Bigger Than Life

I saw a movie last night called Bigger Than Life. This has to be one of the most riveting experiences I've ever had in a movie theater! They were showing it at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, and Jared and I rushed over with the highest expectations (after all, it's James Mason and Nicholas Ray), and we were NOT disappointed.

First of all, the color: so much steel blue. SO much blue. Blue like nightmares, blue like depression, blue like the shadow side of things. Color by Deluxe. Very deluxe. The screen was SO WIDE. And very soft, very flattering. Film grain is so gorgeous. None of this rubbery liquidy LCD image, no pixels. Only grain. The titles pop out practically in 3-D. They are on TOP of the image, floating in front. You never get that from digital titles. So, it took me the whole movie just to get used to the sensuousness of it. Entralled by the sheer physicality of it, like the embraces of a lover. So pulled in before anything happened. That happens sometimes with Cinemasope, with dye-imbibed prints. If you're in the mood, it can really carry you away.

But there's more. There's James Mason. What else is there to say? James Mason. Period. Every emotion is so pronounced. Fear, rage, pleasure, pain, haughtiness, megalomania, meekness, despair, ambition, insanity. It's all unbearably clear, so exact. Such an impeccable performance. It really takes your breath away. You are concerned for him from the very first moment you see him. There's something underneath--some sort of pain. What is it? It seems like mental anguish, then it turns out it's physical anguish. He holds his stomach and doubles over in pain. But we can't help but feel that his pain comes from inside. He's too nice a man. He holds things inside. He's a schoolteacher who takes on an extra job as a taxicab dispatcher, but doesn't tell his wife (Barbara Rush), because he doesn't want to worry her. He also hasn't told her about his pains.


One night after bridge party he holds his stomach, and collapses in agony on the floor. It turns out he has a rare disease, which will prove fatal unless he goes on cortisone medication for the rest of his life. After he goes on the cortisone, he changes radically. From a meek man who was lenient with his students, kind and loving to his wife and son, humble to a fault, he becomes agressive, exacting, brutal, critical, vain, ambitious, abusive.

When he comes home from the hospital he goes on a manic shopping spree. Then there is a great scene where he asks his wife to boil kettle after kettle of water for him to take a bath. While waiting for his bath he stares in the mirror, makes an ascot out of a hand towel, lights a cigarette, and admires the image of himself smoking in his bathrobe. When his wife comes in and he imperiously demands another kettle, she loses her temper and slams the cabinet lid closed, shattering the glass. He looks at his fractured reflection in the shattered mirror. She apologizes, and he embraces her with a fierce and terrifying passion.

He furtively takes more pills than he's supposed to, lies to get a refill, then impersonates a doctor to get more pills. As he takes higher and higher dosages, things get worse. He tortures his wife and son beyond belief, and when they finally realize the extent of the danger it's almost too late.

The character's cruelty comes out only with the drug, but it must have been there latently all along. He is frustrated at his petty suburban life, but it can't come out directly. It comes out instead in the form of a rare illness, and then in his abuse of the drugs. He is an intellectual trapped in a small town. This is not merely a fairy tale about a drug gone awry, it's a way of sneering at the values of a society that's too small to hold a man of great stature and intelligence, a man who is BIGGER THAN LIFE.

Nicholas Ray is a great storyteller. His style is mythic, but restrained enough to mirror the inner strain of the character. Very gripping. Never lets up for a second. Barbara Rush is beautiful, empathetic. Great close-ups. James Mason was wearing that weird male makeup they used back then, Male Tan #5 or whatever, it's very orange and looks great on screen next to Barbara Rush's cool ivory tones. She is great as the wife who is married to a monster but loves him all the same. What woman can't identify with that? Very inspiring for my next movie, which will deal extensively with psycho male-female relationships.