Sullivan's Travels (1941)

 Preston Sturges' "Sullivan's Travels"


After the release of Preston Sturges' 1941 film "Sullivan's Travels," many critics felt that Sturges did not live up to the quality he had produced in his previous efforts, like "The Great McGinty," "Christmas in July," and "The Lady Eve." Many critics felt that Sturges was missing the very point that "Sullivan's Travels" was making. However, in retrospect, "Sullivan's Travels" is widely considered Sturges' greatest film of his filmography.

The story centers on a Hollywood director named John L. Sullivan. Sullivan is tired of making comedies and wants to make the next great Capra-esque film that deals with real world issues of social and political importance. He decides to spend life as a travelling hobo to better help him understand poverty and low-economic living circumstances. However, after an incident at a train station, he gets arrested and given a six-year sentence of hard labor in a work camp. There, he is brutally mistreated and suffers greatly. One night, the prisoners are allowed into a black church congregation to watch a film, specifically Walt Disney's 1934 cartoon, "Playful Pluto." All of the prisoners are laughing and enjoying the film, even Sullivan. After the Hollywood executives get Sullivan out of this camp, Sullivan decides that he doesn't want to make a film about the downtrodden. Rather, he wants to make a laugh-out-loud comedy, because "that's all some people have."

Although I understand many critics' perspective that Sturges missed the point of his own money, I would argue that many critics also misunderstood and didn't fully appreciate the film's intentions. Sturges is basically metatextually inserting himself into his own film and exploring the philosophies of his own desires as a filmmaker. We seen directors reach full metatextuality much later with Federico Fellini's "8 1/2" and Jean-Luc Godard's "Contempt," both released in 1963. So, to see a bit of metatextual filmmaking is a bit of a joyous occasion so early. All that being said, Sturges invents a story for himself in "Sullivan's Travels" to work through the conceits of his own style of film. Sturges had been typically known for making the comedy, like the ones mentioned earlier. However, if he truly was interested in making a serious film about the downtrodden, this was it. "Sullivan's Travels," although it does have some laughs, is also incredibly dark and glimpses the world of tramps and beggars, as well as prisoners and laborers. Through the construction of the film, Sturges comes to the conclusion that even these people don't want to see a film about themselves. Rather, the type of films that Sturges has been making already are the types of films he would like to make anyway. 

Like the "Gulliver's Travels" that the title of the film is based on, "Sullivan's Travels" is a film about self-discovery. Through "Sullivan's Travels," Preston Sturges digs into his own anxieties about the types of films he should be making, and comes out on the other side as self-assured as ever.



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