Eddie Anderson (Kirk Douglas) is rich, successful and losing his mind. You can tell this because as he's driving to work in his fancy convertible, he deliberately smashes his car--nearly killing him. Following this, he's distant and uncommunicative--slipping deeper and deeper into a fantasy world. He's dreaming of his lover (Faye Dunaway)--a woman who left him a year and a half ago. In the meantime, his wife (Deborah Kerr) is beside herself--she has no idea what to do. Through the course of the film, you see a man on the edge of sanity--a man having perhaps the world's world mid-life crisis. Because he's reached this age and hates who he is and what he's become--that's why this crisis is so intense.
While I felt this was a painful and unpleasant film (much of it because you don't like ANYONE in the film--especially the leading man), this is not to say the picture is without merit or style. Director Elia Kazan (from his novel) creates a bizarre portrait of a man in crisis--and does it in very, very strange and creative ways. Very often through the course of the film, it becomes more and more difficult to determine what is real and what is not--and Douglas' character has conversations with himself (using a split screen), walking back in time to his childhood and examining his relationship with his parents and even runs around in the buff! It's all very artsy, surreal and strange--though not exactly something I enjoyed. It's also very adult and a film that most folks would find challenging at best, though the film would probably speak best to someone in mid-life--someone who is questioning who they are and what they are. Strange to say the least--and more like an Ingmar Bergman film than one you'd expect from Kazan. In fact, I liked the film's style much more than I liked the actual story. Worth seeing as a failed but intriguing experiment.
By the way, the clip of the father on the boat coming to America is from another Kazan film, "Amerika, Amerika" (1963).
While I felt this was a painful and unpleasant film (much of it because you don't like ANYONE in the film--especially the leading man), this is not to say the picture is without merit or style. Director Elia Kazan (from his novel) creates a bizarre portrait of a man in crisis--and does it in very, very strange and creative ways. Very often through the course of the film, it becomes more and more difficult to determine what is real and what is not--and Douglas' character has conversations with himself (using a split screen), walking back in time to his childhood and examining his relationship with his parents and even runs around in the buff! It's all very artsy, surreal and strange--though not exactly something I enjoyed. It's also very adult and a film that most folks would find challenging at best, though the film would probably speak best to someone in mid-life--someone who is questioning who they are and what they are. Strange to say the least--and more like an Ingmar Bergman film than one you'd expect from Kazan. In fact, I liked the film's style much more than I liked the actual story. Worth seeing as a failed but intriguing experiment.
By the way, the clip of the father on the boat coming to America is from another Kazan film, "Amerika, Amerika" (1963).