[ad_1]
Every now and again a star will completely eviscerate their own image, playing a character worthy of Greek Tragedy for their ethical flaws and ambiguities. Humphrey Bogart certainly did in 1948 when he starred in none other than John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, now turning 75.
Whether it’s Casablanca or The Maltese Falcon, Humphrey Bogart rarely ever starred in a scene where he wasn’t the absolute focal point of not just slickness, but righteousness too. Casablanca timeless love story sees his character arc go from isolationist to interventionist, choosing to put aside his feelings for his long-lost love to aid her new lover in his attempts to fight the Nazis. It’s far from a happy ending, but it showcases how even beneath a cold and stoic demeanor lies a morally aligned heart of gold. The trend for leading men’s insistence on looking good in the films they star in has far from dissipated over time. We live in a world in which two of the biggest stars of the Fast & Furious franchise implement clauses within their contracts to ensure they won’t be defeated or even punched too many times on-screen. However, in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre audiences got to see a whole new, much less appealing side of Humphrey Bogart.
What Happens in ‘The Treasure of Sierra Madre’?
Wildly heralded as one of Bogart’s greatest performances, even if it wasn’t recognized as such upon release (Bogart was snubbed for the Academy Award that year in spite of the picture’s four other deserving nominations), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is far from the treasure-hunting adventure flick that its title and classic pedigree would lead one to believe it is. It concerns itself much less with the adventure behind guerrilla prospecting and much more with character, specifically as it pertains to the degradation of man in the face of greed. Case in point: Dobbs (Bogart), Curtin (Tim Holt), and Howard (the film’s voice of reason, played by the director’s own father Walter Huston in his Academy Award-winning performance) find the gold by the end of the first act, with only a couple setbacks comprising the struggle for the gold itself. What follows is the struggle between them and Dobbs’ moral malevolence as he slowly metamorphoses from honest man to paranoid thief. Perhaps that offers a reason as to why Bogart was ill-received at the time; those expecting Treasure Island couldn’t take it when the picture they saw had much more in common with Macbeth.
Initially, Humphrey Bogart’s Dobbs Is an Honest Man
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre opens on Bogart not as a hapless hero or downtrodden freedom fighter or even a gangster with his own power and agency. Rather, the film opens on Bogart as a beggar in Mexico, heavily contrasting the characters of war heroes and social elites that dominated the box office of the era (from Gone with the Wind to The Best Years of Our Lives). To see one of Hollywood’s top leading men in such a miserable state proved contradictory to the wish fulfillment that he offered in previous roles, for even gangsters onscreen serve some purpose of wish fulfillment to the audience’s darkest desires. His introduction as a beggar offers no founding of aspiration for the audience to identify with, instead simply feeling sorry or dare it be said, even disgusted by the pity he invokes.
However, he is not without his morals. He makes a point throughout the film’s opening act that he will never double-cross to take anything more than he feels he is owed, proving it when after beating up an old boss attempting to swindle him out of earnings from his work on an oil rig, he counts exactly what he’s owed from his devious former employer and leaves the rest of his money on his unconscious body. Here, he has a chance to steal more but explicitly refuses to, showcasing how, though he may be a sincere beggar, he is far from greedy. After winning the local lottery (with a ticket bought from a very young Robert Blake), he even decides to front his winnings so that he, Curtin and Howard can gather the materials necessary for their prospecting adventure, doing so without expecting anything in return. This sets the stage for the corruption to come.
Humphrey Bogart’s Dobbs Is Pure Evil
Upon finding the gold, we see other members of Dobbs’s party, specifically Curtin, contemplate backstabbing when he hesitates to save Dobbs from a collapse in the mine. After an argument, Curtin offers to pay back Dobbs what he owes him for the money he put up, only for Dobbs to scatter it amid the dirt. The righteousness still dwells within Dobbs and for a moment, its Curtin who we assume will serve as the film’s force of evil. Almost directly after do we see his paranoia begin to consume Dobbs, second-guessing his partners’ intentions when they stray from his sight. The rest of the film doesn’t just see Bogart turning evil, a la Al Pacino in Scarface, in which though evil, he’ still depicted as somewhat aspirational. Instead, he’s weak, frightened, trembling, and straight cowardly, directly juxtaposing the hardened man’s man Bogart was known worldwide for portraying.
Even when it’s clear that the film is in fact more interested in Bogart’s moral degradation, master writer-director John Huston throws several antagonistic forces the trio’s way, whether it’s Curtin himself, the lone prospector who stumbles on their camp, the way-side bandits, or the Federales (the latter of whom are responsible for the film’s most famously misquoted line: “We don’t need no stinkin’ badges”). This serves to constantly falsely reassure the audience that there are greater evils than Bogart’s Dobbs out there, when in truth, the reality of the film’s true evil was far too bleak for a mass audience to stomach at the time.
After Cody’s Death, Dobbs Takes an Even More Sinister Turn
Dobbs’s dark inversion of a character arc is cemented when, upon the death of Cody (the aforementioned lone prospector, portrayed by Bruce Bennett), Curtin and Howard decide to send some of their shares to the family he was attempting to provide for. Dobbs, unmoved by this moral dilemma, staunchly refuses. The last act involves him shooting Curtin after an argument, leaving him seriously injured while Howard (proving his status as the team’s moral compass) is off being honored for his healing of an ill village boy. The shooting takes places after Curtin has saved his life several times and even entertained Dobbs’s growing sleep-deprived madness, giving him his gun back after his attempts to shoot him. After shooting Curtin, Dobbs sleeps by the fire and in a beautiful moment of character-led imagery, has the camera linger on his sleeping body consumed by the flames of absolute greed. Corrupted in his entirety, Dobbs takes all the gold, and meets his comeuppance when he’s ambushed by bandits who, mistaking his gold to be sand, abandon his treasure like the trash that their squabbling reduced it to.
Not only is Humphrey Bogart’s role in The Treasure of Sierra Madre the closest he’s come to Shakespearian tragedy, but his role in the film showed the world that Hollywood stars don’t always have to play heroes, changing the game for the star system altogether. The result is a timeless masterpiece that’s inspired some of the greatest works of cinematic art of the modern era, as directly as Daniel Day-Lewis’ oil prospector in There Will Be Blood or as broadly as Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.
[ad_2]
Source link
Armessa Movie News