THE GOLDEN CAGE OF TRUTH
In a Lonely Place, Nicholas Ray, 1950
by Julia Scrive-Loyer
Reading about the filming of In A Lonely Place is the exact representation of Horse Ebooks’ famous tweet: “everything happens so much”. United States cinema’s stigma of there not being any auteurs, only studio marionettes, is always broken by beautiful exceptions. Nicholas Ray is, without a doubt, one of these. This movie was cathartic not only for him and his marriage to Gloria Grahame, but also for Humphrey Bogart. In a Lonely Place is self-referential not only in its psychodrama, but in its portrayal of Hollywood — on the same year Sunset Boulevard came out.
There are three layers of truth in In A Lonely Place. We’ll discuss the truth behind the scenes because, although it isn’t always useful to analyze movies from this viewpoint, I find it inevitable in this case, since it infiltrates almost every aspect of the final product. We will then talk about this self-referentiality I mentioned: the portrayal of Hollywood, of screenwriters and actresses in a system that works like a factory. Finally, we’ll see the place held by truth inside the plot.
“Cinema is peppered with personal psychodramas, films in which directors or stars participate, knowingly or not, in alternative versions of their own lives”
A man — Dix — falls madly in love with a woman — Laurel —, who’s trying to escape her past. They’re both frustrated and try to find refuge in one another. But their idyl is cut short by possession and violence. Their romance is inevitably destroyed.
This is the first layer of truth that infiltrates the movie: Ray and Grahame’s two-year long marriage disintegrating in unison to Dix and Laurel’s equally brief relationship. Dix’s possessive tendencies also mirror a situation behind the scenes: following the insistence of one of the movie producers, Gloria Grahame had to sign a contract stipulating that her husband could “direct her, control her and counsel her” everyday between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. except on Sundays — “I accept that in any situation his will and judgement will be superior to mine”. I am not going to sit here and justify this ridiculous and disrespectful contract, but I am going to remind you the circumstances of a marriage that was very visibly in the middle of a crisis and in which, in a way, this contract was a barrier so that reality wouldn’t infiltrate fiction. But it ended up being the complete opposite: an obvious echo to Grahame’s character within the plot of the movie.
But the parallels don’t stop at Ray, Gloria and Laurel: they can also be seen between Dix and Bogart. Anyone who knows me knows I love Humphrey Bogart. His relationship with Lauren Bacall has always seemed beautiful to me. I’m not saying it was perfect, I doubt any relationship is, but by what I’ve read, it was an important relationship for both of them. Bogart’s previous marriage to Mayo Methot was traumatic, and might bring to mind Dix’s character. Mayo Methot had problems with alcohol, and Bogart was already prone to excesses. This naturally led to a violent marital life, on both sides — death threats from her, violence from both. It’s also important to note that Bogart blamed his two previous divorces on filming and having to be away for so long. Enters possession. So even though Bogart was maybe in a good place (no pun intended) during the filming of In a Lonely Place, he knew Dix very closely — there was a Dix inside of him.
There’s also a more common area in which reality and fiction collide — an area more common to cinema in general, but also influenced by the specific circumstances of this shooting:
“[O]f the 140 pages in the script, only four reached the shooting stage without revisions.… The changes may have been made by Solt, although he had (by his own account) been kept off the set by a momentary falling-out with Bogart. More important, they were occasioned by the bond between the director and the two leading actors.”
This is not unusual in and on itself. As Truffaut said, the shooting needs to destroy the script and the editing needs to destroy the shooting. It’s just healthier that way. I don’t know how normal this was within Hollywood’s studio system, but I guess the trope of the frustrated screenwriter must come from somewhere. What I do find interesting for what we’re discussing right now is the re-write of the final scene of the movie.
