"A Face in the Crowd"

Paper Summary:

The paper portrays how Lonesome Larry Rhodes' power-hungry and self-centered attitudes cause his downfall. The film shows how a lack of personal integrity can lead to failure and discusses how Machiavellian leadership is fundamentally amoral. The paper examines the other characters and shows how Marcia Jeffries comes to terms with her own power-hungry and selfish attitudes while Mel and Joey also participate in the American quest for fame. The paper discusses the film's secondary message that the media is used as a means for social control.

From the Paper:

"A Machiavellian leader is unavoidably a lonesome leader, like Lonesome Larry Rhodes in Elia Kazan's 1957 production A Face in the Crowd. Played by Andy Griffith, Rhodes is an unlikable and sleazy character much like a Machiavellian ruler who looks down on the rest of the world. Moreover, Rhodes becomes a Machiavellian leader by emphasizing power over everything else, including ethics. Even when Lonesome Rhodes is first discovered in prison he was a power-hungry and arrogant man. The changes that take place during the course of A Face in the Crowd are not deep character transformations."

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