“He’s up one day and broke the next” is how rival and friend Jack Billings describes Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. in The Great Ziegfeld. It’s totally true that Ziggy’s fortunes climb so high and sink so low so often in the film that it’s difficult to keep track of the swings in his luck. True to his optimistic form, though, Ziegfeld is always consumed with the heights of his success and consistently fails to recognize the realities of the slumps—even when they are of his own making. This yo-yoing up and down in the film takes on even greater significance in two of the film’s main motifs: stairs and elephants. Yup, pretty odd combination, but not as different as they may first appear to be.

Ziegfeld with his strongman Sandow at the beginning of the film

In Ziegfeld’s first attempt at show business, managing the strongman Sandow, he begins emphasizing his desire to make his stage higher so people in the audience have a better view of the action. In his mind, “there oughta be a lot more steps.” Ziggy yearns to be higher. Also in the beginning of the film, Sandow and Ziegfeld share an odd (but super important) scene in which they pass by an elephant at the Chicago World’s Fair. Ziegfeld insists on touching the elephant for good luck, and Sandow protests that Ziggy has been touching the elephant for five weeks and business has remained poor. Ziegfeld replies, “I know it’s a superstition, but a old Hindu told me that if you touch an elephant’s trunk and he raises it, everything will be alright.” Ironically, the elephant raises its trunk when Sandow touches it, but not for Ziggy. Yet, again, Ziggy’s desire is for something to be higher—in connection with his financial endeavors.

From these early scenes in Chicago, the film overflows with stairs and steps and images of elephants. There are never enough stairs to suit Ziegfeld—not even in the stunningly magnificent “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody” sequence (the dance number that won an Academy Award all on its own). By the way, if you have not seen this scene, I recommend Googling it—it is really, really impressive!

This still from the sequence “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody” doesn’t do it justice!

Like the constant need for more stairs and loftier stages, the elephant images that fill the scenes of The Great Ziegfeld also indicate height, their trunks always raised in the good- luck omen that Ziegfeld so desires from the elephant in the first part of the film. Ziegfeld, seemingly to no avail, surrounds himself with images of prosperity and success—even though his professional and financial enterprises are often unsuccessful. Yet he never gives up on his dreams—or on his elephant talismans. In the scene when Audrey, the femme fatale figure in the film, quits Ziegfeld’s show in anger at his not making her a star, she plays with one of his largest elephants (the one with flowers in it—and Ziggy loves to give flowers to promising women), turning it around on its table. Ziegfeld reprimands her, “Please don’t turn the elephant, Audrey,” to which she retorts, “ ‘Fraid I’ll spoil your luck?” When she dramatically smashes the poor elephant before stomping out of the room, the upraised trunk falls at Ziegfeld’s feet, where he picks it up thoughtfully and then determinedly puts in motion a plot to launch another successful show—even though he is at one of his lowest points in the movie with his wife Anna just having left him.

Ziegfeld’s ups and downs culminate in his losing nearly everything when the stock market crashes in 1929. When Billings comes to visit the ailing Ziegfeld at the end of the film (spoiler alert!), both men are financial wrecks; yet Billings is his jovial self, and Ziegfeld seems to have retained his optimism, at least superficially. What is not superficial in this scene are the elephants. As Ziegfeld slouches in his armchair staring out at the marquee of the Ziegfeld Theater, the most notable objects in his sparsely decorated room are the elephant figurines parading with raised trunks on various pieces of non-descript furniture. Sadly, Ziegfeld and Billings plot another great show together with money they don’t have. Ziegfeld seems to rally; but when Billings leaves, Ziegfeld tells Sidney, his manservant, that they’re “both broke.” Sidney encourages his master, “Wouldn’t worry about that, sir. You’ve been broke before, sir.” “Yes, I know,” replies Ziegfeld. “I’ve always laughed about it. But I can’t laugh anymore, Sidney, because I’ve been wrong. I’ve got nothing, nothing to leave anyone.” Sidney protests that Ziegfeld has given the world “memories of the finest things ever done on the stage,” along with his great name. Ziegfeld meditates on this fact, then drifts into another world, a world of production and spectacle. It nearly engulfs him, but then he declares decidedly, “I’ve got t’have more steps. I need more steps. I’ve got t’get higher. Higher.” The flower he is holding falls from his hand, and Ziggy passes away. But, again, it is vital to the meaning of the film that Ziegfeld’s last words and desire are for attainment, for lifting himself to an even higher level of commercial success and theatrical achievement. Just as Ziggy’s dreams never die—even when he is penniless and/or friendless—neither does his hope. Even to the very end of his life, he wants to exceed his own accomplishments and be something even greater than what he has already been.

For Me Then…

This gorgeous dress is emblematic of Ziegfeld’s great achievements on stage, accomplishments that never brought him lasting satisfaction.

Ziegfeld’s optimism is admirable—I especially respect how personal and financial setbacks deter him not a smidge. Yet in his endless positivity, he misses out on reality quite a bit. He loses his first wife, who loves him endlessly; and he loses the revenue of his hard work too many times to count. While he is creative and confident, he is also negligent and irresponsible. The steps and the elephants, symbols of his ceaseless desire to be a greater version of himself, also serve to remind the film’s viewers how worthless it is to never be satisfied with what one has been given or achieved. Had Ziegfeld valued his first wife more, she would not have left him. Had he cared for his finances, many stresses of his life (and of the lives of those who depended on him) would have vanished. But Ziegfeld ends his life as he lives it for the whole long film—in his own world, never satisfied, always striving for more. Though he admits that he has been “wrong” and can no longer laugh at his misfortunes, he is unclear about where exactly his error lies. In thinking he has left nothing to those who come after him, just what had he wanted to leave to them? Furthermore, who are these people–his family or nameless individuals of the wider world?

Contentment, then, is both what is missing from The Great Ziegfeld and what is often easily missing from our own lives. For me personally, I find it so easy to so often allow different obligations and responsibilities to command my time and energy that I forget to be grateful for what I have and for whom I have to share it with. What kind of lives could we live if we both strive for purpose and thank God for the grace that provides daily necessities? What would Ziegfeld’s life have been like had his emphasis on the “higher” been eclipsed by a recognition of the value of the “lower,” everyday things in life like family and friends? And yet, the film’s title is The Great Ziegfeld, emphasis on “great.” In light of the film’s ending, Ziegfeld was great because he orchestrated musical-theatrical performances of the most spectacular kind ever seen. But performances aren’t truth. The reality of Ziegfeld’s life–had he faced it–might not have been truly great at all.