Death of a Salesman

Willy Loman is a salesman in his sixties. He has started drifting off the road while driving, his boss has taken him off the territory, and neither of his sons became the man he hoped for. He comes home one night, and the twenty-four hours that follow are told moving constantly between the past and the present. The subject is not failure but a man unable to let go of the story he tells himself. Willy was persuaded that being liked is enough and passed that belief to his sons; the real tragedy is not the bankruptcy but the handing down of that wrong lesson. The form does not hide the theatre. The set is plainly a set, the past scenes play in the same space with a change of light, and the camera keeps to the stage arrangement. The choice accepts that this is the record of a play shot for television. The production comes from the Broadway revival with the same company. Dustin Hoffman had played the part on stage and carried it over; John Malkovich, who plays Biff, comes from the same stage cast. It won Emmy awards and is now the most consulted record of Arthur Miller's text. Kate Reid plays Linda and Stephen Lang plays Happy. Volker Schlöndorff directs. Who it is for: viewers who have read Miller's play and want to watch great acting. Who it is not for: anyone expecting film language; this stays deliberately tied to the stage.