I hate alcoholism. It’s something that just creeps me out. Whether TV or reality, I’ve always hated seeing people unable to go on without having a drink. Watching “The Lost Weekend” is both a painful and enjoyable experience. Why enjoyable? It’s a magnificent movie.
I can only fault it for its ending. The happy ending doesn’t quite ring true, but apparently the novel was based on the author’s own experiences, and so I suppose it was real, but the way it is handled is out of tone. The dramatic gesture of dropping the cigarette into the glass looks good, but just feels wrong. Even so, this movie has done more for me than all the anti-alcoholism slogans I got fed at school. I’m sure that some kind of happy ending was necessary for studio backing, and it was probably as good an ending as Billy Wilder was allowed to make.
Other than that, Wilder creates a sadistic, seedy world in New York. Everyone Don knows, other than Helen is at the least unsympathetic, either to him, or in their nature (his brother is also an exception, but he gives up on Don). The passers-by on the street, the landlady, the hospital nurse, the girl in the bar (I forget her name), even the barman isn’t overly nice. Don himself treats everyone around him badly – his brother, Helen, the liquor store owner, and he attempts to steal a lady’s purse. He collapses down stairs, and is driven to want to kill himself.
And somehow we feel sympathy for such a despicable character. Even though he doesn’t want to change his ways. Don explains to us why he drinks – it makes him feel so good, and we can relate to that. We’ve all done something that was wrong because it was enjoyable. What we can’t always relate to is how awful he feels after the alcohol has worn off. The theme of control is obvious – Don feels like he owns the world when drinking, but is a slave when not.
He becomes desperate, he sweats, he can’t control himself. When he sees other people like him, not even this makes him want to change – he only wants to get out of the hospital. The hospital scenes and the scene where Don imagines the mouse and the bat are horrifying. Imagine how silly the latter scene could have been. A fantasy scene in the middle of realistic drama. But it’s scary.
Ray Milland is truly brilliant as Don. The role is a total minefield. The temptation to overact is huge. To slur dialogue, to walk with a swagger…but Don has an intelligence, an awareness, that means that he’s not just a drunk. There is a mind somewhere in the alcoholic, and Milland finds it, getting some emotion from the audience because of what Don could have been.
There is one shot in this movie that is especially striking. When Don is hunting for that second bottle, there is low-angle shot that has the bottle in the lamp over Don’s head. Is it a halo, and thus a sign that it will make Don feel better? Or is the bottle something that constantly hangs over him? Both are true.
“The Lost Weekend” is, I think, a better film than “Leaving Las Vegas”, an obvious successor. Both films feature a largely unlikeable anti-hero who is an alcoholic. In “Vegas”, Ben Sanderson (Nick Cage) is determined to drink himself to death, but Don Birnam just drinks. We aren’t sure if he’s trying to live or trying to die until we hear about the gun. Somewhere along the line Don makes that choice, but Ben’s is already made.
Recently I reviewed “Anchors Aweigh”, which was in competition with “The Lost Weekend” for the Best Picture Academy Award. What would you choose – a movie whose highlight is a dance with a mouse, or a tough, unrelenting movie that wrecks you emotionally and offers genuine insight into alcoholism?
A New York writer hits the bottle and lands in Bellevue with delirium tremens. Oscars for best picture, director Billy Wilder, actor Milland.More at HotMovieSale.com
The Best Picture of 1945 has lost none of its bite or power in this uncompromising look at the devastating effects of alcoholism. Ironically, this bri...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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