Drama or Poetry essay

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Andrea Fabulous

Professor Sarah Kiewitz

LIT 2220-501

15 December 2012

Death of a Story

The differences between the text of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and the 1985

film by same name are small, but change the story significantly. The play is an exploration and a

condemnation of a flawed worldview: the idea that goodwill and beauty can be the foundation of

success. “Be liked and you will never want” (1305). This is the key belief, and the principal

mistake that forms the life and death of Willy Loman, the main character, and it is also

fundamental to his family’s misery. The CBS movie, however, shifts and deletes tiny details

which, seem insignificant, but combine to reduce the subject of the play to no more than the

story of a man’s infidelity destroying his son’s life and, ultimately, his own. The original story is

still there -- nearly all of the dialogue and all but one scene match the text -- but the shape of the

story is different. These changes are the most apparent in the casting, in the set design, and in the

actors’ additions to and deviations from Miller’s stage directions. Nearly every aspect of the film

is different in some subtle way. The CBS film attempts to maintain the feel of the original play,

but it is not enough to prevent the loss of Miller’s core message.

The set design is the most controllable, and least faithful element that the film adapts.

Miller’s play is supposed to be performed on a cramped set. The set is of a small house, with a

bedroom above an unseen living room and another one the opposite side. A small kitchen is in

the middle, with a table and chairs taking center-stage. The film could have duplicated the details

of the set, but they didn’t have to. Film is a free medium when it comes to sets, so there was no

Comment [KS1]: Not her real name and this is A++ work. Look to this as a model to shoot for in

terms of careful thought/construction, not a base-line expectation. It’s over the length requirement, uses

more passages from the text than strictly necessary,

etc.

Comment [KS2]: Remember this as a possible thesis helper—pointing out problems of a character’s world view.

Comment [KS3]: Something that could be added here is the director’s name, though it is included on the Works Cited page. This information is available

at imdb.com. This writer lists it in her works cited.

Comment [KS4]: But this is the thesis—an evaluation of how the film does at capturing the text.

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need to adhere to the space restrictions of a stage. Nevertheless, the filmmakers pull the camera

back early in the first act to show that they are filming on a stage. It shows a break in the house

set which is probably a tribute to the theatrical roots of the play, but it is also clearly a metaphor

for Willy Loman’s fractured mind. It fails though, because it seems out of place with the rest of

the film. The filmmakers couldn’t bring themselves to continue violating the conventions of set

design, and this is a problem because the main point of Miller’s stage is to allow the space of the

rooms to be violated by Loman’s memories. “The entire setting,” Miller writes, “is wholly or, in

some places, partially transparent . . . Whenever the action is in the present the actors observe

the imaginary wall-lines . . . But in the scenes of the past these boundaries are broken, and

characters enter or leave a room by stepping ‘through’ a wall onto the forestage” (1293). More

than a just mere metaphor, this creates an atmosphere of a dreamlike unreality. Ideas and

thoughts and dialogue can drift in and out of the space as easily as the actors do. In the film,

however, the hard walls and frequent set changes make the story seem more normal. This lessons

the sense of isolation and Loman’s painful limitations, but worse, it encourages the viewer to

become comfortable with the setting. In the play, though, another person or another memory

might come from anywhere at any time. Nothing in the play is certain. The film uses edits and

sudden set changes to try to produce this feeling of uncertainty, but it fails precisely because it is

a film, and edits like that are common in the film industry.

Casting is another area where film is different from the play. Little attention was paid to

Miller’s instructions for how the characters looked and acted. The 48 year-old Dennis Hoffman

does a very good job as Willy Loman, but he is just not old enough to depict real age. He totters

theatrically in an exaggerated way that an older actor would not. The casting of minor characters,

such as his wife, and Charley, is not very relevant. They could be almost anyone and it would not

Comment [KS5]: The stage directions in the play are in italics, so Fabulous maintains that here. It helps distinguish those passages from passages

spoken in the play.

Comment [KS6]: This writer uses page numbers in her citations instead of line numbers. This is, in part, because she’s citing things that have no line

numbers—the stage directions—frequently. Then

her citation method remains consistent throughout. If you’re only citing lines from the play, choose that

structure.

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take away from the feel of the original play. But the sons were very important and they were

completely miscast. The 32 year-old John Malkovich is almost acceptable as Biff, but he is

hardly “well built” like Miller suggests and he is not an “Adonis” as Willy suggests (1305). He is

also not particularly beautiful like he should be. The fact that he is rather average instead of

astonishingly good looking takes a great deal away from the story. Even more than Biff, his

brother Happy must also be beautiful. He is described by Miller: “tall, powerfully made.

