Synopsis
The story of the handful of hope that became a fistful of hell!
A friendly, successful suburban teacher and father grows dangerously addicted to cortisone, resulting in his transformation into a household despot.
Bigger Than Life
1956 Directed by Nicholas Ray
Cast
James Mason Barbara Rush Walter Matthau Robert F. Simon Christopher Olsen Roland Winters Rusty Lane Rachel Stephens Kipp Hamilton Betty Caulfield Virginia Carroll Renny McEvoy Billy Jones Dee Aaker Jerry Mathers Portland Mason Natalie Masters Richard Collier Lewis Charles Gus Schilling Alex Frazer Mary McAdoo Mary Carver Eugenia Paul Gladys Richards David Bedell Joseph Mell George Chester
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Alternative Titles
De Deur naar de Afgrond, Eine Handvoll Hoffnung, Derrière le miroir, Dietro lo specchio, Больше, чем жизнь, Tehlikeli Arzular, Mensch oder Teufel, Delírio de Loucura, 黒の報酬, Życie na szali, One in a Million, Silnější než život
Genre
Themes
Politics and human rights Faith and religion Moving relationship stories Intense violence and sexual transgression emotional, emotion, sad, drama or illness documentary, fascinating, sad, emotional or heartbreaking religion, church, faith, beliefs or spiritual drugs, violence, crime, gritty or cops drama, marriage, family, emotional or emotion Show All…
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Huge melodrama from Nicholas Ray, this film is absolutely bizarre. I don't know what cortisone really does, other than the fact that it's a steroid, but I can't imagine it's really quite like this. This feels libelous. Not that I give a damn about cortisone, but it just startled me, is all. The whole film is over-the-top, and perhaps that's how they got away with it. It's also vicious.
From education to religion to the patriarchal breadwinner role, everything about the nuclear family is depicted here as poisonous. Ray has nothing but contempt for these institutions, it seems from this film, as he comes very close to stating outright that they are equivalent to psychosis. It's blunt and loud, but…
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"Petty domesticity."
Proto-Lynchian melodrama about the toxicity of the American dream. To all appearances, James Mason has the perfect life: a family, a home, a job. But there's something eating away at him. Like he says, "we're all dull," but this dullness is killing us. In order to support this life, he has to work two jobs, so when he develops a mysterious mental illness it all starts to come crashing down and we see what fragile foundation this world was built upon. The only way to live in the modern world is to go crazy: you either kill yourself trying to make a living, or you go insane trying to keep yourself alive.
The whole movie is also itself…
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"just keep on loving him with all our hearts, no matter what he does."
the traditional american family implodes in this melodrama realized with biblical fury; ray's beautiful widescreen photography of the interior of the house capturing how thin of a paint job suburban consumerism and conformity is over abuse and horror. god was wrong!
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93
Father knows best: the internal turmoils and anxieties of the lower-middle-class perceived as a manic melodrama. James Mason shines as a possessed ego-trip when released from the uneasy seat-belt of financial and familial security. Nicholas Ray, with the help of CinemaScope and 'de luxe' coloring, raises the temperature to burning levels of interpersonal destruction via operatic shadows, a coherent yet gradually crumbling home space, and oppressive staging. Bigger than Life unleashes a tirade against the forces that keep families in fear, as well as those who feel entitled to fight for themselves in rebellion. One of the greatest films of the 1950s.
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In the 15 years after WWII, [the] mystique of feminine fulfillment became the cherished and self-perpetuating core of contemporary American culture. ... [For women], their only dream was to be perfect wives and mothers; their highest ambition to have five children and a beautiful house, their only fight to get and keep their husbands. They had no thought for the unfeminine problems of the world outside the home; they wanted the men to make the major decisions. They gloried in their role as women, and wrote proudly on the census blank: "Occupation: housewife."
... If a woman had a problem in the 1950’s and 1960’s, she knew that something must be wrong with her marriage, or with herself. ... Many…
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"But you didn't finish the story! God SAVES Abraham!"
"....God was WRONG!"
Nothing about Nicholas Ray's schizo-addiction film Bigger Than Life should work. Its premise (a mild-mannered professor [James Mason] gets wildly addicted to Cortisone, to the point that he think's he's Abraham and that it's his God-given mandate to slay his son) is totally ludicrous, its performances teeter on the edge of high camp, its script (as illustrated above) is peppered with laughable zingers, and its symbols (a smashed mirror that splits James Mason's face in two, a pair of ominous scissors, a 50s TV) are about as subtle as a goddamn sledgehammer. And yet, somehow, these overwrought elements never impede the type of story Bigger Than Life wants…
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"Childhood is a congenital disease and the purpose of education is to cure it."-ED AVERY (James mason)
James Mason gives such a terrifying, dark performance as Ed Avery. Barbara Rush is great, playing off warm and sensitivity and Walter Matthau is also well casted in a rare dramatic role. Yet the supporting cast, screenplay and technical aspects are all out shined by the brilliant inventive performance from James Mason.
Perfectly showing the before and after character and emotion of Ed Avery,James Mason is perfect in every sequence, both a sensitive and pitiful hero, as well as a vicious and tyrannical villain, tearing apart his and his family life by his improper use of a dangerous drug. In every scene, mason gives just the perfect amount of touching emotion, terrifying Hyde-like power and memorable freed from inhibitions raw power, dominating the screen.
Great Performances From James Mason, Great Film, Very Recommended!!
"GOD WAS WRONG"
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Co-written, produced and starring James Mason, Bigger Than Life accounts a school teacher whose life becomes increasingly chaotic as he becomes increasingly dependent on anti-inflammatory medication. The pills perform as the catalyst for the central character Ed Avery to strip away his surface appearance and reveal his previously suppressed anxieties and frustrations. Nicholas Ray’s direction further cracks open the narrative to convey a potent onslaught in both message and atmosphere, which busily excavates at the materialism at the essence of conservative values.
Mason communicates Avery’s extreme tension and actual distress marvellously, and it possesses an emotional impetus and intensity as his personality changes in nature. The story additionally twists together moments of crunching sarcasm, and the manipulation of shadows is…
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Even though it was the result of a pill-induced psychosis, James Mason was right to scream at the milkman for clanging the milk bottles too loudly
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I feel indebted to Bigger Than Life. It was one of the firsts Criterion DVDs I purchased when I first came across this distributor and now that I've watched it again I think it deserves a review because of those nostalgic memories I have.
Nicholas Ray is a director who in his time in the industry was like a Tarantino now because his narrative was very personal and powerful. The plots he chose were to some extent original and innovative, as this film directed by him is a brutal criticism of the American middle class, its conformism, taking the treatment to which a professor named Ed Avery (played by James Mason), who to escape death undergoes an experimental treatment based…
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