Tag Archives: Volker Schlöndorff

Willy Loman, a salesman based in New York City, returns home from a trip to Yonkers where his sons, Biff and Happy, and his wife, Linda, greet him. Biff, who had been working on a farm in Texas, talks to Happy about working outside, and how this house brings back bad memories, and boxes him in. Willy goes outside and flashes back to Biff’s childhood: Biff is the star quarterback of his high school football team, and the Lomans’ neighbor, Bernard, advises him to study math, but Biff and Happy ignore him and carry on playing football. Later on in the flashback, Willy goes inside, where Linda talks to him about their budget. Willy is reminded of an encounter he had with The Woman, during which he gave her some red silk stockings, with lettering along the sides that said “scarlet’s dream”, and when he returns from the flashback, he sees Linda mending some stockings and snatches them away in guilt. Later, he and Charley engage in a card game (casino), during which Willy is reminded of his brother Ben. Ben begins a dialogue with him, and Willy contemplates why he
can’t become successful.
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Baal explores the cult of the genius, an anti-heroic figure who chooses to be a social outcast and live on the fringe of bourgeois morality.
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Elegant and educated bachelor, Charles Swann, moves in the most powerful and fashionable circles of Paris in the 1890’s. When he falls in love with Odette de Crecy, a courtesan, his friends warn him against marriage. Proving himself a silly and socially-foul goose, Swann ducks his social responsibilities, Odette ensnares him, and he is gently but firmly cast out of society amidst everyone’s great politeness.
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