Salesman: The Amercian Dream
In the documentary, Salesman, the spoken words of Paul reflects individual’s sacrifice for achieving American Capitalist dream in the 60s and 70s.
During the drive, Paul sings “I wish I’m a rich man”, “He is home, but I’m not”. In order to pursue wealth, he always isn’t home. When the salesmen are only out for four days, he feels like it’s already four weeks. When he sees a building on the road, he points at it and says that he wants to invest money to the building to be rich. The dialogues he says: “eat like you’re successful”, “many are called, we are chosen”, “if you have desire, you will get it”, not only reflect the key idea of Capitalism, but also serve as a consolation of his current difficult situation.
Being a salesman who sells bible, he benefits and suffers from Capitalism at the same time. While he benefits from it by reinforcing its idea to others — persuading people to buy products, he suffers from it by living in an unstable condition — his income is determined by others’ willingness to pay or not.
