THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE
US, 1948, 126 minutes, Black and white.
Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett, Barton Mac Lane.
Directed by John Huston.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is the American cinema classic about greed.
The film shows two men, played by Humphrey Bogart and Tim Holt, meeting up in Mexico and going to work for a contractor. They are taken into the Sierra mountains and they discover gold. Walter Huston is in the cast, an old man, a prospector who discovers gold and it turns his head into deeper madness. Rivalry ensues, greed and violence are the consequences. The film is very strong on narrative – but also serves as a powerful moral fable.
John Huston had been a writer in Hollywood during the 1930s and early 1940s until he directed The Maltese Falcon. After that, he didn’t look back for the next forty years, directing an extraordinary number of films which have stood the test of time, for example The African Queen, The Red Badge of Courage, Night of the Iguana, The Man Who Would Be King.
Walter Huston was John Huston’s father and he directed his father in an Oscar-winning performance for best supporting actor. Huston was also to direct his daughter, Anjelica Huston, to a best supporting actress Oscar in 1985 for Prizzi’s Honor.
The film is on many critics’ list as one of the hundred best films of all time.
1. The tone and significance of the title? Audience expectations for an adventure film and their fulfilment?
2. How good a film of the 40s was this? An award winning film? The black and white photography, the use of locations and studio photography, the heavy musical score, its light touches and the melodrama?
3. How typical a Humphrey Bogart vehicle was this film? Its use of the Bogart mystique? Transcending this?
4. What was the overall impact of the film? It is considered a classic. Does it deserve to be considered so?
5. The importance of Mexico as a background and atmosphere for the film? The significance of Mexico in the mid-twenties, its style, Tampico and its world, the mountains, the varying landscapes and climates?
6. How important were the Mexican people, the bandits, the federalis, the wandering Americans in the mountains? How did this all add to the significance of the film?
7. Fred Dobbs as the central character: an Everyman figure, down and out, the with possibilities of good or evil? Everyman going to evil? What kind of man was he? What kind of character was built up during the film in the beating sequences, their irony and humour, his eating? Getting his hair done, the lottery sequences, his working on the job, reaction to not being paid, putting up with Curtain and Howard, the luck of the lottery, the fascination of gold?
8. What happened to Dobbs? The hard work of getting to the mountains, his profession and not being greedy, not wanting over-much money? then his wanting to share the gold, his paranoia, talking to himself, following people around, the growing suspicions, his willingness to kill Cody, to kill Curtain. the obsession and not going to sleep, the ultimate working of conscience after killing, as he thought, Curtain? the inevitability of his death and suffering? What insight went into the building up of this character and showing his downfall? Was it credible? What was most convincing about this portrayal?
9. Howard stressed that Dobbs was an ordinary man not and extraordinary one. Do you agree?
10. The theme of suffering, lying, dying and what doth it profit a man....?
11. What kind of character was Curtain? As a contrast with Dobbs? The initial meeting, his capacity for work, his saving Dobbs’ life and its later irony, the pleasantness of his character, his visiting the village, yet being prepared to kill Cody? his trying to preserve his life, his falling asleep, his being wounded and his disillusionment with Dobbs? hoping for the gold, the inevitability of Howard's laughing and the fact that he had a future? What insight into such a character? The importance of his willingness to kill Cody and yet his going to support his widow?
12. The character of Howard: Walter Huston's award-winning performance and its style, his explanation of his background, his obsessions about gold, an old loner. his strength in walking the mountain, his skill in knowing about the gold, his presenting himself as trustworthy, his arbitrating in the quarrels, his willingness to kill Cody, his capacity for healing the Mexican boy, the reality of his laughter and the stupidity of all the work for the gold, his devotion to the mountain and the gold returning to the mountain? the fact that he had a future to live for?
13. How did Cody contrast with the others? The later explanation of his background via the letter? As a wanderer in the mountains, his greed, his cool risking his life with the alternatives, his saving the lives of the prospectors against the bandits, the irony of his death? His loss of life for nothing?
14. The portrayal of the bandits as a reality in Mexico? Their riding up to the prospectors, the interplay of the gold robbers and Dobbs, the fact that bandits were executed in the mountains, the final confrontation with Dobbs and the irony of letting the gold go, taking the mules and the skins, the executions?
15. The meaning of the film and its message as regards wealth, poverty, greed, a happy life? The themes of the meaning of life and death? What view of human nature did the film take? How optimistic of pessimistic?
