The Citadel (1938)

King Vidor's "The Citadel"

In 1938, global tensions were high due to the effects brought about by the war of ideas. Communism, Fascism, and Capitalism were competing to become the new models of society. Even as these ideas came into being during the 19th century, the political chasm that was left in the wake of World War I allowed these ideologies to take hold in the 20th century. The hope was that after centuries of oppressive monarchical rule, the world could usher in a utopian age. By 1938, Communism and Fascism both left room from cruel despots to take over in Eastern Europe and Capitalism created a class divide in the West. All of these 'utopias' seemed doomed for failure. Fyodor Dostoevsky predicted this failure in his 1864 work, Notes from the Underground. In it, he criticizes socialism, Marxism, and all other forms of attempted utopia. The reason for this criticism is not directed at the ideas themselves. Rather, the reasons for the failings of a utopian society stems from the fallacy of the human condition. The collective attempt to build your society to idealized standards inherently creates an inner resentment inside the structure, causing it to fall apart from the inside out. He believes this is because humans in this idealized utopia will continue to be eternally ungrateful for the things they have, which in turn will cause an irrationality in the human psyche that will battle against the boring and predictable nature of it's life. This will cause humans within this society to start breaking things apart from the inside. Therefore, Dostoevsky believed that a utopia could never be achieved. All the same, the nations of the world attempted so nonetheless. 

This brings us to "The Citadel," a 1938 film that was adapted by King Vidor from A.J. Cronin's 1937 novel of the same name. In it, a young idealistic Scottish doctor named Andrew takes up a job treating Welsh miners. Because of his desires and his passions for his work, he envisions himself making great change and progress within the weary and sick community. The stipulation is that the miners have the choice to change their doctor if they choose to. Andrew seems to ruffle a few feathers among the miners, as he does not placate them with drugs that will only numb their symptoms. The miners would rather have a doctor that acts as a 'yes man' to them, providing them with whatever they want so they can continue to do their work. However, Andrew notices some of the miners who have severe coughs and chest pains. He send them to the hospital so that they can be x-rayed and examined. However, the hospital administrator shuts him down. It becomes apparent that the hospital does not want to fix these men, as Andrew soon understands why. With his new laboratory, Andrew uncovers that the miners are getting tuberculosis directly from the dust in the mine. Once the research becomes publicly available to study, the mining industry may be negatively effected. The miners also do not believe Andrew's findings, as they do not want to accept that their one source of income is causing their health to decline. Andrew continues in his work regardless, along with his new wife Christine, due to their young idealistic ambitions. However, once the miners break into his laboratory and destroy all of his work, Andrew and Christine angrily leave for New York City to start a new life in the hopes their medical work can be appreciated. 

After spending a year in New York, Andrew comes across an old medical friend named Frederick. Frederick runs a practice in which he and a group of doctors leech off of rich patients, telling them symptoms they don't have simply to upcharge them and make a living. Because this story is set in the English-speaking West, the observable utopia is that of Capitalism. In this Capitalistic world, patients will pay for and choose different doctors based off of what they want to hear, rather than what they need. This is especially interesting to note given the class divide observed in the film. The miners don't want their entire livelihood taken away, so they choose to ignore illnesses they do have. In New York, the rich live in such comfort that they can afford to spend money on treatments that they don't even need. They spend enormous amounts of money on medical lies and fake treatments, like "Infrared Health Baths." Because of this, the doctors are able to make more than their means and join the upper class along with them. Andrew decides to join Frederick's practice in order to provide him and Christine with the luxuries they've never been able to have. 

Andrew and Christine now live a life of luxury in New York. They live in an expensive apartment, Christine owns expensive and lavish clothes, and Andrew gets to yuk it up with his upper-class doctor friends golfing and doing very little actual work. This becomes a stark contrast to Andrew and Christine's life in the beginning of the film. In the beginning, Andrew was fueled with ambition and believed he could make real and actual change in the world. He pushed back against the placation of his patients and struggled to becomes a physician that actually helped people. Now, he helps no one and lives in such comfort that he no longer has many ambitions. Christine also begins to feel the effects of stagnation, as we see her depressingly walking numbly through her lavish New York apartment. This begins to play back into Dostoyevsky's notions of humanity's need for struggle. The ambition that Andrew and Christine once had is now gone, as they are left bored and empty in their life. 

