Volker Schlondorff's Death of a Salesman
In 1985, the film adaption of the 1949 play Death of a Salesman was released. Directed by Volker Schlondorff, it featured Dustin Hoffman as Willy, Kate Reid as Linda, Stephen Lang as Happy, and John Malkovich as Biff. This play, set for the most part in New York in the 1940s, centers around Willy Loman as he tries to salvage his own and his son's lives. The aging salesman's most important desire is to ensure that his son, Biff, has a successful life, but battles with horrible guilt and his own slipping mental faculties. The filmed adaption, for the most part, is a wonderful portrayal of this thought-provoking and tragic play.
When adapting a piece of literature to film, one of the most crucial elements is the accuracy of the adaption. An inaccurate portrayal of a play especially, apart from the simple problem of being incorrect, is distracting to people who know the original work well. This movie is fairly true to the book, likely due to it having the same actors as the revival of the play. This makes the movie much more of a filmed version of the play, rather than an adaptation. However, the movie was not faultless. There were a few minor details, most noticeably with Willy's mistress, that are untrue to the original play. In Act 1 scene 3, she is described in the stage directions as being “quite proper-looking, Willy's age.” When Biff finds her and Willy together, she is supposed to act “angry and humiliated” (2.6) when she leaves the room. In the movie, she is a young blonde woman who never looks “proper” (she is in a nightgown in all her scenes). As she leaves the room after being caught, she seems much more sorry for Willy and Biff than she is angry or humiliated. Really, she doesn't seem humiliated at all. This flaw, though it is a flaw, does not detract from the meaning of the play. The only real importance of this woman is that she exists. Changing her character really only does that – makes her a different person. So while this inaccuracy should be recognized, it is excusable, especially because the rest of the movie is highly respectful of the original script.
Another important aspect to consider when criticizing any movie is how well the actors perform their parts. Bad acting can ruin the most beautifully written play. Luckily, the acting in this adaptation is superb. Dustin Hoffman won a Golden Globe for his performance, and John Malkovich and Kate Reid were each nominated for one. Hoffman and Malkovich also received Primetime Emmy Awards, and Charles Durning (who played Charley) was nominated for one as well. Beyond what they won, though, one could truly believe each of these actors in their roles. Hoffman plays a borderline insane man incredibly well, and Malkovich's crying in the scene where he catches his father with another woman was almost too real. Nothing about how these actors played their parts detracted from this movie in any way.
Finally, the choices that the people makes should be evaluated. Each director, producer, and actor of a given play will have a different vision of it, and critics must look at the choices they make and see what they add or take away from the original work. Since this was an adaptation of a play, the choice was made to intentionally make the set look like a set. That means, simply, that one could see that this was built solely for actors to perform on. This is most clearly seen during the first scene, when the camera shows where the top of the Loman house is simply cut off, without a ceiling. This choice has pros and cons. It reminds people that this is a play, which is interesting to film and play lovers alike. It also gives it the feel of a play, rather than a movie. However, some could also say that it makes it seem less realistic. It takes the audience out of the action, reminding them that these are actors performing a scene, something that most movies strive to make their audiences forget. Since I am a person who enjoys plays and musicals, I like this touch. It emphasizes where this play came from, and where it was intended to be. Another aesthetic choice the director made was to have all the characters play the younger versions of themselves. Again, there are pros and cons to this. Some say it's unbelievable, because Happy and Biff especially look too old in these scenes, when they are supposed to be in high school. Others say it would have been too awkward and distracting to have different actors in the scenes in the past. In this argument, one has to remember that this is supposed to be a filmed adaptation of the play. In the play, all the parts are played by the same actors throughout. It makes for a smoother, less confusing play. Therefore, in the movie, the actors should play their parts the whole time. Additionally, the scenes in the past are in Willy's head. They really happened at one time, but at the moment he is simply reliving them. In this case, it makes sense that while reliving times past, the people could look how they look now. Overall, the choices that this team made work well with the play they put together.
This movie was not without faults. A few minor details were could have been better. However, looking at the work as a whole, it was a very good representation of the play. The accuracy was mostly there, the choices made sense, and the acting was magnificent. Taking everything into account, this movie did a near perfect job of what it set out to do: produce a movie that is an accurate portrayal of the play itself. Death of a Salesman is a wonderful work of art, and this movie absolutely did it justice.
Works Cited
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2013. 1669-1735. Print.
Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. Prod. Robert F. Colesberry, Ruth Morley, Tony Walton, Alan D'Angerio, Bob Laden, John Kasarda, Robert J. Franco, Rita Ogden, and Victor De Nicola. Dir. Volker Schlöndorff. By Alex North, David Ray, Michael Ballhaus, Mark Burns, Danny Michael, Frederick Steiner, Kenneth Wannberg, and Kenneth Wannberg. Perf. Dustin Hoffman, Kate Reid, Stephen Lang, Charles Durning, Louis Zorich, Jon Polito, Linda Kozlowski, and John Malkovich. CBS Presents, 1985.