A great film and a parable

 Last Wednesday my 12-week course on Generations in Film, 1938-2021, came to an end  I gave it via zoom (alas) for the Harvard Institute for Learning and Retirement, where all sorts of retired professionals can teach whatever they are interested in.  Very few of us are academics and I only heard about it through a friend I met in a film group.  I had taught the course to Boomers and Xers at the Naval War College and to Millennials (once) at Williams College.  This time the 18 students were Boomers and Silents, including several old enough to have clear memories of V-J Day. It went very well.  None of us, alas, could find much cause for optimism as we contemplated the immediate future of our country as it tries to emerge from the crisis which, in my opinion, is now two decades old.

As I have have, I chose to end the course by returning to the beginning--the last crisis--with the film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.   I have always loved using this film because its three main characters, played by Walter Huston, Humphrey Bogart, and Tim Holt, beautifully represent three different generations.  The film dates from 1948 but the novel that inspired it is 21 years older.  Huston represents the post-civil war Missionary generation, Bogart the Lost generation, and Holt the GIs.  They are the counterparts of today's Boomers, Xers, and Millennials. Huston--the elderly, experienced prosecutor Howard--blew me away the first time I saw the film on a dark January night 55 years ago at the Brattle theater--the first Bogart movie I ever saw. He has tremendous energy, enthusiasm, and understanding.  He is always doing, but also commenting on what happens, and he knows what to look for.  Not until Strauss and Howe's books came out did I realize why the impact was so great--I had never seen a fully adult example of my own Prophet archetype (which includes both Missionaries and Boomers) before.  

Midway through the movie, when the three prospectors have struck gold in the wilds of Mexico, is a scene that captures the three generational types perfectly.  I used it in this 30-minute summary of the 1929-45 crisis.  Each of them, in succession, talks about what they plan to do when they get back to civilization.  The Missionary wants to sit back and enjoy his last few years; the Lost is totally focused on his appetites; and the GI wants of make things grow.  

Yet it occurred to me as I prepared for this year's final class that it fit the mood of the moment for another reason.  Here I must post a spoiler alert: I'm going to have to give away the plot of this masterpiece. If you haven't seen it, you might want to find it streaming for a couple of dollars and enjoy it first.

Howard, the missionary, warns the other two early on that the "noble brotherhood" among prospectors only lasts until they find gold.  After that they fall out over the division of the spoils.  This plays out, of course, after they start heading back to civilization with $105,000 in depression among them.  They encounter some local Indians who need assistance, and Huston manages to revive the chief's child, who has nearly drowned. The Indians insist that he (but not the others) accept their hospitality for a few days, and Bogart and Holt set off with all the gold on their burros, promising to wait for Huston when they reach town.  Bogart almost immediately suggests that they cut Huston out entirely, and Holt, always loyal to the group in good GI fashion, refuses.  They immediately become enemies and Bogart tries to kill Holt.   He succeeds only in wounding him, although he does not know it, and Holt makes it back to the Indian camp while Bogart goes on alone.  Holt and Huston set off in pursuit, but before they can catch up, Bogart is killed by bandits just a few miles from the town he is trying to reach.  The bandits don't understand what the sacks of gold dust on the burros are, and they cut them open with their cutlasses for spite.  The gold dust blows back to the mountains, and Huston and Holt discover the ruin of their dreams a few hours later. 

What hit me with the force of revelation this time was that the whole story was a parable of the last 90 years of American history.  Down and out in 1931 like the three prospectors, the American nation went in search of great things, first by trying to rebuild society under the New Deal, then to defend and extend democracy in the Second World War.  We struck it rich not only economically but politically and socially, achieving between 1945 and 1980 or so the most egalitarian society in modern history.  But our unity began to break apart in the late 1960s and we have never regained it.  As the GI generation died off, our economics and politics degenerated into a struggle for our parents' legacy, the gold strike that we inherited and have now squandered.  The prospectors went to war with one another when there were only two of them left--a nice symbol of the polarization that has destroyed our politics.  

At the end of the movie, Huston and Holt have hit bottom once again, but Huston, as always, immediately puts things in perspective.  He doesn't have to return to civilization at all--he can live out his days as the guest of the Indians, who idolize him.  And Holt? "You're young!" says Huston.  "You've got time to make three or four more fortunes."  I keep hoping that the United States has hit bottom, but I have been disappointed again and again.  We remain addicted to money, to resentment, and to conflict.  Eventually we shall have to turn the corner and start moving towards real regeneracy.  I hope we will still be the same nation, territorially, when we do.