In the original script — and I think that it was also the case in the book it is based on —, after an endless agony triggered by suspicion and doubt, Dix ended up strangling Laurel. This version of the script was filmed at a moment in which Ray and Grahame had already separated. Ray said he filmed that ending because he had to abide by production, but it was an ending that troubled him at that time of his life and of his marriage: “I thought, shit, I can’t do it, I can’t do it. Love doesn’t have to end that way. Marriage doesn’t have to end that way, they don’t need to end in violence”. So he locked himself up and re-wrote that ending, an open ending that ends up being much more complex and painful. Not that crime isn’t complex and painful, and there’s still violence in that ending. But it’s much more painful for Laurel to be alive and to listen to the truth on the phone, a truth that arrives just a little too late, when their love has already been torn to pieces and there’s no other choice but to separate and try to rebuild their lives.
In real life, Ray and Grahame ended up divorcing in 1952 and married twice more with other people. Gloria Grahame even pulled a Woody Allen by marrying his stepson, one of Ray’s children from another marriage, who was 13 by the time they filmed In a Lonely Place. They married in 1958. The circumstances of that romance are confusing and contradictory, so it’s up to you to go down that rabbit hole. Nevertheless, it is worth noting, as Graham Fuller says, that “they both kept trying to find that happiness Ray felt eluded Dix”.
Let us now enter the second layer of truth that makes up In a Lonely Place: the portrayal of Hollywood. In recent years, this has been the level that has been most discussed about the movie, specially after the whole Harvey Weinstein situation. These texts do not intend to destroy the movie, au contraire — they see In a Lonely Place as one of those rare cases in which Hollywood “represented its chauvinism and sexual abuse within the industry”, according to Ela Bittencourt in HYPERALLERGIC. Through this lens, Humphrey Bogart’s character would generate zero empathy. Nevertheless, even though he’s clearly an anti-hero, Dix is one of the movie’s protagonists, and something must tie us to him for us to care about what may come his way. More on this later. Meanwhile, let us expand the movie’s plot a little further:
Hollywood. The post-war. The baby boom. A supposed euphoria after winning the war, movies that celebrate life. But not in this lonely place in West Hollywood. Dixon Steele is a screenwriter who has had no big break since he’s back from war. His agent convinces him of adapting a trendy romance novel, but Dix suspects it’ll be horrible. Luckily for him — at least at first —, Mildred, a girl who works at the bar, has read it. Dix then asks her to come home with him and to just tell him the whole story. In a situation that feels as the foreplay to sexual abuse, Mildred relates the novel to him, and Dix, bored and tired, thanks her and sees her out. The following day, Mildred is found dead on the road. The only person who can assure Dix didn’t kill her is Laurel, his neighbor and an aspiring actress: she can see his home from her window. Dix and Laurel obviously fall in love immediately, and they’re even more into each other once she becomes the key piece for Dix to write again. But Dix becomes more and more erratic, planting a doubt in Laurel — a doubt that will lead them to the very edge of tragedy.
Hollywood’s self-referentiality presents itself in two ways throughout the movie. The first one is, in a way, more “superficial”, and consists in details, dramatic or not, that pepper the plot: obviously, there’s the “detail” of it happening in this environment; the fact that Dix’s agent, learning about the crime, offers to cover it up and send him to Mexico — feeding the evidence of a complicity within the studio, and referencing the famous fixers hired by them to cover up scandals; and the power dynamic between Dix and Mildred in that scene that might be triggering to anyone who has been in the same situation.
“In a Lonely Place still remains incredibly effective, not because it lets the man walk away innocent (...) but because it highlights his and Hollywood’s overall guilt, forcing both to look deep into the mirror for just a few moments longer than was comfortable.”
Nevertheless, without minimizing all this, what seems more interesting to me in formal terms is the other side of this self-referential game: the meta-reality of the dialogues and situations in a movie in which one of its main characters is a screenwriter.
“Bernard Eisenschitz reminds us of Ray’s notes on his annotated script, “Nobody saying what they think.” On the contrary – they are saying what they say in movies.”
