The Day of the Locust: Nathanael West (1939) and John Schlesinger (1975)
I read Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust a few years ago after finding J.G. Ballard’s description of it intriguing. In A User’s Guide to the Millennium, Ballard called the novel a “nightmare vision” of Hollywood, and after reading it myself, I found his analysis to be an accurate one.
After learning that John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy) had directed a movie version, I added it to my film queue. I’ve just finished watching it and it’s perhaps more difficult to shake than the novel.
It’s challenging to resist the seduction of the Golden Era of Hollywood by way of the 1970s, a fashion and film trend ushered in with Bonnie and Clyde and continued with Chinatown and, to some extent The Great Gatsby. But for every facet of beauty that we witness in this film, there is twice the amount of grotesque.
Although Karen Black is good as the grasping, would-be starlet Faye Greener, it is Burgess Meredith who imbues the character of Harry with a deeply pathetic and haunting believability. Donald Sutherland, William Atherton, and Pepe Serna are the victims of Faye’s charms, each representing a different masculine stereotype as they fall over themselves in a literal and figurative cockfight.
In a world seething with such greed, amorality, and hypocrisy it should not be a surprise that there are some disturbing images. I found myself horrified yet transfixed by them all, particularly the ending, which I can easily imagine taking place today. The Hollywoodland of West’s novel is brought to ghastly fruition in this film: an orgy of despair that would make Caligula blush. This “nightmare vision” is one from which I’m afraid we still have not awoken.
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This is one of the very best of that which I call “the 70s nightmare on celluloid” – films like APOCALYPSE NOW, KLUTE, THEY SHOOT HORSES DON’T THEY?, LITTLE BIG MAN, MIDNIGHT COWBOY, LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR, HAIR, M*A*S*H, DELIVERANCE, MEAN STREETS, and to a lesser extent CABARET – those movies that are such incredible high quality, but that take ugliness, violence, and despair to new heights. They had to stop making movies like that, and now only a few directors go there; they are movies that will make you depressed for days. I love them and they are some of my favorite movies of all time.
One of the most traumatising movies I have ever seen, and a favourite of mine. Thanks for articulating my feelings into thoughts and words. I have decided the book will finally make its way to the top of my reading pile…
Between this movie and Your Friends and Neighbors, I basically never want to meet any actors, even the ones I like!
I’m glad you liked this review and you’ll have to let me know what you think of the novel!
Nicely put. I was just watching this film for the umpteenth time with my Mom, who had never seen it, and she kept asking me to explain the characters to her, what they meant, represented, etc. I keep this film like a patch in a quilted, warm blanket of my love for old Hollywood, but have never gone so far as to try and literally (and externally) explain what it all means.
Having never read the book, what I gleaned from it was that it shows all the beauty and ugliness (as you mentioned)in man in its duality; Todd is a talented artist and romatic, but has no qualms about kicking Homer to the curb to get a crack at Faye. Homer is an impotent and terrified sap who will torture himself to even be near Faye, yet is capable, if pushed far enough – and who isn’t – of unspeakable horror. Earle & Miguel, as you mentioned earlier, are other, more masculine representations of Faye’s power as a user of men – in fact, that’s all Faye does – use everyone she comes in contact with – her father, Todd, Homer, the Cowboys – cruelly and shamelessly to feed her deluded vision of herself – and she does this…because she can. And in the end, appears to be the only one who “survives” (even though we never really know what happened to all the rest). I wish I was in Film School on the day they disect this masterpiece. It’s really a classic that I think people will herald as a master work by all involved for years to come.
Thanks for your thoughts, Ickysan. I agree with your analysis!
LLM