Vidor is able to use the tactics of his repeated 'epic' strategy in the film. He does this by allowing the film to resemble life. The viewer is able to empathize with the shared experience of being young and ambitious, only to eventually becomes disillusioned by the difficult orchestrations of life and society. After getting to a place of relative comfort, you begin to become nostalgic for the excitement and struggle of youth. Doc temporarily feels this when a renown doctor from America that he's looked up to all his life comes to visit him. The American doctor tells him of the impression Andrew's previous tuberculosis work has made on him and seems to question the kind of work he is doing now. Andrew pushes back against this, telling him that he has to make a living - believing that the work he was doing in his youth was innovative, but was not appreciated enough to pay the bills. Vidor effectively does a great job of "mirroring" - in which he presents a story with a shared relevance with the viewer. Even if the specifics are different, his story beats carry the rhythm of one's own life, thus amplifying the weight of the emotions being felt by the characters. With The Citadel, the story beats seem to do this - as Andrew was once young and idealistic, only to be punished by his capitalistic society for trying to better it. He then conforms to the capitalist society in order to make a living in it. Throughout, he starts his first job, falls in love and marries his wife, faces life's difficulties, and does what he must to fit in. Because the viewer is able to relate to these experiences, not only does Vidor force you to connect with the humanity of the characters, but also forces you to reconcile with the external pressures the characters face in their society - and thereby your shared society as well. This capitalist utopia seems to punish any sort of progress and knowledge that doesn't fall in line with the current economic advantage by the owners of capital - as demonstrated by Andrew not being able to actually help cure the miners. It also is a society of conformity, as the metrics for the game it presents is that of achieving comfort and wealth. Once Andrew achieves this comfort and wealth by means of deceiving the rich, his innovation dies, as he no longer has something to strive for. He becomes selfish and holds on to tightly to this comfort. An old friend named Dr. Philip Denny implores Andrew to come and join his new innovative practice, in which patient's health comes first over beaurocracy. Andrew declines, much to Christine's dismay. Andrew also turns down a friend's plea to take a look at her daughter, who has a lung problem. Andrew is so caught up in his own relative comfort that he becomes unwilling to change anything about himself or his actions.

Christine is the first of the two of them to start feeling the effects of Dostoyevsky's 'internal resentment of comfort.' She starts to feel restless over the empty life the two of them seem to live. After Dr. Denny's plea to Andrew to come and work for him, she starts to becomes resentful over the stagnation they seem to be in. Because Vidor has allowed us to empathize with the characters though our collective shared experience, he then reaches a point of the film in which he forces us to reconcile with what we could become. We are now seeing our own future and the negative aspects of what our life could be if we comfort to this capitalist idea of utopia. We are forced to reconcile with the human condition and its need for comfort and greed, as well as how this collective outlook could create a whole society with this mindset as its foundation. With Dr. Denny's request for Andrew to come join a low income practice, Vidor implores us as the viewer and us as a society, to come back to selfless ambitions in which the goal is humanity, rather than greed and self-interest. He warns us of our own stagnation and its cost of innovative progress for the sake of humanity.

After Dr. Denny gets into a car accident, Andrew takes him to upper-class doctors for which he works. At the operating table, he observes an incompetent social-climber inadequately perform surgery on his friend - killing him in the process. Andrew confronts this doctor and tells him that it was a simple procedure and accusing him of murder due to his incompetence. Because this doctor never has to actually work due to the nature of his comfortable position, he was not at all qualified and competent enough to save Andrew's friend. Afterward, Andrew walks through the streets of New York, stricken with grief. Vidor films this scene with a certain dizziness - as the camera seems out of focus at times as it assumes Andrew's occasional point of view. With this dizzying point of view, Andrew begins to come out of the malaise of his own selfishness and is forced to reconcile with humanity - regarding the impersonality of the cold mechanical streets of New York - he watches detached cars wiz by and the depressing and stark life of the homeless. In the depths of his despair, he hears a voice tell him to carry on and keep going with life, not giving up hope in the process. Andrew regains his sense of purpose, allowing himself to recognize the cold and useless 'utopia' he finds himself in. At one point of the story, Christine confides to him her dissatisfaction with their new life, as it has become boring and predictable. She tells him that the true function of life should work like the steps of a citadel, constantly moving up without ever actually seeing what lies on the next step. The uncertainty of life is what gives life purpose and what creates ambition. The citadel she describes seems like a good antidote for the staleness and stagnation of an idealized 'utopia'. With The Citadel, Vidor is able to provide a look into the existential human experience, imploring the viewer to continue to strive for ambition and not fall into the fallacy of a utopian expectation for yourself and society. At a time when things were uncertain, and competing ideas of society were taking over, the film offers a look at what the West's capitalist structure was creating - and the kind of individuals it was creating. With this notion, the viewer becomes compelled to extract those same elements into the personal. Don't strive for comfort, strive for the uncertainty of what's to come next like the steps of the citadel.