This play on representation in the scenes itself is made particularly evident in a scene between Dix and Laurel in the kitchen. She tells him she loved the love scene in the script, and he tells her it’s because the characters never say how in love they are — they show it. He then proceeds to describe the scene we’re watching: he cuts a grapefruit, she’s still sleepy, “anyone who saw us could tell we’re in love”. That’s a brilliant moment for three reasons: first, it’s a masterclass in screenwriting; second, it’s an excellent way to play with representation, coming from a screenwriter who is always aware of these games. And third and most importantly: if this scene unfolded the same way, but at a moment in which Dix and Laurel were actually in a perfect romantic situation, this game would be cute, a wink. But this scene takes place at point in the script in which Laurel is afraid of Dix, and he doesn’t know it. He’s making up a scene in his head that is far from reality. This turns the game into a smart and cruel tour de force — it becomes dramatic irony.
Having a screenwriter as a protagonist is very helpful; it allows us to have a conscious character throughout the plot. “Who is the dreamer?” Lynch would ask in the third season of Twin Peaks. It also gives way to more plays on representation like the moment in which Dix reconstructs, with a chilling veracity, Mildred’s crime, during a dinner with his detective friend and his wife. It is understandable to be scared of him at that moment, but truth is, that is our job: finding a dramatic logic to even the most horrifying events within a plot.
“His blasé reception of the woman’s death shows a man whose profession as crime writer has habituated him to stories of violence, but is nevertheless troublingly dismissive, in a way that lingers in the mind. In the end, In a Lonely Place isn’t so much a straightforward thriller as it is a poignant psychological study of a person and a milieu, veiled as an atmospheric noir.”
Obviously, I am not trying to justify Dix’s indifference. As a screenwriter myself, the day I stop caring about the characters I create will be the day I’ll have to seriously reconsider not only my profession, but my humanity. As Elaine Lennon said at the end of her text:
“In the end this is as much a meditation on melancholy existence as it is a crime thriller or a movie-movie. To be inside the head of a screenwriter is the loneliest place of all.”
Welcome to the third layer: the surface, the plot. In the end, In a Lonely Place is the story of a defeat — suspicion and violence twisting love. The false idea that love will save us and heal us, when sometimes love is not enough if the lovers feel essentially lonely.
Truth can be a lonely place, doubt too. How can we keep doubt from killing truth? And what’s the use of truth if no one believes you? These are the two perspectives within the movie: Laurel’s doubt and Dix’s truth, a dramatic axis which, in turn, has two levels, playing with various genres, film noir, melodrama and western (as noted by Brad Stevens in his text for the BFI), all tied up by tragedy. The film noir aspect is, perhaps, the most superficial, serving almost as a dramatic trick, since what matters is what that initial crime triggers at a more profound and human level, how it pushes these two characters to the edge of the precipice, forcing them to show who they really are, only to spare their lives at the last moment. That is why I feel it is much more powerful that Dix doesn’t murder Laurel at the end, because even though Nicholas Ray saves them from the abyss, he did dig an abyss within them — and between them. Chris Eggertsen’s text for Curbed puts it beautifully:
“As Dix walks out of Laurel’s life through the building’s mythical front archway, he leaves the tear-stained woman staring out at the vacant but still-beautiful courtyard, now revealed for what it really is: empty space. ”
When I started writing this text, centuries ago, I wondered if Dix was the sole protagonist of In a Lonely Place. But it is clear to me now: he’s not. Even though we start the movie with him, both Laurel and him have a conflict, not only between them, but within themselves. To me, even though Dix makes it so hard to love him, it is impossible to not empathize with him. This is partly due to us believing him, even though he gives us reasons to fear him. Let us quickly analyze these two perspectives, this conflict between truth and doubt, which basically creates suspicion on both sides of the spectrum.
