On Screen:
DWORKIN, MARTIN S.
On SCREEN By Martin S. Dworkin 'Marty' Wins a Prize, We Win a Masterpiece BY NOW, there are so many international film festivals, conferring so many awards in so many categories, that it...
...small groups and instant characterizations are directed to involve us quickly, deeply...
...The American films entered at the 1955 Cannes International Film Festival —probably the most prestigious of them all—constitute as good an offering as we have made anywhere in years...
...This is surely an unusual group, testifying not only to the expected American cinematic skill and polish, but to warmth, candor and penetration in dealing with serious issues...
...Industry politics concerning submissions seems to have as much to do with the standard of our representation as any log-rolling or other anti-Hollywood or anti-American machinations...
...And the festival authorities, reports Gene Moskowitz in Variety, encouraged a climate in which such qualities were bound to flourish...
...are excruciatingly sensitive...
...Miss Blair is moving as the girl...
...Marty spoke well for our culture at Cannes...
...On SCREEN By Martin S. Dworkin 'Marty' Wins a Prize, We Win a Masterpiece BY NOW, there are so many international film festivals, conferring so many awards in so many categories, that it seems a wonder there are any films not somehow honored...
...Intrigues and other extraneous mischief apparently were held to a minimum—and there was a novel stricture that judges actually attend showings before rendering judgment...
...But most of our "big" films are not of the kind or caliber for festival competition...
...the director and most of the personnel are from television...
...But underneath the affection and humor, and the apparently happy ending, is an incisive penetration of our urbanized loneliness in cities become surrogates for true society...
...The film tells a story of how two ordinary, homely people meet and begin those discoveries which can lead to a life together...
...The Country Girl and Marty were sent over as the "official" entries, supported by East of Eden...
...Bad Day At Black Rock, and Carmen Jones—although the latter had to be shown out of competition because of difficulty with the French publisher of Bizet's music...
...American participation in festivals has not been always gracious or fortunate...
...But the film makes clear how loneliness can have other, desperate outcomes...
...with Spencer Tracy's recognition as the best actor for his part in Bad Day At Black Rock...
...But at least the Awards reflect popular tastes with enough accuracy, if not foreordination, to be assets in attracting people to the theaters—and what else are awards good for...
...The former attitude may have more to do with the latter outcome than some of our movie people will admit...
...and with the award of the Golden Palm grand prize to Marty, with specific praise for writer Paddy Chayefsky, director Delbert Mann, and performers Betsy Blair and Ernest Borgnine...
...Movie people point out that a new festival would compete with the industry's own Academy Awards...
...Ironically...
...Our films are made to cater to the popular imagination, not to manifestly esoteric hypercriticism of cineastes...
...But Hollywood's heart quite as often isn't in its participation...
...These may suffer from inadequate representation from abroad, a pervasive ambiguity of categories that favors the star system, and a generally dubious temper of esthetic sophistication...
...But, as always, the public must speak for itself if Marty's voice is to be a true and lasting one...
...More than this, the style and method of the film are derived from the newer medium...
...Close-ups...
...This probably had something to do with the citation of East of Eden as the best dramatic film, special notice being given director Elia Kazan and his cast...
...The complete understanding at Cannes bears out the power with which he and Mann recreated real people in a real locale in the Bronx, so that they are universally comprehensible...
...In this case, they are supremely worthy, with great depths of love and integrity...
...It is true that often there is anti-American politicking in the selection of entries, festival arrangements, and awards of prizes—for both commercial and ideological reasons...
...And just as there are signs that quality and maturity can make profits, too, so American representation at festivals seems to be improving...
...The performances, especially that of Borgnine...
...The problem is stated immediately, as if to keep us from wandering to another show elsewhere...
...If better films are to be sent to festivals, better films must be made, and the public must support them...
...So many festivals, too...
...Chance and need bring two unlikely people together: their friends and relatives conspire unthinkingly to keep them apart...
...Even the idea of an American-sponsored "World Series" for films doesn't get much support here...
...A masterpiece of compassionate realism...
...denigrate the importance of any one...
...Marty bespeaks the best qualities of the movies' rival monster, television...
...Chayefsky reveals a sharp ear for the true speech of ordinary people...
...The film concentrates upon a small compass in that intimate manner so appropriate to viewing in living rooms...
...Chayefsky transcribed his own TV script for the screen...
...Joe Mantell is superb as Marty's demanding friend, and Esther Minciatti and Augusta Ciolli are fiercely vital as his mother and aunt...
Vol. 38 • May 1955 • No. 22
