MovieChat Forums > A Face in the Crowd (1957) Discussion > What's the moral of A Face in the Crowd?

What's the moral of A Face in the Crowd?

posted 15 years ago by Mr_McLaurel
39 replies | jump to latest

In honor of the recently deceased Budd Schulberg, I just finished watching A Face in the Crowd for the 2nd time. What an incredible movie. Unlike a lot of satires, the filmmakers of A Face in the Crowd aren't afraid to keep things complicated - Lonesome Rhodes may be an ornery cuss, but look at the money he raises for the woman and her 7 children who lost her house!

TV was very young when A Face in the Crowd came out, and TV plays a huge part of the plot. My question is this: Was Lonesome an evil megalomaniac from the beginning, or did TV corrupt him? The scene on the train when Lonesome says "I'll be glad to get away from this dump" is a bit of a shock because we don't really see that side of him until that point. Had the power and the money gone to his head, or was he seeing dollar signs and bright lights all along? I don't think the answer is clear - and that's one of the things that makes A Face in the Crowd such a fantastic movie.

What's the Spanish for drunken bum?

[–] mrs_shakespeare 12 years ago

To the OP: I think Lonesome was evil from the very beginning. He made me uncomfortable from the beginning, but I knew for sure early on when Neal's character goes to pick him up from jail and he looks at her like she is a piece of meat. He makes her so uncomfortable that she closes up her shirt all the way to the neck.

As for the money that he raises for the woman and her children, he is just testing his power. He had already got people to drop off all those dogs at the sheriff's house, and all those kids to jump into the boss's pool. At this point he is a megalomaniac who is trying to see how far he can go with it. He doesn't care about that woman and her kids (which he slips and calls "brats"). It's just for TV.

I think the moral of "A Face in the Crowd" is that TV personalities are personas. They are facades that are meant for entertainment and not for devotion.

[–] mpoconnor7 12 years ago

I agree. Lonesome Rhodes was evil and manipulative from the word go. The moral of the movie is that you can hide your evil nature under layers of charm and charisma, but eventually it will come out for the world to see.

[–] Cultfilmfeverforever 12 years ago

A snake is a snake and Marcia believed she could change his true nature. He clung to her because she was the only conscience he had left. When we meet Lonesome, he's in jail and the four walls are the only conscience he has.

[–] hodie 11 years ago

A guitar beats a woman every time.

The more I see this film, the more I thinks it lacks any real moral. Rhoades self-destructs, but his replacement is already waiting in the wings. Nobody is going to learn anything, except for Patricia Neal's character, but she was involved with Rhoades so what she learns is going to stay with her because of that.

Get me a bromide! And put some gin in it!

[–] MovieJunkie87 10 years ago

The moral of the story is:

Exercising power over others comes at the expense of one's own freedom.

Directors I like: Kubrick, Bergman, Godard, Pasolini, Wilder, Welles, Tarkovsky, Lynch, Refn