Oregon Humanities

On Failure in America

George Karnezis, Portland

“Failure is not an option” is a memorable line from Apollo 13, that cinematic tribute to the can-do spirit of America. The Statue of Liberty plays a similar tune in welcoming immigrants to that green breast of America where characters like Fitzgerald’s Gatsby could believe material success would secure a lost love.

And who can forget Arthur Miller’s failing salesman, Willie Loman? He remains optimistic and inspired by memories of his brother Ben who’d entered that African jungle with nothing and returned dripping in wealth. Willie, desperate for a sense of the value of his life, can think of what that life is worth only in terms of the insurance money his family will collect on his passing. If such literature alerts us to how success can be mixed with painful failure, our cinema sometimes prefers a simpler and more upbeat tale.

In On the Waterfront, for instance, Terry Malloy, a young dockworker, testifies courageously against his corrupt union. In the original rendering, his success is made bittersweet in a final scene where thugs beat him almost to death, leaving his body inert at dockside, his union buddies deserting him as a “pigeon” who tattled to the authorities. Director Elia Kazan, perhaps acknowledging the need for a less subtle kind of heroism, shot an alternate scene that finally made it to the theaters. In it, Terry, bloodied and hardly able to see, rises to his feet and stumbles, Christ-like, to join his supportive fellow workers.

A similar optimism informs Barry Levinson’s film version of Bernard Malamud’s novel The Natural. We watch the hero, slugger Roy Hobbs, succumb to a bribe to perform poorly in the World Series. But in the end we cheer as he redeems himself by hitting a towering homer to win the championship. How different this is from the book, where he strikes out. In Malamud’s book, Hobbs’ redemption occurs the next day when he returns the money and pummels some of the crooks. Nevertheless, it’s clear that he will face bribery charges and his career is over. “Say it ain’t true,” a newsboy says to him. Looking into the boy’s eyes, Malamud writes, “he wanted to say it wasn’t but couldn’t, and he lifted his hands to his face and wept many bitter tears.” We know Hobbs will, despite the purity of his personal contrition, suffer publicly. This subtler heroism appears beyond cinematic reach. Instead, Hollywood prefers that heroic homer so everyone can go home feeling it’s never too late to be a winner.