Review #576: 'Quiz Show' (1994)

The line between reality and fiction in television has always been a blur. Before every household had their furniture pointed at the TV, news reels in cinemas were a medium in which governments filled people's heads with propaganda, quite easily manipulating viewers into believing that what they were seeing was fact - after all, back then, it was the only way to see what was happening outside of your own country, without actually leaving it yourself. As soon as studio heads realised how gullible audiences were, they seized the opportunity to rake in the cash. With the explosion of the Internet making the world relatively tiny, you would think people would be more aware of the dangers of believing what they see. Yet reality TV, a sickening creation that quite obviously plays out scripted scenes in natural environments, still has people duped. It seemed a fitting time to re-visit Robert Redford's thoroughly underrated Quiz Show, a meditation on the unrivalled power of television, and the hold it can have over a nation.

In 1950's America, Twenty One contestant Herb Stempel (John Turturro) wows audiences every week with his encyclopaedic general knowledge. With his approval ratings wavering, the big studio heads decide America is tired of cheering for the underdog, and order Herb to be removed from the show. Producers Dan Enright (David Paymer) and Albert Freedman (Hank Azaria) seek out a poster-boy, a figurehead that would give American someone to look up to, and ultimately aspire to be. Freedman spots Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes) auditioning for another show, and immediately snaps him up, offering the chance to win big money with relative ease - he will be given the answers. Van Doren is handsome, well-spoken, highly intellectual - the complete opposite to the mentally unstable Herb, who is paid off to lose to Van Doren. With Van Doren becoming a national treasure, Herb is appalled and takes his claims to the Grand Jury, catching the eye of young Congressional lawyer Dick Goodwin (Rob Morrow), who takes a special interest in the case.

Artistic license was obviously taken with Quiz Show, but Redford uses his directorial skill to create a crime story with no crime and no criminals, and no mystery given that the audience are in on the rigging from the start. So, the film is left as a damning portrayal of naivety, and a disturbing insight into the machinations of the most powerful corporation in the world - television itself. Goodwin, the "Uncle Tom of the Jews" is an outcast Harvard graduate, a small man in stature and societal hierarchy, believing that exposing this manipulation with cripple television and ultimately cause it to re-evaluate itself. Of course, it is Stempel and Van Doren - the pawns (albeit guilty pawns) - that suffer the most, being humiliated and having their reputations rocked, while studio head Robert Knitner (Allan Rich) and the executive of show sponsor Geritol, Mark Rittenhome (Martin Scorsese), emerging unscathed. Hanging Enright and Freedman out to dry, Rittenhome explains to an appalled Goodwin that "audiences forget, corporations don't". The footnotes at the end of the film explain that Enright and Freedman returned from their exile a few years later, becoming millionaires in the process.

Quiz Show is also a fine character piece, and while Rob Morrow grabs the majority of the screen time, it is Ralph Fiennes who truly impresses. Van Doren could be viewed as a rather despicable character; a man who sells his soul for money he doesn't really need, and for fame it brings him. Yet in Fiennes' hands, Van Doren becomes undeniably human, causing you to truly evaluate your own ethics, and what you would do if placed in a similar situation. This feeling is shared by Goodwin, who befriends Van Doren despite investigating him. He sees Van Doren as a victim who has been swept up in a tide of money and fame, manipulated in the same way as the people watching him, and it is the friendship between the two that is the beating heart of the film.

What makes Quiz Show so enjoyable and enthralling is the fact that it never lets its weighty issues get in the way of the emotional drama, and is a quite fascinating story to boot. Redford depicts Goodwin's struggle through legal bureaucracy, juxtaposing it with his refreshingly stable home life with wife Sandra (Mira Sorvino), a factor that can often be intrusive in movies about real events. We also witness Van Doren's guilt-ridden relationship with his famous father Mark (an excellent Paul Scofield), and Herb's strained marriage to Toby (Johann Carlo). But it is Goodwin's reaction to the events that ultimately linger in the mind, with his resigned realisation that television is simply to powerful to fight proving a rather depressing sentiment. Perhaps more people need to see this film before they completely succumb to escapism, and we become a nation of red-eyed zombies.


Directed by: Robert Redford
Starring: Rob Morrow, Ralph Fiennes, John Turturro, Paul Scofield, David Paymer, Hank Azaria
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie