Ace in the Hole

I believe, in times like this, that it is most advantageous to begin our inquiry into Ace in the Hole with an observation and a question.  And in this particular case, I wonder if, as Cooley believes, writing is superior to speech and printing is superior to writing, then is perhaps, needlepoint superior to all?  Now that might seems a facetious statement, but trust me, it’s not.  Cooley believed in the sustaining power of the printed word.  But books get tossed to the side and fish get wrapped up in newspapers.  Needlepoint, however, is created with care, hung upon a wall, and passed down from generation to generation.  On the walls of the small town newspaper in Albuquerque, New Mexico, it reminds some and haunts others to always  “Tell the Truth.”  

Community, in its various forms, plays an important role in this film.  Dewey states that a community where people work together is what creates an ideal of democracy and that this democracy must effect human associations.  In Dewey’s world there is a necessity for personal inquiry.  And in this realm, he seems to almost agree with Lippmann in the need for those people, like journalists, to “tell the truth” and open up or minds to profound political thought and, most importantly, action.  And though that truth may not be sensational, it still warrants telling.  But this is the very crux of the predicament of our protagonist/villain, Chuck Tatum.  He may be, as Dewey asserted, unable to fully see the big picture of the world and his actions within that world.  He gets caught up in the sensationalizing of a pseudo-reality, that he not only creates pictures in the heads of his readers of the truth, but even more dangerously, in his own.  Grasping at straws to try to keep his story in his control, he becomes violent in protecting his self interest over that of the community.

In talking about the necessity of participation and building up of community life, Dewey examines the good that can and should be shared by all within the community; and this must come from action.  But, in the case of Ace in the Hole,  can you do that when the community is built upon a lie?  Or is it merely, as Lippmann suggests, a picture in their heads, based on a fiction mixed with the reality?  In this film we encounter a variety of characters; our view and understanding of them colored by what we are allowed to see.  Is Loraine the dutiful wife worried for her husband and working tirelessly to get money to help with his rescue and recovery, or the uncaring and deluded woman who just wants to get out?  Is the community of natives a fearful people, wary of the curse inside the mountain as seen by their refusal to enter, or those that turn also to self-exploitation, selling their kitsch products and peddling their wares throughout the new community?  Are the reporters there for the story, to share information with the public, or merely just trying to get ahead?  Is the sheriff genuinely concerned with the safety of his public, or a self-serving rattlesnake himself – and what a wonderful symbol there, eh?  What the filmmakers allow us to see is far more invasive than what the community within the film has access to.  And this foresight allows us to make assumptions as to the real driving force in this constructed world. 

Dewey maintains “that government exists to serve its community, and that this purpose cannot be achieved unless the community itself shares in selecting its governors and determining their policies.” (146)  This is the very essence of democracy, and one in which this small community believes they are taking part.  But this is clearly a pseudo-environment if they think they really have any part in the actual workings of the government.  They have an elected sheriff, who uses the mine tragedy to campaign for his own reelection.  They are fed portions of the truth and create an image in their heads, complete with propaganda on the mountain wall, of what their community stands for.  And let’s face it, the majority of those in the supposed community aren’t even from there, they have integrated themselves temporarily and leave once the action is over.  And our community of viewers is left with the images of a giant crowd exiting, a wife skipping town with all the money, a mother praying and a father, who spent all of his time with the workers trying to aid them as they help his son, walking off on his own.  