Sexuality is like a visible color on him, a scent that many women have discovered” (1298). The

33 year-old Stephen Lang is many things, but there is definitely no visible color of sexuality

present on any part of his form. He is also not tall and powerfully made. This matters a lot,

because the point is that both boys have successful bodies, but are not successful people. They

are both gorgeous, and Biff was (while Happy is) popular, “Well liked” as Loman would put it,

but not “liked” (1305). They are unsuccessful even though they have every possible physical

advantage, which is key to Miller’s message. He implies that it is not enough to have the tools of

success. It is not even enough to have the attitude of success because Happy is described in the

play as having “never allowed himself to turn his face toward defeat,” something which makes

him “more confused and hard-skinned” than his defeated brother, “although seemingly more

content” (1298). Miller goes out of his way to fail to answer the obvious question that Willy

Loman ultimately asks of Biff’s childhood schoolmate Bernard, a successful lawyer: “What’s the

secret? . . . How did you [succeed]? Why didn’t [Biff]?” (1337). Though it is not Biff he is

asking about, but himself. Why am I a failure despite being well liked? How can my beautiful

sons be failures if they are so well liked? Why are you a success despite the fact that you were

not as good as we are? This can only be apparent if the disparity between Bernard and Loman’s

Comment [KS7]: Notice this great mix of evidence: stage directions, play text, and then clear description of what the writer sees in the film.

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sons is understood. Shoving Malkovich into an ill-fitting high school sweater and putting glasses

an actor nearly equivalent in looks is not enough to make this point.

All these points might have been made if the stage directions were followed. Small details, such

as Happy combing his hair, vainly, as he remembers his first time with a woman, and the “crude”

laugh intended to follow his review of her: “Boy, there was a pig!” (1298).

A worse departure from the play occurs when the boys explain a (doomed) plan to their

parents, and Willy Loman becomes angry at his wife for interrupting his questions (with the

same questions). In the play, he is described as “wildly enthused,” and only “angry” when Biff

tells him to “stop yelling at [his mother]” (1322-1323). In the film, Loman strikes his wife on the

leg hard enough that it causes her to flinch. This is an obvious demonstration of physical abuse.

This is absurdly out of character and almost destroys the sympathy the viewer needs to have for

Willy Loman when his infidelity is revealed. This change to his character makes him essentially

unlikable, which contradicts the entire premise. Loman is “well liked,” and prides himself on it.

A man who is “well liked” might be well liked by many a woman, but he would never hit them.

He wouldn’t have to, and that’s the point of being “well liked.” So for him to beat his wife,

however superficially, is bafflingly out of place. While the play itself is described by one critic as

exploitive to women: “Careful analysis reveals that the American Dream as presented in Death

of a Salesman is male-oriented, but it requires unacknowledged dependence on women as well as

women’s subjugation and exploitation” (Stanton 157). It is not described as overtly violent and

abusive.

Despite its shortcomings, the film is not a total failure. It is well acted. Despite my

criticism above, Hoffman and Malkovich did win Drama Desk Awards (not Tony’s though) for

their overall performances ("Death of a Salesman"). The film also staying true to dialogue--while

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not enough to correct its other mistakes--is uniquely faithful and uniquely exceptional. Where it

fails, however, is in communicating the subtext of the story. On the surface, Death of a Salesman

is a simple and obvious tale: A traveling salesman cheats on his wife, as so many such salesmen

do. He is discovered by his son, who suffers a psychological collapse because of it. He then stops

applying himself, and secretly becomes a criminal. His son’s failure and the salesman’s own

sense of guilt crushes him, and results in dementia. The salesman then kills himself while within

a delusion, in an attempt to atone for his own failures (especially with his son), in the hopes that

his son will then be able to move on with his life.

But that isn’t the story—that is just the plot. The story is about how beauty and friendship

are imaginary, or even superfluous. The story is about how little remains of a man who believes

in himself despite having nothing to believe in. Mainly the story is about how fantasies are not

reality. Dreaming of self-worth does not magically create self-worth: it extracts it. Given that, the

plot could be about man-eating grapefruits from outer space, but still get the main point of the

story across. The film has all the parts of the plot and it keeps true to the play in many ways. It

has most of the words and all of the scenes in close to the original order. But because it ignored

the characters and their setting: in the casting, the directions, and the set design, it doesn’t tell the

story—just the plot.

Comment [KS8]: This shows a keen understanding of the play as written in contrast to the film.

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Works Cited

Death of a Salesman. Dir. Volker Schlöndorff. Perf. Dustin Hoffman. CBS, 1985. Film.

"Death of a Salesman." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Dec. 2013. Web. 01 Dec. 2012.

Miller, Arthur. “Death of a Salesman.” Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Ed. Laurie G.

Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. Boston: Wadsworth, 2010. 1293-1364. Print.

Stanton, Kay. “Women and the American Dream of Death of a Salesman” Death of a Salesman.

New York: Longman, 2011. 156-200. Longman Study Edition. Google Books. Web. 01

Dec. 2012.