Depression-era “dance marathons” are dark clouds on American history that few people know much about. Desperate unemployed men and women participated in competitions in which they danced for a long, long time. These contests lasted for weeks, sometimes even months. Contestants hoped only for monetary prizes or the limited fame that might come from winning, or simply participating in, these contests. Some came out of the contests unscathed, whereas others experienced profound emotional or physical damage.Author Horace McCoy recognized the emotional power inherent in such a dark chapter of American History. His 1935 novel They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? was received poorly by American critics but found an underground following with burgeoning French existentialists. Apparently they recognized the underlying futility of the seemingly unending marathons. Director Sydney Pollack and screenwriters James Poe and Robert E. Thompson take McCoy’s source material and emphasize its Sisyphusian qualities. Watching the actors grasping onto one another for dear life in a repetitive trajectory around the dance floor, we are reminded of Camus’ hero pushing a boulder up the hill for the thousandth time.
Jane Fonda reportedly understood the existential underpinnings of the script when she agreed to take the lead role in They Shoot Horses. At first she didn’t want to take the part. However, her husband wanted her to accept the role because of the film’s intriguing philosophical implications. Indeed, the film serves as an acute reflection on what it means to live in a state of poverty and desperation. Unfortunately, the film’s thematic concerns resonate as deeply in today’s recession-era America as they did upon the initial publication of McCoy’s novel.
Fonda plays Gloria, a cynical young woman who clearly enters the competition only as a last resort. Gloria’s demeanor, actions, and words throughout the entire film read like a desperate plea for help. At the film’s conclusion, in fact, we find out that Gloria has indeed struggled with her troubled mental state and her apparently rude behavior throughout much of the movie begins to make more sense. Gloria ends up dancing with an aspiring director named Robert (Michael Sarrazin) who really wants nothing to do with the contest, but simply wandered into the dance hall at the “wrong time.” Also in the cast of characters are Alice (a want-to-be Hollywood glamour queen), an old sailor who looks like he just came from sea (Red Buttons) and the opportunistic announcer named Rocky (played by Gig Young in an Oscar-winning performance).
While all of these characters are fascinating to watch on screen, the force of Fonda’s performance as Gloria is the glue that holds the film together. We feel for every moment of her suffering as she stands in for the misfortunate, the unemployed, and the underprivileged of America. The little dance hall in Depression-era Los Angeles becomes a symbol for the condition of all “ordinary people” just trying to get by in an environment in which only the strong survive.
Upon the film’s initial release in 1969 many critics found the film’s narrative and basic message “heavy handed.” Indeed, one could quibble about the rather obvious symbolism inherent in the film’s title. The force of the central performances, though, is enough to make the film consistently fascinating in 2009. In fact, They Shoot Horses might be one of the most excruciating depictions of human suffering depicted on screen. While not as brutally violent as Mel Gibson’s gore-fest The Passion of the Christ, it is almost more difficult to watch because of the number of sufferers involved. Pollack’s dark vision of an America in the grips of social Darwinism seems less cynical today than remarkably perceptive.
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