 

Cooley suggests that man is a sympathetic and communal animal, made up of all the influences and environments that reach him.  Perhaps this is why he can be so easily manipulated by the news and any other mechanisms that disseminate information and influence thought.  Clearly, communication is all encompassing, creating a social influence from everything within our chosen environment.  In Ace in the Hole, the new community is created as word spreads via print about Leo and his predicament.  And this “land of enchantment” becomes a “new community [which] is springing up” comprised of “volunteers, newspaper men, tents and cars, folks gathered to hope and pray”.  And in the center of this hubbub is not the man stuck under the ever-falling rubble, but the celebrity of the moment, Chuck Tatum – or at least his constructed version of himself.  Cheers erupt as he comes out into the crowd, silence as he addresses them, his human interest story about “the one”, captivating them and making them change the daily course of their lives to construct this mini-community of pseudo-support.  But this sense of community is so important.  Leo stays alive longer because of his ties to his communities.  First, through song, to his band of brothers in the military, then to the 3000 people on the outside, all his friends, and Chuck being his best friend who “wouldn’t be lying to me.  You never have.” 

Throughout the piece, Chuck argues that “I don’t make things happen, all I do is write about them.”  But these symbols he is creating, of the grieving wife and the tortured family, of the brave soldier and tireless work of the rescuers, populates this pseudo-environment, highlighting what Lippmann has noted in stating that “Great men, even during their lifetime, are usually known to the public only through a fictitious personality.” (7)  The picture in the heads of those captivated by the story, certainly becomes more powerful than the reality.  The same can be said for the images Tatum gives to Leo of his wife in fur waiting for him and his public outside waiting with bated breath and not on a Ferris Wheel…  In this realm, our perceptions and the information that we have access to through the media, become our realities.  And the compounded versions of hero and villain are put on display, manufacturing images based on public perception or expectation.  Lippmann further clarifies that often we respond as powerfully, or sometimes more powerfully, to fictions than realities.  And our responses help to create those fictions or constructed representations of environment by man himself.  He states that the real environment is far too big and too fleeting for us to grasp, so we construct it on a smaller and simpler model so we can comprehend it.  However, in the case of Tatum, while he was busy working within the confines of his fiction, his constructed world, the reality ran amuck, becoming, quite literally, a circus that was out of his control.  Though Tatum appears to be willing to sell the story till his last breath, he realizes that there is “Nothing anyone can do.  Go on home, all of you, the circus is over.”  He has lost it all in a desperate attempt to keep it all, the propaganda, lies, images, etc. together.  “The way in which the world is imagined determines at any particular moment what men will do…determining their effort, their feelings, and their hopes” (25-26)  But it is that very construction which can be so easily manipulated through pseudo-reality and propaganda.  Lippmann further questions: “But what is propaganda, if not the effort to alter the picture to which men respond, to substitute one social pattern for another.” (26)

The world has to be explored, reported and imagined because it is out of reach in reality.

Man can learn to see with his mind vast portions of the world. And in this way, man can “start to make trustworthy pictures inside of his head of the world beyond his reach.” (29)  But what is the result, if the picture inside of our head is built upon a falsehood, or a skewed up version of the facts?  Do we merely sit around singing songs (and selling them) about a man trapped in a cave and pack up as soon as it is all over, or grown some sort of attachment to people we have never met and events that were never really ours to begin with?  If our life is constructed of pseudo-realities, with real life consequences, can we ever really be authentic?

Dewey suggests that we must have freedom of social inquiry and publicity of consequences in order for democracy to exist.  In this case, I think it’s up to the audience to decide if the truth is ever fully shared and accepted by the public and their reaction to it.  Is the only consequence the death of Chuck, or do all those who had a part to play in the propaganda and deception share equal part in the misery of the truth. Is it better for us to envision Leo, this constructed hero, as a war hero who fought to the end, or to remember that he was a trespassing thief who lied to his wife and went into the mountain for his own economic gain?  Democracy and communication are infallibly linked.  We are certainly products of our extensive environment and the information that we have access to.  All the symbols of this life, be they fiction or reality - if that can even exist – determine how we relate to our community; and in this realm, we get to decide what facts we will accept into the “pictures in our heads” and what will be too much for us and have to be thrown out with the morning trash.  So, in the end, we find that this constructed reality is too much for all of our characters, even for Chuck Tatum himself.  He finds that the “embroidered sign gets in my way;”  just like the facts.