Nightmare Alley - Film Noir And The American Dream (14 page)

This was screenwriter Daniel Fuchs’s view; we know it was because he left detailed notes for Henreid and director Steve Sekely, describing Muller as “the superman, the intelligent outlaw, the rebel against a lumpish, indifferent society” (1). The audience, he continues, will “identify with Muller’s ambitions, will wish him well.” He is “a hero—a Napoleon in modern clothes.” But even if he represents “all the longings of the audience to rebel against their own dingy circumstances,”
his ultimate failure will make the audience “feel good,” because it “confirms their resignation.”
²⁴

Fuchs likely exaggerates the audience’s sympathy for Muller, whom Henreid plays with a chilly arrogance. The film, indeed, upsets our intuitive desire to empathize with Muller by portraying him as a cold, self-absorbed character, thereby rendering us as alienated as the other people in the film. Thus, during Muller’s first date with Evelyn, the two watch some ants at work—a metaphor for the straight life that Muller cannot tolerate. A cynic herself, Evelyn knows another when she sees one, and she sketches Muller’s character astutely: “First comes you, second comes you, third comes you, and after that comes you. You’re one of those egotistical smart alecks with big ideas. You think you’ve got a right to get away with murder.” He replies, “No woman alive could possibly resist a man as attractive as all that.” Muller’s fear of Stancyk’s men, we understand, is only one reason he decides to assume Bartok’s identity. He also does it to assert his sense of superiority and for the sheer thrill. No one else in the world matters, so why not take on another man’s identity for a change? Yet Muller does not stand out in a city (it’s Los Angeles this time) where, as Evelyn states, everyone is trying to “take somebody.” Of all the characters in the film, only Fred seems to care for someone else—and even he envies his selfish brother. The world of
Hollow Triumph
is indeed hollow, a realm of radical individualists and guilty bystanders, all alike in their alienation and selfishness.

Muller prepares to adopt the doctor’s identity by reviewing psychology texts, listening to Bartok’s clinical recordings, practicing his signature, taking up smoking, emulating the doctor’s foreign accent.
²⁵
Then he tells Evelyn he’s leaving the country. Not to worry, he assures her; someday she’ll pass him on the street and “won’t even know who I am.” Now comes the moment of transformation: using a photo of Bartok as his guide, Muller gazes into a mirror, surgical instruments arrayed before him. In one shot we see three versions of the same person: the man in the photo, the man in the mirror, and the man (seen only from behind) staring into the mirror. Muller, who has already made a career of assuming various roles—prisoner, phony psychiatrist, gang leader, and cab driver (his current cover)—will soon own three identities at once: Muller, Bartok, and a third persona created by the blend of the two. After Muller injects his face with anesthetic, the camera stays on his cigarette, which, over two dissolves, burns a “scar” into the desk. He holds a photo of Bartok as he draws a line on his own face. In the photo, as seen in its mirror reflection, the doctor’s distinctive vertical scar marks what looks to be his left side (which is, in fact, his right side, since we and Muller see only its mirror image). Therefore Muller marks and cuts his right side
(he does
not
mark his left side, as Pelizzon and West assert: 7).
²⁶
Yet when he returns to the photo shop where the picture was developed to pick up the negative, the clerk doesn’t have the time (or the courage) to inform the curt Muller that the photo was flopped: Bartok’s scar is actually on the
left
side of his face. Muller has scarred himself on the right (that is, the wrong) side! The other clerk says it’s no problem; he has flopped hundreds of negatives and “they never notice. … Instead of being on the left side of the face, the scar is on the right. Well, is that so terrible?” It’s terrible for Muller, who now attempts to appropriate Bartok’s identity while wearing a mirror image of the doctor’s scar. His mistake is telling: although he has seen Bartok in person, he has nevertheless confused the doctor’s mirror image with his real face. In short, Muller is as unobservant as everyone else. But his “mistake” may not really be a mistake; perhaps, as Santos suggests, it is a “Freudian slip” indicating that Muller wants to “assert his own identity” (33). Muller’s handiwork is like that of a forger, whose success depends on its
not
being recognized as such. Perhaps this “egocentric smart aleck” wishes his work to be noticed; or perhaps he unconsciously wishes to be caught. In any case, the scene demonstrates that only by careful observation can we distinguish the dexter from the sinister—whether they appear in a mirror, in a photo, or in real life.

