DAVID BIANCULLI

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DEATH OF A SALESMAN
June 17, 2018  | By David Bianculli

TCM, 5:30 p.m. ET

 

Here’s something tricky, and uncomfortable, to contemplate. This 1985 made-for-TV filmed adaptation of the Arthur Miller classic, starring Dustin Hoffman as iconic past-his-prime traveling salesman Willy Loman, is a brilliant piece of work. Not only is the play itself heart-wrenching and important – attention must be paid – but the core performances, by Hoffman and by Kate Reid, John Malkovich and Stephen Lang, who play his wife and sons, respectively, are flawless. Yet this is the production on which Hoffman recently has been accused of backstage sexual harassment by Anna Graham Hunter, who was a 17-year-old production intern at the time. So do you value and continue to watch and enjoy the work while disapproving of the behavior of the artist at its center? Or are the alleged acts so heinous that the work of art itself is tainted and devalued as a result? (See also, for discussion points, Roman Polanski with Chinatown and Bill Cosby with The Cosby Show.)

 
 
 
 
 
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