The founder of his company who had years before promised him an office job in New York also has died. At the age of sixty-three, Willy is no longer up to the demands of being a commercial traveler working on commission, and he finds that the buyers and other salesmen with whom he has developed a rapport over the years have either died or moved on. When the big revelation of the film comes-that the reason for Biff's failure is his accidental discovery of a shameful secret Willy kept from his family, a discovery that destroyed Biff's image of his father and poisoned their relationship permanently-Willy is forced to confront his own responsibility for what he sees as his son's failure in life, and the pain and guilt of finally admitting something he has so thoroughly repressed for so long both liberates and destroys him.Īs moving as Death of a Salesman is as a human and family drama, it is at the same time a powerful indictment of American values, a scathing work that strips bare the American dream that success is within the reach of everyone and exposes it as a myth. Willy's present and future have become obscured by his preoccupation with past mistakes and missed opportunities. He talks loudly to himself, relives scenes from the past, and repeatedly slips into reveries in which he sees his life more and more as one of disappointment, failure, and regret. This time their reunion is further complicated by Willy's deteriorating physical and mental condition. Biff and Willy rarely see each other and when they do, they invariably end up fighting, with Willy deriding his son's lack of ambition and wasted potential, and Biff resenting his father's disapproval and attempts to run his life. Far from becoming the great success his family expected him to be, Biff is a rootless drifter who has never married and has held only a long succession of menial jobs. Willy invested all his hopes for the future in Biff, but something happened that derailed Biff's plans. During the course of the film, we learn that as a teenager Biff had been a promising high school football player with offers of a sports scholarship from several universities. The crucial relationship is the one between Willy and Biff (Kevin McCarthy). But far from uniting the family, what happens over the next twenty-four hours rips it apart. When he arrives, he finds that his estranged 34-year old son Biff has returned for a visit and that his other son Happy, a salesman himself, has come to spend the night to make the occasion a real family reunion. When Willy pulls into the driveway at the beginning, he is not coming back from an out-of-town selling trip, but has abruptly aborted the trip after barely leaving town and returned home because he can no longer bear the strain of his job as a commercial traveler. The Loman family consists of 63-year old Willy, his wife Linda, and their two grown sons, Happy and Biff.
Like so many of the great, enduring plays, it examines in almost microscopic detail the inner workings of a family, probing under the seemingly placid and conventional surface to reveal the turbulent emotions and unacknowledged deceptions that lie beneath.
Directed by Miller's close friend Elia Kazan, it opened in New York in 1949, ran for 742 performances, and collected just about every major award, including a slew of Tonys and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The film is based, of course, on the play by Arthur Miller, one of the great works of the American theater.
And we know that his exhaustion is not just physical, but also mental and spiritual. By the time the picture has ended nearly two hours later, again with Willy behind the wheel of his car, this time driving away from his house for the last time, we know in detail the reasons for his exhaustion. After he pulls into the rear yard of his Brooklyn house and gets out of the car, we can tell immediately from his slumped posture and unsteady gait as he walks to the back door that this is an exhausted man. The first we see of Willy Loman (Fredric March) in the 1951 film version of Death of a Salesman is a close-up of him behind the wheel of his car at night as the credits roll.
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