Struan 1961 - Adm.monash.edu

MILLER IN THE WILDERNESS"The Misfits" is Arthur Miller's first work ofmajor importance since his marriage with Hollywood.It is his first screenplay and the filmedproduction was made by one of Hollywood's betterdirectors. At first glance its setting and charactersappear to provide Miller with the raw materials foranother of the plays he writes so well--the socialplay in which the individual is the crucial element.But before we read the play or see the film, thereis a fleeting doubt about the bona fides of a filmwhich has as its protagonists Clark Gable andMarilyn-in roles which are almost distilled versionsof whatever is symbolised by their own screenimage. In fact this gloomy feeling is reinforced asthe film progresses, until our final judgment mustbe that Miller has succumbed to a weak compromisebetween artistic integrity and the box office. InMiller's case this is sadder than usual, because histalent is far greater than that which is usuallycompromised in this way. "The Misfits" is thetypically modern film with pretentions to answeringartistic problems but which is never allowed to getoff the ground where it is bound to the box office.Despite Miller's patently obvious good intentionsand sincerity, the film remains sensationalismtouched by high-mindedness,Page FourteenMax GilliesThe story opens with a grand flourish of symbolism.We are in Reno, the place of easy marriageand easy divorce, the symbol of our Lost Innocence.The two male characters we meet first have failedto establish themselves in their society. Theserootless characters exist on the Nevada flats andwe are reminded continually of their being "the lastREAL men on earth". Gay (Gable) is the debonairecowhand past middle-age, and not as yet undulyworried by his alienation. Guido, aggressive in his"masculinity", indulges in a bloated image ofhimself as an outsider who doesn't really care ifhe stays outside. The symbol of his failure is ahalf-completed house built in the wilderness fora wife who deserted him by dying.Marilyn (or Roslyn, as she is called in the film)arrives on the scene. A tragic little night clubsinger from Nowhere in Particular, she is here toget a divorce. Her utter simplicity would amountto nothing more than a severe deficiency inintelligence if it were not for the elaborate superstructureof symbolism which builds her into acrusader for a return to human values: a symbolof the feminity which is the "humanising" influencein our society. Marilyn, it appears then, is to bethe Woman, and Gable the Man.STRUANj