrous. The shot of him staring at his reflection in a broken mirror is stuck in my head.
Enough about Mason. Much of this movie’s power comes from the incredible direction of Nicholas Ray. The way he shoots this film is very simple. Plenty of still shots and idyllic settings. The magic lies in the lighting. Avery glows when he first begins taking his pills. As he becomes more unhinged, his shadow and the shadows on his face become darker, bigger, more menacing until he is an ogre in his own home.
The perfect marriage of director/actor/material harkens back to Ray’s “Rebel Without a Cause.” “Rebel” certainly makes its jabs at life in the 50s but it is more a work of empathy for the juvenile delinquents. “Bigger Than Life” is a work of destruction. Ray builds an ideal world and then crushes it. He even brings the Bible in as the final push that convinces Avery to commit murder. The movie does have a happy ending but regardless of the content, that’s par for the course of films of that time.
All in all, “Bigger Than Life” is an incredibly good movie. I can’t recommend it enough. It has all the power of modern drug movies and is an awesome display of subversion. As a bonus, a very young Walter Matthau gives a great turn as Avery’s best friend.
Rating: 9 of 10
