Saw Make Way for Tomorrow, a beautiful, sentimental old film from the 30s about an old couple who have their house seized by the bank. The film was made just after social security began existing in the States and while FDR was still president. Sympathy for the penniless was thick in the air. Sure enough, this film is about the ungrateful able-bodied children of the old couple turning their backs on them. The film is an extended plea for tolerance and understanding and is therefore a tragedy (in spite of the profoundly stupid meddling of studio heads at the time, if imdb trivia is to be trusted.)
The film is a Norman Rockwell picture come to life, full of the adorable dignity of old folks and faded glory. Everyone is sympathetic, the old folks being irascible and frustrating. I felt they really shouldn't have made such a nuisance of themselves, but of course this is only because I'm weak and frightened and want to think that if ever I had to impose on younger relations that I wouldn't be much of a bother, as the couple in this picture ceaselessly claim. This was a film made in hard times which may be slowly returning. Definitely a message piece, it wants us to value our elders, not for any gain we get out of them, but for their own sakes, because we love them. Orson Welles said of this film that it would make a stone cry. He's not wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment