Last night someone I know and I watched a 1971 production of Henrik Ibsen's drama, An Enemy of the People, now on Netflix. It was pretty good, despite being rated 2.6 stars. I'd give it 4-5 stars, myself. It seemed especially relevant today, when there seems to be a lynch mob mentality abroad in the land on all sides of the political spectrum. Ibsen's play defends an individualist--Dr. Stockman (Robert Urqhart)--who confronts a town about its poisoned spa waters. The entire town turns against him, but he stands firm. His business and family are destroyed. He is persecuted by his own brother. In the BBC version, the location has been moved to Scotland, and there are digs at the 70s-era Labour party as well as the Tories. The hero looks and acts like a member of the Social Democrats, today called Liberal Democrats--traditionally the party of Britain's Chattering Classes. Anyhow, it is an interesting adaptation, especially given the tremendous pressures for everyone to fall into party lines in America these days...Watching the show reminded me how I had been surprised not long ago, along these lines, while teaching a class about films of the 1950s, when my students overwhelmingly declared they thought Gary Cooper was "stupid" to oppose the mob in Fred Zinneman's classic Western, High Noon. I suppose it may be a result of all the "team-building" and "critical thinking" that American youth have been exposed to, but it made me wonder: What ever happened to American individualism?
Ibsen's play shows that Norwegians faced similar problems a century ago--and Ibsen understood the Quisling mentality well before Quisling.
One other thought, I was lucky to study under producer/director George Schaefer at UCLA film school. He also produced and directed an outstanding 1978 production of An Enemy of the People, starring Steve McQueen. More about that version of the play can be found on The Stop Button.
