In order to prolong the story of Leo Minosa, trapped in a Native
American dwelling, Chuck Tatum needs Leo’s wife, Lorraine, to play the part of
the grieving significant other, a role she has not hitherto inhabited. “I want you to go to church,” he tells
her. Waving that day’s newspaper,
featuring his headline, he says, “Tomorrow this’ll be yesterday’s paper and
they’ll wrap a fish in it,” implying public fickleness in regard to human
interest stories that lose their steam.
He turns to Herbie, his photographer and traveling companion on this
assignment, and gives him a task: “I wanna picture of her with rosary beads.” The staged nature of the photos, not to
mention the story, is constructed to meet certain public expectations, “the
picture in their heads,” similar to the story told by M. de Pierrefeu of a
photographer’s visit to the war hero Joffre: “The General was in his ‘middle
class office, before the worktable without papers, where he sat down to write
his signature. Suddenly it was noticed
that there were no maps on the walls.
But since according to popular ideas it is not possible to think of a
general without maps, a few were placed in position for the picture, and
removed soon afterwards” (13).
A
veteran reporter, who has met his first real opportunity since landing in
Albuquerque, Chuck Tatum knows how to sell a story. Even before asking Herbie to propagate the
image of Lorraine Minosa, soon-to-be-widow, he tutors him on the art of identifying
“one good beat.” One man trapped in a mountain is better than 84, he tells him. A story about one man offers potential for a
human interest story that a story about 84 men does not. Leo’s dire circumstances only make things
better for Tatum, who is not shy about exploiting someone else’s predicament
for his own gain: “Bad news sells best because good news is no news” he tells
Herbie as they make their way through the mountain for the first time to meet
Leo. Tatum engineers the pseudo-facts
and pseudo-environment of the story by dragging it out as long as he can, with unfortunate
results, none of which are surprising to the spectator, who becomes an analyst
of public opinion simply by viewing Ace
in the Hole.
Lippman
states, “The analyst of public opinion must begin then, by recognizing the
triangular relationship between the scene of action, the human picture of that
scene, and the human response to that picture working itself out upon the scene
of action” (16, 17). Dramatic irony
allows the spectator to easily observe this triangular relationship through
access to Tatum’s point of view, including his motives. There is never a question of who is in control—Tatum, at least until
the situation escapes his grasp—and because we know who is pulling the strings,
we recognize Tatum’s pseudo-environment and his reasons, along with others’,
for perpetuating it. The small town of
Escadero is full of opportunistic characters: the unhappy wife, who is making
money for the first time in her curios shop at the expense of her entrapped
husband, the sheriff, whom Tatum promises, “You play along with me and I’ll get
you re-elected, and Herbie, who, in his inexperience and naivete, does just
about anything Tatum asks.
To a
certain extent, the Federber family is also opportunistic. They stopped in Escadero when the story was
just developing; still in Escadero after the story has become national, they
want a claim on being the first ones there.
Though obviously a criticism of the sensationalism in news and its
implied bending of ethics, Ace in the
Hole is also critical of the public, exemplified by the Federber
family.
Unlike Mrs. Minosa and Sheriff
Kretzer, they have no monetary or political stake in the story; rather, they
are entranced by the picture. “Emotionally they want to believe it (19),”
whether it signifies supernatural
manifestations in the Mountain of Seven Vultures, the narrative of the
courageous reporter, the determination of the devoted wife, or the indomitable
will of the victim, who, thanks to daily reports, is able to update the public
on his progress. Tatum is guilty of prolonging
the affair, and he eventually takes the blame for Leo’s death; the public,
however, is guilty of creating the spectacle.
The public, after all, arrives in droves to witness the story, which
they cannot truly witness because access to Leo is limited to Tatum. Instead, they literally set up a carnival,
thus setting the stage for Tatum’s pronouncement that “the circus is over,”
which, sadly, is not an exaggeration.
The spectator,
possibly guilty of committing the same errors as the Federber family if placed
in a similar limited-view position, is given access to “the scene of action,
the picture of that scene, and the human response to that picture working
itself out upon the scene of action” through a proxy character: Jacob Q. Boot,
Tatum’s boss. Like the spectator, Boot
sees everything that is happening but is powerless, unable to effect Tatum’s
schemes, which are continually spiraling out of control. After the story has struck, Tatum finds Boot
in his room in Escadero.
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Tatum thinks
Boot will be pleased with the increased circulation of the Albuquerque
Sun-Bulletin, but instead, Tatum, a representative of “the unseen facts” (31)
has other concerns: “You’ve been putting a halo around that sheriff;” “I don’t make
deals,” referring to deal of exclusivity reached between Tatum and the sheriff;
“I’m not your kind of newspaperman.”
Boot as analyst of public opinion works strictly because of his ethics
that fly in the face of his supposed role as newspaperman. He is not interested in selling papers; this
is a man who hangs a crocheted sign inside his office with the words, “Tell the
Truth.” His insider status makes him an
expert, the kind Lippman considers necessary to assist the government in making
facts intelligible to the public. That Ace in the Hole allows insider access to
the spectator makes it more generous than Lippman: the public, too, can see
through the illusion of “facts,” only if allowed to step outside of itself.
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