The Arrangement (1969)
Screen: Kazan’s ‘The Arrangement’:Adaptation of His Book Is Directed by Him Kirk Douglas Portrays the Main Character
“THE Arrangement” is Elia Kazan’s most romantic movie. It may also be his worst, in cinematic terms, and his most successful, at the box office. There is no other way to characterize the sort of sincerely intended kitsch in which Faye Dunaway, looking so cool and elegant that the sight of her almost pinches the optic nerves, can be seriously described as “the office tramp.” Or in which a puffy, matronly Deborah Kerr can proclaim herself “prettier” than Miss Dunaway (neither one of them is “pretty”), or in which Kirk Douglas, when he tries to commit suicide, employs such symbols of rare status as a Triumph TR 4 and a privately owned Cessna.
The Arrangement” reeks with slightly absurd movie chic but, unlike Douglas Sirk’s “Written on the Wind” or Vincente Minnelli’s “Two Weeks in Another Town,” it’s not only not much fun, but it’s a mess of borrowed styles. What’s worse is that it may be largely incomprehensible, on a simple narrative level, unless one has read Kazan’s best-selling, 543-page short story that the director has more or less synopsized in his movie.
Technically, I suppose, the published version of “The Arrangement” IS a novel (reportedly, a semi-autobiographical one). However, it reads like a short story that has been inflated by pointless plot digressions and by fat paragraphs of banal dialogue, recorded with the sort of fidelity that might better be given radio signals from Venus. In an attempt to include as much of the original material as possible in a slightly more than two-hour movie, Kazan opens his film about one-third of the way into the novel and closes it about one-third of the way from the end, flashing forwards and backwards within the film to cover the material deleted.
Eddie Anderson (Kirk Douglas), né Evangelos Topouzoglu, a second generation Greek-American, is a West Coast advertising wizard (“Zephyr—the Clean Cigarette!”). He has an intelligent wife (Deborah Kerr), a fine house, three cars, push-buttons for everything (TV sets, garage doors, wristwatch alarms, lawn sprinklers), and a magnificent physical animal for a mistress (Faye Dunaway) who, unfortunately for Eddie, makes him realize he is not happy.
One day, quite consciously, Eddie drives his Triumph TR 4 into the side of a trailer truck. From that moment on, Eddie tries to reorganize a life that has become a series of “arrangements” — compromises, adaptations and adjustments that have destroyed his self-respect. The effort takes the form first of a catatonic withdrawal, succeeded by a hysterical binge. He abandons his wife, pursues his mistress to New York and confronts his old Greek father, who, like Eddie, also is dying, though only physically.
¶While all of this is fitfully interesting as melodrama, it does have some genuine fascination as Kazan’s Panavision-Technicolor fantasy about himself. Kazan, who has made some very good films (“A Streetcar Named Desire,” “On the Waterfront”), has turned his own life into slick, second-rate movie-fiction. It is glossily photographed, scored to the point of madness with Greek bouzouki music and enacted by performers who elicit automatic responses from audiences who know them as movie stars. It might have been interesting, for instance, if someone on the order of a young Sam Jaffe had played the Douglas role.
¶Having provided himself with a confused script, Kazan, the director, has had something of an artistic breakdown. The film is full of scenes of rather grossly depicted, middle-aged sensuality (Miss Kerr, the unsatisfied wife, fondling her own breast, then caressing a phallic, balcony stay) and nudity (mostly from the rear—the camera seems always to catch the characters on the point of departure).
¶In flashbacks, Kazan uses stage devices of the 1950’s. Douglas participates as an adult in reenactments of scenes from his youth. At another point Kazan lets him fantasize the beating up of a rival by picturing the words ‘Pow!” “Zap!” ‘Zowie!”, as if “The Arrangement” had suddenly turned into “Batman.” Kazan even puts his curious signature on the film by allowing one of Douglas’s old Greek uncles (a character who has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie) to recall his arrival in this country in what is actually an out-take from an earlier Kazan film, “America, America.”
Unlike Francois Truffaut, who transformed his own experiences into disciplined, poetic film visions (“The 400 Blows,” “Love at 20,” “Stolen Kisses”), Kazan seems to have turned his search for identity into a callous soap opera, unworthy of a man of Kazan’s true talent. The film, which had its premiere last night at the Trans-Lux West, starts continuous performances today at both the Trans-Lux West and Trans-Lux East.
The Cast
THE ARRANGEMENT, screenplay by Elia Kazan, based on his novel “The Arrangement;” directed and produced by Mr. Kazan; released by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts. At the Trans-Lux West, Broadway at 49th Street and the Trans-Lux East, Third Avenue and 58th Street. Running time: 127 minutes. (The Motion Picture Association of America’s Production Code and Rating Administration classifies this film: “R—restricted—persons under 16 not admitted, unless accompanied by parent or adult guardian.”)
Eddie . . . . . Kirk Douglas
Gwen . . . . . Faye Dunaway
Florence . . . . . Deborah Kerr
Sam . . . . . Richard Boone
Arthur . . . . . Hume Cronyn
Chet . . . . . Barry Sullivan
Michael . . . . . Michael Higgins
Charles . . . . . John Randolph Jones
Gloria . . . . . Carol Rossen
http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9502E5DF1F3FE53BBC4152DFB7678382679EDE
IL COMPROMESSO
Trama
Eddie Anderson possiede tutto ciò che si può desiderare: denaro, affermazione professionale (è un pubblicitario di successo), un soddisfacente ménage con la moglie Florence. L’incontro con Gwen sarà la molla che lo spingerà a riconsiderare valori che parevano inamovibili.
Commento
Kazan sceneggia un suo romanzo dai forti risvolti autobiografici, ricavandone un sofferto bilancio esistenziale e, al contempo, una riflessione sulle inquietudini antiborghesi che attraversavano la società contemporanea. Per il personaggio di Eddie, il regista di origini greco-turche avrebbe voluto Marlon Brando che però, dopo aver inizialmente accettato, declinò l’invito.
http://www.filmtv.it/film/28002/il-compromesso/
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Evangelos Arness, un uomo di mezza età, conduce una doppia vita: con lo pseudonimo di Evans Arness è un giornalista intransigente che lancia critiche severe alla società, mentre col nome di Eddie Anderson lavora in una grossa agenzia pubblicitaria e mentendo con slogan commerciali garantisce un tenore di vita decisamente borghese alla sua famiglia. Questo “compromesso” sembra funzionare a meraviglia, finché l’incontro con la giovane Gwen lo costringe a uscire dagli schemi e dalle ipocrisie per guardarsi finalmente allo specchio: tra piccole tragedie domestiche, sbronze colossali, provocazioii e gesti liberatori, Evangelos/Evans/Eddie decide di gettare tutto all’aria, per provare a ricominciare a vivere. Pubblicato nel 1967, “Il compromesso” anticipa con grande lucidità la rivolta contro quei valori della media borghesia contestati poi negli anni ’70, smascherando la natura e la sorte del sogno americano, ormai ridotto a incubo in technicolor.
http://www.bibliotu.it/.do?idDoc=0303391&tabDoc=tabcomm#0
The Arrangement (novel) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia