Death of a Salesman (1985 film)

Plot

Willy Loman (Dustin Hoffman) returns home exhausted after a canceled business trip. Worried over Willy's state of mind and recent car crash, his wife Linda (Kate Reid) suggests that he asks his boss Howard Wagner (Jon Polito) to allow him to work in his home city so he will not have to travel. Willy complains to Linda that their son Biff (John Malkovich), who is visiting, has yet to make good on his life. Despite Biff's promise as an athlete in high school, he flunked senior year math and never went to college.

Willy is prone to frequent flashbacks in which he sees events and figures from his past, such as his long-deceased older brother Ben (Louis Zorich), Willy's idol. Unable to distinguish between his memories and present-day reality, he speaks to the people in his flashbacks as if they were real, startling those around him. Biff and his brother Happy (Stephen Lang), who is also visiting, discuss their father's mental degradation while reminiscing about their childhood together. When Willy walks in, angry that the two boys have never amounted to anything, Biff and Happy tell Willy that Biff plans to make a business proposition the next day in an effort to pacify their father.

The next day, Willy goes to ask Howard for a job in town while Biff goes to make a business proposition, but neither are successful. Willy gets angry and ends up getting fired when Howard tells him that he needs a rest and can no longer represent the company. Biff waits hours to see a former employer who does not remember him and turns him down. Biff impulsively steals a fountain pen. Willy then goes to the office of his neighbor, Charley (Charles Durning), where he runs into Charley's son Bernard (David S. Chandler) (now a successful lawyer). Bernard tells him that Biff originally wanted to do well in summer school to salvage his academic and athletic career after flunking math, but something happened in Boston when Biff made an emergency trip there to seek help from Willy, who was then on a sales trip, that changed Biff's mind.

Happy, Biff, and Willy meet for dinner at a restaurant, but Willy refuses to hear bad news from Biff. Happy tries to get Biff to lie to their father. Biff tries to tell him what happened as Willy gets angry and slips into a flashback] of what happened in Boston the day Biff came to see him. Willy had been in a hotel on a sales trip with a young woman named Miss Francis (Kathryn Rossetter) when Biff unexpectedly arrived and realized that Willy was cheating on Linda. From that moment, Biff's view of his father and all of his father's cherished hopes and dreams for him changed irrevocably, setting Biff adrift.

Biff leaves the restaurant in frustration, followed by Happy and two girls (Linda Kozlowski and Karen Needle) that Happy has picked up. They leave a confused and upset Willy behind in the restaurant. When they later return home, their mother angrily confronts them for abandoning their father while Willy remains talking to himself outside. Biff goes outside to try to reconcile with Willy. The discussion quickly escalates into another argument, at which point Biff forcefully tries to convey to his father that he is not meant for anything great, that he is simply ordinary, insisting that they both are. The feud culminates with Biff hugging Willy and crying as he tries to get him to let go of the unrealistic dreams that he still carries for Biff and wants instead for Willy to accept him for who he really is. He tells his father he loves him.

Rather than listen to what Biff actually says, Willy realizes that his son has forgiven him and thinks that Biff will now pursue a career as a businessman. Willy -- with encouragement from Ben, whom he "sees" and speaks to in one of his flashbacks -- kills himself by intentionally crashing his car so that Biff can use the life insurance money to start his business. However, at the funeral, Biff retains his belief that he does not want to become a businessman. Happy, on the other hand, chooses to follow in his father's footsteps.

Cast

Reception

The film received critical acclaim. On review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an overall 100% approval rating based on 8 reviews, with a rating average of 8.4 out of 10.

Style

The film is mostly told from the point of view of the protagonist, Willy, and the previous parts of Willy's life are revealed in the analepsis, sometimes during a present day scene. It does this by having a scene begin in the present time, and adding characters onto the screen whom only Willy can see and hear, representing characters and conversations from other times and places.

Many dramatic techniques are also used to represent these time shifts. For example, leaves often appear around the current setting (representing the leaves of the two elm trees which were situated next to the house, prior to the development of the apartment blocks). Biff and Happy are dressed in high school football sweaters and are accompanied with the "gay music of the boys". The characters will also be allowed to pass through the walls that are impassable in the present, as told in Miller's original stage directions in the opening of ACT 1, "Whenever the action is in the present the actors observe the imaginary wall-lines, entering the house only through its door at the left. 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 fore-stage."

However some of these time shifts/imaginings occur when there are present characters on-screen. For example, during a conversation between Willy and his neighbor Charley, Willy's brother Ben comes on screen and begins talking to Willy while Charley speaks to Willy. When Willy begins talking to his brother, the other characters do not understand to whom he is talking, and some of them even begin to suspect that he has "lost it." However, at times it breaks away from Willy's point of view and focuses on the other characters: Linda, Biff, and Happy. During these parts of the film, the time and place stay constant without any abrupt flashbacks that usually happen while the play takes Willy's point of view.

The film's structure resembles a stream of consciousness account. Willy drifts between his living room, downstage, to the apron and flashbacks of an idyllic past, and also to fantasized conversations with Ben. When we are in the present the characters abide by the rules of the set, entering only through the stage door to the left. However, when we visit Willy's "past" these rules are removed, with characters openly moving through walls. Whereas the term "flashback" as a form of cinematography for these scenes is often heard, Miller himself rather speaks of "mobile concurrences." In fact, flashbacks would show an objective image of the past. Miller's mobile concurrences, however, rather show highly subjective memories. Furthermore, as Willy's mental state deteriorates, the boundaries between past and present are destroyed, and the two start to exist in parallel.

Home media

The film was released on DVD January 28, 2003 by Image Entertainment. A Blu-ray Disc edition by Shout Factory was released on November 15, 2016.

Awards and nominations