The winner of the Oscar for the Best Picture at the 1950 award ceremony is the story of Willie Stark, an honest man from the people, who fights for the rights of the working class and rises in the world of politics to the position of governor, which he then wholeheartedly abuses.
Whether a person has to be corrupt to be successful in politics or politics corrupts people ... this is one of those "Which came first, the chicken or the egg" questions. Whatever it is, it doesn't change the fact that politics is a dirty game in which regular folks suffer the most. What separates this political drama from most political films is that it does not propagate or satirize any specific political option, but is a satire of politics in itself and presents it as a brutal and ruthless game, as it, for the most part, really is.
At a time when people still believed in the illusion of the "American Dream", this film was much more shocking than today, when the real face of politics has been revealed countless times and when theories of political conspiracies have become part of everyday life. But although in that respect, as well as, of course, technical aspects and production, the film is somewhat outdated, as time passes, its essence is becoming more and more relevant. I believe that the novel, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is much better than its adaptation and that the fans of the book are somewhat justifiably disappointed and, true, the film seemed to me, who did not read the book, at times hasty and incomplete, but the impact it had at the time of its origin, the Oscar-winning performances of Broderick Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge and the satire applicable to politics of all eras, make it a classic worthy of attention.
7/10.
Whether a person has to be corrupt to be successful in politics or politics corrupts people ... this is one of those "Which came first, the chicken or the egg" questions. Whatever it is, it doesn't change the fact that politics is a dirty game in which regular folks suffer the most. What separates this political drama from most political films is that it does not propagate or satirize any specific political option, but is a satire of politics in itself and presents it as a brutal and ruthless game, as it, for the most part, really is.
At a time when people still believed in the illusion of the "American Dream", this film was much more shocking than today, when the real face of politics has been revealed countless times and when theories of political conspiracies have become part of everyday life. But although in that respect, as well as, of course, technical aspects and production, the film is somewhat outdated, as time passes, its essence is becoming more and more relevant. I believe that the novel, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is much better than its adaptation and that the fans of the book are somewhat justifiably disappointed and, true, the film seemed to me, who did not read the book, at times hasty and incomplete, but the impact it had at the time of its origin, the Oscar-winning performances of Broderick Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge and the satire applicable to politics of all eras, make it a classic worthy of attention.
7/10.