In any case, during the cutting sequence we never see Muller in full shot; we see only his face or head, with separate shots depicting his hands and torso. Muller’s head and body are separated, as if he is amputating himself—as the editing does. Thus Pelizzon and West are correct that the scarring scene, like the surgery sequence in
Dark Passage
, “links the diegetic cutting of Muller’s face with the extra-diegetic cutting of the film strip” (par. 26). If “photographic technology is presented as the domain of mishaps and flaws” (par. 28), and the film we are watching reveals the photograph’s error, Pelizzon and West continue, cinema is therefore presented as a “higher … authority” than photography. But the paradox is actually the same one found in the forgery noirs we encounter in
chapter 4
: the film
at once
asserts its superiority to photography and undermines that claim by revealing the unreliability of cinematography. Of course, the real flaw is not in the photographs but rather, as Pelizzon and West’s and Muller’s mistakes about the scar’s placement reveal, in faulty human powers of observation.
Hollow Triumph
questions the veracity of the cinematic medium because, like photographs, it is only as reliable as human perception. And because we humans are “scarred”—fallible, inattentive—our communication and connection can never be perfect. Hence, like those “it was only a dream” films discussed in
chapter 1
,
Hollow Triumph
denies the viewer’s belief in what he or she sees onscreen, even while immersing us in that alternate world.

With his scar in place Muller carries out his plan by getting Bartok alone in his cab and murdering him.
²⁷
We don’t witness the murder, which is rendered as a quasi-expressionist montage of faces and voices that concludes with a stop sign changing to “Go.” As in the scarring scene, the director’s and editor’s cuts hide the physical violence, again reminding us that our perceptions are subject to manipulation. But Muller’s observation is now direct, and as he examines the body, he discovers his mistake. Yet he has no choice but to proceed with the impersonation. It’s an ironic moment when the dentist who had originally noted Muller’s resemblance to Bartok fails to register the reversed scar, while boasting about his own superior powers of observation. Four out of five men, he asserts, wouldn’t notice if “the next fella was breathing or dying.” Most people are so caught up in their own “petty little … preoccupations,” he declares, “all they can think about and talk about is themselves.”

The next scene, a montage of Dr. Bartok “treating” his patients, proves him right. He chain-smokes meditatively but says nothing as they lament their lonely, unloved lives. Ironically, the man who had boasted of his lack of interest in others now must feign such interest to maintain his imposture: he must efface himself. The patients never notice that their doctor has been supplanted by a double, and perhaps don’t care, for what they really need is someone to listen and make them feel important. The clinical setting permits them to make a connection, albeit fleeting, commodified, and one-sided, with another human. Thus, while
Hollow Triumph
depicts psychoanalysis as a con game, masquerade, and, as the
next scenes imply (echoing
Spellbound
), a type of gambling, it also insinuates that it serves a necessary function in a modern urban society that lacks true intimacy. Still, the chief point is not so much, as Pelizzon and West propose, that “Bartok’s” patients prefer him to the “real” doctor (par. 12), as that the two men are the same: just as Muller was already a psychoanalyst (as was revealed in his first scene with Evelyn), so Bartok is already a thief and gambler.