One of the most beautiful things about this script is how the conflicts of these characters aren’t triggered by the movie’s first turning point. Mildred’s murder and Dix’s possible guilt obviously enhance and contribute to their conflicts, but the characters carried them long before the movie started. Both Dix and Laurel carry their past, the frustration and the glory, one she wants to escape, one he wants to get back. Laurel comes from being a small-time movie actress, she comes from another toxic relationship with a man she left behind after years of trying to save him. Dix comes from the war, yes, he comes from not having written a successful movie since then, right, but he also comes from having been a great and respected screenwriter, he comes from having been that pre-war man with a whole different perspective of the world and his surroundings, probably with less cynicism, less stained by trauma. The circumstances Dix has been through in recent years turn the world and himself into his main obstacles when it comes to returning to that cherished moment in his life. But how can you come back from war without carrying the war within you? Laurel, on the other hand, cannot help but repeat the same patterns, saving the same type of men, herself becoming the obstacle that separates her from her future and ties her irremediably to her past.
It’s easy to empathize with Laurel. We can understand what attracts her to Dix: aside from her tendency to toxic relationships, he’s a mysterious man, with a dark sense of humor, but hiding a fragility that deserves to be saved. He’s a good writer and he seems to love her when things are going well. But we can also understand what scares her — she doesn’t know if Dix killed that girl or not. Because even though she saw Dix go to bed once Mildred left, Dix’s descent into violence against others and herself make her question everything. Her doubt isn’t only about Dix killing Mildred, but she starts wondering if Dix could kill someone, if he could maybe kill her, if she really is capable of saving Dix, if she’s repeating the same patterns, etc. We fear for Laurel, we want her to leave the situation in time, but at the same time we’re maybe hoping Laurel can save him, that Dix’s script will be successful, that everything is sorted out and all this is left in the past like a horrible nightmare.
But Dix makes all of this impossible. I was saying it was impossible not to empathize with him, and I know many people might think the exact opposite. But allow me to defend him, or defend at least his character construction. Dix is undeniably violent. There’s no doubt about it. He’s jealous, irrational and possessive. He’s waving every single red flag. I’m not asking you to fall in love with Dix; I’m asking you to understand his tragedy, leaving the trendy conversation on toxic masculinity aside. There’s a huge vulnerability in Dix, even though it might seem contradictory. Violence is much more visible, and since it’s a character that insists on hiding his truth — the truth not only of who he really is but the truth of not having committed the murder he’s accused of — makes the task of loving him that much harder, because he doesn’t even love himself. The first moments in which we start to love him are when we see him through the eyes of Laurel, when she’s still in love with him, because he sees himself through those eyes as well and can stop his self-sabotaging for a while. He can stop being arrogant and write that script. He can take off the “bad boy” mask and be a loving person. But as soon as she starts fearing him, then our relationship with him becomes more complex, because on one hand we know he didn’t murder Mildred, we saw how much he loved Laurel, and we wish he could convince her, but he insists on the exact opposite: he feeds into the irrationality and impulsivity. That is why that scene in the kitchen I talked about is so brilliant, because we have both perspectives, at a time in the plot in which we truly understand them both, and we’re seeing Dix tell Laurel how much he loves her, how he wants to marry her. But we’re seeing it through Laurel’s eyes, who is now unable to trust him, and love has now turned to fear. We move between one and the other, wanting to heal them both, knowing it’s impossible for them to heal one another, but fearing the worst case scenarios: either Laurel leaves with him without knowing the truth, or Dix surrenders to his supposed “truth” and kills Laurel.
In a Lonely Place is a very difficult movie to write, with a perfectly polished finish that makes it look easy. Like when Sinatra simply opened his mouth and sang, with a sense of cool that seems like the most natural thing in the world, leading to frustration once we try to replicate it and end up with a mediocre imitation. Because you have to be Sinatra to sing like Sinatra, not to imitate him. Because Ray and Grahame has to go through hell to at least come out of it with such a beautiful, human and complex movie. Because Bogart had to survive many excesses to understand Dix. Because all of them had to suffer Hollywood to be able to portray it. Because as Roger Koza quoted — I don’t remember whom —, truth is what escapes the whims of imagination. But how whimsical is that imagination when your truth depends on it?