Customer Reviews

Death of a Salesman [Region 2]

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This version of the venerable Arthur Miller tragedy reunites the Broadway revival cast, all veteran stage actors with strong film and TV résumés. Dustin Hoffman's Willy Loman is a man on the verge of disintegration; he has built himself a façade of Successful Salesman that is crumbling down around his ears. One son still blindly, stupidly worships him (Happy, played by Stephen Lang); the other resents the charade and, despite his father's clichéd supportive affirmations, purposely drifts through life as His Father's Disappointment (Biff, played to a bitter burnish by John Malkovich). Willy's wife Linda plays along, battered by his failed illusions and her sons' unhelpful life choices, knowing Willy's downfall is inevitable but dreading it all the same; Kate Reid is staggering, unforgettable, brilliant, strong yet despairing all at the same time. Charles Durning's turn as the Lomans' supportive neighbor is a small gem.

[For the reviewer who didn't appreciate Hoffman's work in this telefilm, I might ask: Have you actually ever read the play closely? Brian Dennehy is closer to the original Willy Loman-- Lee J. Cobb-- in physical stature and stage presence, but the character as written is a "small man" who imagines himself to be a Titan of Business, so a smaller actor provides interesting subtext and texture. The late, great Mildred Dunnock, the original Linda Loman, noted that Gene Lockhart (who replaced Cobb in the original Broadway production) was much closer to presenting Willy Loman as Miller wrote him; however, as she had built her Linda with Cobb's physically imposing Willy, she had to restructure her performance around Lockhart's smaller Salesman.]

This version does offer moments of lightness to offset the tragedy-- in fact, the fleeting glimpses of happy times make the tragedy of this little family even more shattering. Very worthwhile. Check it out the next time it's on TV!

Dustin Hoffman, John Malkovich shine in this now classic play. Like Nora in Ibsen's "A Doll's House," we have characters confined by prescribed fate looking to climb out into their own.

What is fate?

In this case, Willy Loman is bound by his belief that personality alone, of being liked, is enough to make it to the American Dream. Unable to reconcile that those days never existed, and that hard work involved more than a firm handshake and a smile, he becomes despondent as he thinks of the lost potential. He is reminded in flashbacks and visions of relatives and friends who have succeeded.

His two sons are also confined to Willy's delusions of grandeur. Biff, played by Malkovich, had a future as a football star, but was handicapped by his dad's inhibitions and lack of reality. When he realizes his dad is a failure without integrity, after idolizing him, he concludes he too will be a failure.

Hap, on the other hand, Bif's brother, played by Stephen Lang, is a young Willy. He thinks his dad is right, and although he lives in futile mediocrity, believes dreaming is enough.

Kate Reid plays Willy's wife, Linda. She knows Willy is a failure, but tries to exist within the lie. She never declares the truth, but instead allows Willy to dream without substance.

Willy's hopes are shown worthless when he meets up with those, like Bernard, the nerdy math geek when Bif and Hap were children, and now practicing law in front of the Supreme Court. Willy asks what the secret is. His dream is nothing but the puff of a distortion of a Horatio Alger story, but he won't accept it. Bernard's father, Willy's neighbor, offers him a job, but Willy refuses.

The conflict is about encountering reality, and who will meet the truth. Can Biff live his simple dream of working outside with his hands, but by doing so must destroy the family structure. He knows it, and so he struggles.

Willy Loman's failure is like the hope of an old spiritual show follower, looking for salvation, but not willing to commit to what gets paired with it. It is a search for meaning. Despite a pessimistic premise, there is hope resident in this amazing film.

I fully recommend "Death of a Salesman."

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com

I love Death of a Salesman, and I was fortunate enough to see Brian Dennehy as Willy Loman in the Broadway version. Nothing has ever topped that performance since. Yet, even without that stellar performance to compare it with, I still would have been disappointed with Dustin Hoffman cast as Willy Loman in this movie version. Really, it annoys me that they cast Hoffman in that role when he clearly doesn't even look the part. Hoffman would have been better cast as Charlie, but because he's a big star, I suppose he had to have the leading role. They even changed some of the dialogue to suit Hoffman. For example, at one point in the actual play, Willy is telling his wife about an incident where he overheard some people making fun of him. The line mentions something about the people calling him a walrus. This fits Dennehy because he's such a big man (I'm not calling him a walrus, but he's big and tall). However, they knew how ridiculous that would seem coming from Hoffman, so they changed the lines so that Willy tells his wife that he overheard some people calling him a shrimp.

However, John Malkovitch is superb as Biff, so it may be worth watching for his performance alone.