By Chris Tucker, KERA 90.1 Commentator
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-530935.mp3
Dallas, TX –
You never know what Hollywood will do to a good idea, so I make no claims for the movie version of All the King's Men, which opens this week. Based on the internet trailer, Sean Penn looks good enough as Louisiana Governor Willie Stark, loosely based on the real-life Huey Long, and Jude Law looks woefully miscast as Jack Burden, the reporter and wounded cynic who goes to work for Stark, drawn by the governor's dedication to the people he calls "the hicks," the poor people stuck at the bottom of a bottom-dwelling state.
But whether the movie is a bomb or a bombshell, I hope it sends people back to the original 1946 novel by Robert Penn Warren. It's one of America's best political novels, better in my view than Edwin O'Connor's The Last Hurrah, Billy Lee Brammer's The Gay Place, and such Gore Vidal works as Washington, D. C. and Lincoln.
All the King's Men is also a love story, a mystery, and a meditation on free will, destiny, character and the intertwined nature of good and evil. Above all, it's the tale of a man who fights for power in order to do good, but then resorts to slander, intimidation and bribery in order to keep the power that makes it possible to do good. Politics cannot be pure, the novel demonstrates, because it is practiced by people who themselves cannot be pure. As for the ancient question of means vs. ends, the novel makes clear that the struggle for power is not a university symposium; it's a street fight, and to win, you grab whatever weapon is handy.
A key moment in the novel comes when Willie Stark's State Auditor sets up a kickback scheme to enrich himself. Stark's enemies in the legislature want to impeach the man, but Stark digs up plenty of dirt on the would-be impeachers and crushes the revolt. He knows the auditor is guilty, but he also knows that impeachment would weaken him and threaten everything he's accomplished for the state. Stark's Attorney General, a Harvard-educated idealist, resigns rather than be part of a lawbreaking administration. Described as a man with "clean hands and pure heart," he wants the social justice and progressive reforms that Stark brings but he refuses to see that Stark's dirty tactics are the other side of the coin. Throughout the book, those who refuse to get their hands dirty in the political arena are portrayed as impotent bystanders, choosing honor over action.
The book's major plot line concerns the governor's efforts to control Judge Irwin, an upright, patrician figure who endorses one of Stark's enemies. Angered, Stark orders Jack Burden to delve into the judge's past and find some buried sin that can be used to bring him in line.
"But what if there isn't anything to find? Jack says.
"There is always something," Willie replies. "Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption. There is always something."
All the King's Men, written more than half a century ago, remains dead-on relevant to our time, raising questions we must answer today: Must the use of power breed arrogance and corruption? Can good ever come from evil? Can we maintain "clean hands and pure heart" as we fight those who would destroy us?
I don't know how well the movie will help us answer these questions, but if it fumbles the job, you can always turn back to the novel.
Chris Tucker is a Dallas writer and book editor.
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