The Magnificent AmbersonsIt is said that pride comes before the fall. The magnificent Ambersons--the prestigious family from which the film derives its title, The Magnificent Ambersons--are wealthy, illustrious, and their beauteous mansion is the talk of the town. And yet the story of their downfall is tied to their ultimate scion, the spoiled, ill-mannered product of a life of luxury without substance, the boy in desperate need of a "comeuppance", George "Georgie" Amberson Minafer (Tim Holt). Georgie's adolescent brattiness is only subdued--not quelled--as he grows into a young man, and the flames of his indignation are stoked at the return of a man who once wooed his mother.
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As prefaced in the prologue of the film, Eugene Morgan (Joseph Cotten) has made a return to the Amberson homestead after he had, in his youth, ruined his chance to win the heart of the young lady of the house, Isabel Amberson (Dolores Costello), now "Isabel Amberson Minafer". At the gala event celebrating Georgie taking a break from college (yes, really), the recent widower Eugene brings his daughter Lucy (Anne Baxter) with him to witness his roots in the burgeoning town of Indianapolis. Eugene and Isabel rekindle their friendship, now more earnest as the absence has made their hearts grow fonder, and that Eugene has reinvented himself--appropriate as an inventor of those new-fangled "automobiles"--and is on the way to building his own fortune. From the very start, Georgie resents and dislikes Eugene, judging him as he judges others, on the basis of their lowly efforts to work for a living. Georgie's dislike is actually rooted in his jealousy; having been horribly spoiled by his mother--a substitute for not loving her husband as well as she loved Eugene--Georgie possesses a kind of Oedipal complex toward his mother's affections, unwilling to allow others to share in them, unwilling to share any part of what is his with another. Georgie's attitudes are those of a child, though he is grown and dresses in tails. He recognizes Eugene's and Isabel's relationship blossom, something he considers unconscionable in the wake of his father's passing, and he goes on a rampage, interrogating neighbors, convinced of some great conspiracy. Even as he had attempted to woo Eugene's own daughter, he places his jealousy ahead of that need, underscoring his real motivations and interests. His attempt to win Lucy was done merely out of his own vanity, as though he considered that she merely looked good by his side. His aunt Fanny (Agnes Moorehead) on his father's side is closer in attitude with Georgie...a bit jealous, a bit spiteful, but in truth nowhere near approaching the level of almost sociopathic indifference to other people Georgie has.
From the earliest of The Magnificent Ambersons, the underlying theme of the film is progress. But rather than simply posit that progress is an unstoppable force, and those who do not yield to it will be crushed underfoot, there is also the message that progress may not always serve man in the ways which it is intended; the presence of the automobile highlights this point. Georgie and Eugene's confrontation and discussion about the worth of the automobile begins after--out of jealous spite--Georgie says that the automobile is a worthless invention, which amounts to an attack on Eugene. Whether Eugene is especially deft or whether he simply considers Georgie's assertion as being one with some worth, he does not refute the point, but offers that it may be possible that the automobile does not contribute anything of greatness to the human condition, that it is merely another advancement, but it is one which is real and growing regardless. Georgie's pride in his elite family is such that he continues to ride in the horse and carriage, even when the automobile is becoming increasingly popular. His commitment to this traditional fashion of transportation has less to do with practicality, but to do with his own impressions of the value of his origins, his committed opinions about the strengths of his Amberson family status, and the merits and legacy upon which it is founded; he'd probably defend forks over spoons if forks were branded on the family crest. But the Amberson era is ending, and the new one of the Morgans is coming into power; not that Eugene and his family are any genuine threat, but that the aged dynasty of the Ambersons has reached the point where it will not grow, just as Georgie will not grow and learn how to adapt, his pride is too tall to fit through the door of humility, and he will not kneel. As the world opens around us, we must greet it with open arms, and accept the good with the bad, or else we will be left behind; like the snows of yesteryear, gone from this earth.
Recommended for: Fans of a period piece about the turn of the Twentieth Century, of the final days of a family ending with not a bang, but a spoiled tantrum, of a spoiled brat who must learn humility to temper his pride, lest he truly ruin his mother's twilight years.
From the earliest of The Magnificent Ambersons, the underlying theme of the film is progress. But rather than simply posit that progress is an unstoppable force, and those who do not yield to it will be crushed underfoot, there is also the message that progress may not always serve man in the ways which it is intended; the presence of the automobile highlights this point. Georgie and Eugene's confrontation and discussion about the worth of the automobile begins after--out of jealous spite--Georgie says that the automobile is a worthless invention, which amounts to an attack on Eugene. Whether Eugene is especially deft or whether he simply considers Georgie's assertion as being one with some worth, he does not refute the point, but offers that it may be possible that the automobile does not contribute anything of greatness to the human condition, that it is merely another advancement, but it is one which is real and growing regardless. Georgie's pride in his elite family is such that he continues to ride in the horse and carriage, even when the automobile is becoming increasingly popular. His commitment to this traditional fashion of transportation has less to do with practicality, but to do with his own impressions of the value of his origins, his committed opinions about the strengths of his Amberson family status, and the merits and legacy upon which it is founded; he'd probably defend forks over spoons if forks were branded on the family crest. But the Amberson era is ending, and the new one of the Morgans is coming into power; not that Eugene and his family are any genuine threat, but that the aged dynasty of the Ambersons has reached the point where it will not grow, just as Georgie will not grow and learn how to adapt, his pride is too tall to fit through the door of humility, and he will not kneel. As the world opens around us, we must greet it with open arms, and accept the good with the bad, or else we will be left behind; like the snows of yesteryear, gone from this earth.
Recommended for: Fans of a period piece about the turn of the Twentieth Century, of the final days of a family ending with not a bang, but a spoiled tantrum, of a spoiled brat who must learn humility to temper his pride, lest he truly ruin his mother's twilight years.