When, the next day, Evelyn tells the doctor he has been “strange,” he accuses her of “seeing somebody” (she was “seeing” him as Muller, but doesn’t “see” him as Bartok) and of bitterness. She answers, “It’s a bitter little world full of sad surprises, and you don’t go around letting people hurt you.” She hasn’t trusted anyone since she was nine years old. “You never can go back and start again, because the older you grow, the worse everything turns out.” In other words your current self incorporates the past; your experiences may scar you, but they also make you wiser. “Bartok” isn’t really listening, because her words forecast why his carefully planned masquerade will fail: in believing he can sever himself from his past, he only dooms himself to repeat his own mistakes. Like Markham, Thompson, and Parry, Muller “kills” himself to become someone else. At the end of his journey, however, he discovers the Emersonian truth that to become Bartok is only to become more himself. But first he must be subjected to further ironies. One occurs when Fred returns, looking for his brother, and passes along the news that Stancyk is about to be deported and is no longer pursuing John. Fred pleads with “Bartok”: “You don’t know him. He’s smart, got big ideas, willing to take any kind of chance.” Bartok puts him off, but Fred is right—John Muller doesn’t know himself. As the barred shadows on the wall indicate, this escapee has moved from the state’s prison to one of his own making and is now trapped in the identity he so hates and loves, in a world where no one cares for anyone else.

Evelyn has learned the truth about Bartok, and plans to leave the country on the next ship. During their last conversation Muller/Bartok reiterates his philosophy: “You take care of yourself and that’s all!” She replies sarcastically, “Watch out for number one; always play it for yourself.” Bartok: “That’s right. … This is the way it is and you know it.” He slaps her, but by the end of the argument he has agreed to leave with her: for once the characters have revealed some genuine emotion. Then, as Bartok makes his way out of the building, the film’s most tender moment takes place. A cleaning lady stops him and hesitantly points out that his scar used to be on the other side. He smiles, touches her face, and gently squeezes her shoulder. This humble woman, who has seen him many times but whose existence he has never acknowledged, thinks he is important. Only she
notices “Bartok’s” scar because no one else really sees him; they see only their idea of him, their own needs and prejudices mirrored. Not one other soul gives a damn for Victor Bartok; in abandoning his own identity, Muller has sacrificed his ties to others.

Nor does he make it to the ship: on the way he is accosted by goons looking for Bartok, who owes Maxwell’s casino $90,000 in gambling debts. These are Bartok’s debts, not Muller’s: the eminent psychiatrist also took too many chances.
²⁸
Facing death, “Bartok” pleads that he’s really Muller: see, the scar is on the wrong side! Ironically, when Muller tries to assert his “real” identity, nobody believes him. But why should they? The film has shown not only that he
is
Bartok but that he
always has been
Bartok. John Muller has succeeded too well—erased himself and been accepted as Victor Bartok—but it is a hollow triumph, for Bartok was a hollow man. As he lies dying on the pier, he gazes up at the people waving, but not one of them is waving to him. At this moment he is neither Bartok nor Muller; he is not even a geek, for at least those pathetic figures magnetize the eyes of others. He is nobody at all—just a dying animal, frightened and alone. After he expires, bustling crowds pass his body without a second look. Muller’s exciting experiment has left him in nightmare alley with nothing, not even a name.
²⁹

Bartok was a lie that even Muller believed. But Muller can’t escape himself, and he brings with him his own flaws—the same flaws Bartok possessed. Muller’s hyperindividualist worldview is thus exposed as empty. Yet his repellent philosophy is also enacted by virtually every other character, all those people who never notice Bartok’s reversed scar, the self-involved throngs who don’t register a dead man lying at their feet. Even more thoroughly than
Dark Passage, Hollow Triumph
portrays an unredeemed world of isolates where the American Dream of liberty, self-determination, self-reinvention, and the pursuit of happiness has become a grotesque travesty. In short, the ending, as Fuchs’s notes state, validates Muller’s cynicism (59). Pure freedom is embodied by the ability to change your identity at will, but that freedom generates a world that has undergone fission. In such a world, freedom is indistinguishable from imprisonment.