From the very first shot of a bottle dangling from a window, to the last shots of a (hallucinated) bat eating a mouse (with accompanying blood running down the wall, one of the most gruesome and horrifying things I've ever seen on film, and we're talking 1945 here!), TLW is as dark as it gets - and, happily, as smart as it gets, too. But this IS a Billy Wilder film, so dark/smart, though appreciated, aren't that much of a surprise.
This is one of those beautiful movies where everything makes sense, from the Academy Awards it received to the well-deserved mantle it rests upon in movie history. And it's not pretty, not in the slightest, dealing as it does in alcoholism's terrifying DTs, as well as basic addiction's I-can't-shake-you-I-can-only-think-of-you whiskey/heroin/cocaine/cigarettes (merely plug the drug of choice into the movie's template and you have flaming, righteous addict's Hell for your spellbound perusal).
I was fascinated by the fact that TLW operates as a kind of corrective to the typical 20s, 30s and 40s depiction of alcohol as social lubricant - you know, "Hey, how's it going, glad you could come by, want a drink?" And that could be at noon, 3 in the afternoon, whenever...sometimes, even the morning. TLW grabs you by throat and drags you through the gutter with Ray Milland, stooping to the lowest human levels imaginable to wet his lips and come alive - and it's there, in the fleshing-out of the addict's "coming alive, feeling great" post-drug-use bliss-begotten rush, that TLW really gets it, and I say that as someone who knows. The detail of Milland being a writer who doesn't write, and who can't even THINK of writing before liquor's in his system, is spot-on, absolutely true. It truly gives the lie to the romantic ideal of, say, Raymond Chandler, or the myth of the alcoholic writer in general. Many, many, many writers have shriveled their livers via Milland's character's route, and the fact they may have been more prolific and functional doesn't really matter, once said livers are analyzed...really, pretty sad.
See this movie. Own it. It's crucial.
This is one of those beautiful movies where everything makes sense, from the Academy Awards it received to the well-deserved mantle it rests upon in movie history. And it's not pretty, not in the slightest, dealing as it does in alcoholism's terrifying DTs, as well as basic addiction's I-can't-shake-you-I-can-only-think-of-you whiskey/heroin/cocaine/cigarettes (merely plug the drug of choice into the movie's template and you have flaming, righteous addict's Hell for your spellbound perusal).
I was fascinated by the fact that TLW operates as a kind of corrective to the typical 20s, 30s and 40s depiction of alcohol as social lubricant - you know, "Hey, how's it going, glad you could come by, want a drink?" And that could be at noon, 3 in the afternoon, whenever...sometimes, even the morning. TLW grabs you by throat and drags you through the gutter with Ray Milland, stooping to the lowest human levels imaginable to wet his lips and come alive - and it's there, in the fleshing-out of the addict's "coming alive, feeling great" post-drug-use bliss-begotten rush, that TLW really gets it, and I say that as someone who knows. The detail of Milland being a writer who doesn't write, and who can't even THINK of writing before liquor's in his system, is spot-on, absolutely true. It truly gives the lie to the romantic ideal of, say, Raymond Chandler, or the myth of the alcoholic writer in general. Many, many, many writers have shriveled their livers via Milland's character's route, and the fact they may have been more prolific and functional doesn't really matter, once said livers are analyzed...really, pretty sad.
See this movie. Own it. It's crucial.