DEATH OF A SALESMAN

US, 1952, 112 minutes, Black and White.
Fredric March, Mildred Dunnock, Kevin Mc Carthy, Cameron Mitchell.
Directed by Laslo Benedek.

Death of a Salesman is a classic play by Arthur Miller. Miller had written All My Sons and was to go on to write such plays as The Crucible, A View from the Bridge, Incident at Vichy After the Fall. Many of his plays have been filmed or adapted for television. He also wrote the screenplay for The Misfits for his then wife, Marilyn Monroe.

Death of a Salesman focuses on Miller's ambition for changing American theatre. He blends realism with a stage setting portraying the mind and the memory of a man. He also wanted to write an American tragedy by focusing on the ordinary man as the subject for tragedy. Many critics disagree - the classical definition of tragedy meaning that it was a fall of a great man. Is it possible to have tragedy in the 20th century with the fall of a great man? Is tragedy now the fall of Everyman? In that sense, the American Salesman represents Everyman of the 20th century. Willy Loman has become a classic figure for answering that question.

This screen adaptation brings the realism and the stage setting with its multilevels in an ingenuous way. It means then that we are in the present but continually moving in and out of Willy Loman's imagination and memory and understanding his past. He is a character full of pathos, reaping the havoc that his optimism and his lack of facing reality have brought. He is confronted with the failure of his career, with the failure of his son? His infidelity to his wife. All this preys on him and he compares himself with his successful brother. At the end there is nothing else to do but face the truth and die.

Fredric March gives an impressive portrayal. He is supported well by Mildred Dunnock as his understanding wife. Cameron Mitchell and Kevin Mc Carthy, in view of their later careers, are unusual choices for his two sons. The tone and dialogue of the film is very American and could jar on overseas audiences. Nevertheless this seems very much the point: optimistic, unrealistic Americanism confronted by reality. Death of a Salesman certainly repays much discussion.

1. Expectations of the film because of the authorship of Arthur Miller? His prestige as a playwright? American themes, the American tragedy?

2. How well was the play adapted for the screen? The amount of dialogue transferred from stage to screen, the locations, the stage structure and the multi-levels of the house, the easy movement from present to past?

3. The black and white photography, musical score? The atmosphere of America, suburbia, the house, the family, work?

4. Arthur Miller's desire to make a tragedy of an ordinary man? The choosing of a salesman and an American? Expectations of tragedy of noble figures? Was this fulfilled in the 20th century in such a man as Willie Loman? The importance of Loman's speeches, soliloquies? The ordinary man with his strengths, weaknesses, downfall? The importance of Linda's words about him at various times, and at the end?

5. The importance of the staging of the play with the easy movement from present to past? As objectifying what was happening in Willie's mind? The visual presentation of this, the structure of the house, the sounds? The easy movement in Willie's imagination and his living in the past? The past and the present turning into a fantasy world?

6. The focus on nervous breakdown as the situation for tragedy in the 20th century? How real was his breakdown? The realities and unrealities within it? Willie and his dying? The experience of dying and going through one's past life, a purgatorial experience? Was it a purgatorial cleansing? Was there some kind of hope at the end? A heaven instead of a hell?

7. Fredric March's performance as Willie Loman? Focusing on the American tragedy: his age, relationship with Linda, with his two boys, his home and its payment, neighbours, his brother? Could audiences identify with him as the ordinary man? His attitudes towards his work, to his wife, fidelity and infidelity, expectations of himself and his sons? Arrogance towards his neighbour? Financial situations? The pressures of modern life? How was Willie Loman a symbol for modern man?

8. The use of time during the film: the short span of the action and bringing everything in Loman's life and death to a head? Yet the ranging from past to present and into imagination time? The focus of things at the cemetery and some kind of understanding in that final sequence?

9. His driving during the credits, his return? Relationship with Linda? His love for her? His temptation with the other woman? The imagination and memory of the other woman and Biff's arrival? Ben and his place in the imagination, the cards?

10. How well did the film delineate the character of Linda and her constancy at how, her support, strengths, angers? Her attitudes towards her sons and her rebuking them? Her insight into her husband? The pain that she suffered? A symbol of the suffering wife?

11. Happy and his attitude to life? Honesty and dishonesty, man-around-town, money, success? Attitude towards his parents? Inability to cope with what was happening to his father? What future did he have? His father's final seeing through him?

12. The contrast with Biff and his sensitivity? The spoilt son? Expectations of the past? What was revealed about him in the flashbacks and his father's pressurizing of him? His dream, lies, the horses? Jail? The various incidents of dishonesty? And yet his father's good humour pushing him forward as a success? His admitting that he was a mediocre person? How much insight into himself? His future?

13. The artificiality of Willie's approach to life, happiness, joviality, sports expectations, pulling strings, pressurizing authorities?

14. The theme of dreams and inflation? Arrogance and making too much of very little? The pain of the truth and resistance to understanding the truth?

15. Biff and women, his seeing of the woman in the hotel room and his reaction against his father, the bitterness of the disillusionment and the way that this was presented, yet his love for his father?

16. The significance of Ben and the comparison of the two brothers? Ben's appearance in the dreams, his appearing and luring Willie on? Even to death?

17. The contrast with the realities of the funeral? The fantasy and reality for the audience's understanding, compassion, pity?

18. How is Arthur Miller's play a critical comment on American expectations, manhood, dreams?