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Wilson the Volleyball, Reconsidered

By James Surowiecki
Posted Friday, March 23, 2001, at 11:57 PM ET

If Tom Hanks walks away with the Oscar for Best Actor on Sunday night, he will of course be the first actor in Hollywood history to win the award for a film in which his chief co-star was a volleyball. Hanks has been predictably acclaimed for his portrait of a man in extremis, coming to grips with a kind of profound solitude that stands in sharp contrast to his frenzied life as a manager for FedEx. Now, Hanks' performance is certainly impressive. But what's really important about Cast Away is not what it has to say about the individual. It's what it has to say about the social.

At first glance, Wilson seems to be merely a kind of foil for Hanks. He needs something to break the silence, some illusion that he isn't truly alone, so he paints a face on the volleyball and suddenly has a ready-made audience for his ramblings. Hanks needs Wilson, in this reading, because he simply needs someone to listen.

In fact, though, something far more interesting is going on, but it's hard to see until the last scene between Hanks and Wilson when Hanks falls asleep while on a raft at sea and Wilson is carried off by the waves. Hanks dives into the water and tries to swim after his friend but doesn't have the strength to save him. As Hanks watches the volleyball drift out of sight, he yells, "I'm sorry, Wilson! I'm sorry!" Now, that's a pretty curious thing to yell (even by the admittedly weird standards of conversations with volleyballs). It suggests that Hanks is not anguished by the fact that he's alone again, as you'd think he would be if Wilson was just his solitude-shattering companion. Instead, Hanks is anguished by the fact that he's let Wilson down, that he hasn't been able to help Wilson when Wilson needed him.

The point, I think, is that Wilson is important to Hanks not as someone who will listen to him or pay attention to him (however silently). Wilson is important to Hanks as someone who relies on him, who, in some sense, needs him. The crucial thing you lose when you fall out of society, Cast Away seems to say, is not conversation or attention. The crucial thing you lose is the chance to be needed. Hanks has to create Wilson out of that volleyball not because he needs someone to talk to but because he has to be of use to someone else. The abyss that yawns in front of him when he lands on that island--and that Wilson helps him avoid--is not the abyss of existential despair, exactly. It's something much simpler but much darker: the abyss of irrelevance.

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James Surowiecki writes the financial column at The New Yorker.
Still © 2001 Fox. All rights reserved.
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[Notes from the Fray Editor: When the history of The Fray comes to be written, a special place should be reserved for the response (from Android to Zeitguy) to an "insightful" financial writer commenting on the film stardom of a piece of sports equipment. You need to look here (not in the Culturebox Fray) to get the full force: a short list of high quality posts--with titles like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Volleyball" and "Paint or Blood?"--which left the Fray team awestruck.]


Wilson was there because otherwise you don't get much dialogue in a movie with just one character. And since the audience--thanks to "movie magic" and the charisma of Tom Hanks--relates to him/it as a character, it would look heartless for Tom Hanks to shrug and say "Oh, hell, it was just a painted volleyball anyway."

Just imagine the story meeting--"Okay, he's on the raft, but what about when he's rescued? What happens to Wilson? If we have Hanks talking to the ball when people are around, he'll look like a nut, not an engaging castaway. If he just goes in a closet, it's a loose thread. If we never mention him anymore, we'll get savaged for it for years, kinda like Richie Cunningham's missing older brother." (pause) "I know, he can be washed off the raft by a wave." (interjection) "But what does Hanks do?" (long pause) "I got it! He apologizes to the ball when he can't save it! That's at least good for some free PR in Slate around Oscartime!" (awed silence) "AG, you're a genius!"

--A.G.Android

(To reply, click here.)


Now, this is the kind of thinking that finally cuts through the cliches and fanny patting that surrounds the Oscars. Hanks made a damn volleyball more interesting and more memorable than most of the supporting casts in most of the movies of the year. Wait, this just in. Wilson has been nominated for Best Actor! Hanks will make the acceptance speech!

Alrighty then. Another milestone for entertainment

--Zeitguy

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If a lonely man is creating a make-believe companion, to protect and care for out of a genuine need to be needed, wouldn't he make it female? On the other hand...

If a man is making a movie about a lonely man etc etc, he might make it male to avoid the censorial difficulties inherent in using a female cantaloupe.

However…The true significance of the volleyball is that it works cheap and can do its own stunts.

--HV

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