NFR Project: “On the Waterfront”
Dir: Elia Kazan
Scr: Budd Schulberg
Pho: Boris Kaufman
Ed: Gene Milford
Premiere: July 28, 1954
108 min.
"Chère mademoiselle, you have chosen the wrong metteur en scène, because Elia Kazan is a traitor. He is a man who sold to McCarthy all his companions at a time when he could continue to work in New York at high salary, and having sold all his people to McCarthy, he then made a film called On the Waterfront which was a celebration of the informer. I have to add that he is a very good director.” – Orson Welles, 1982
How do you separate the artist from the all-too-human being who inhabits the same body? There are many examples of honored creatives who were hideous people, down to our own time. Elia Kazan is justly revered as one of the great directors. He also ratted out his friends.
How do you praise a movie on the side of a squealer?
In April 1952 Kazan was called on by the House Un-American Activities Committee, which was on the hunt for Communist sympathizers in the Second Red Scare. The Cold War was on. People’s loyalties to their country were questioned. If you were tainted with the allegation you were a Red, you lost your job. You were shunned. You were out of luck.
Kazan named eight of his artistic colleagues as Communist sympathizers. He took out an ad in the New York Times justifying his actions. (For the record, screenwriter Budd Shulberg and actor Lee J. Cobb named names as well.) He destroyed many relationships but not, seemingly, his professional opportunities. He was soon making On the Waterfront, a film that does make a hero of an informant. In fact, this is the inverse of John Ford’s 1935 The Informer. Here, betrayal leads to a Christlike redemption.
That being said, Kazan is a masterful director, particularly in his work with actors. He somehow gets them to trust him. He gets physically closer to his people than many directors do; in close-ups and two-shots the story plays out, intimately. He films on location, he keeps it authentic. He frames illuminating, beautiful compositions. He knows how to move the film along, he knows how can he can go.
For this is the offspring of Italy’s Neorealism. It’s American Social Realism, which is also a descendant of the “social problem” and “message” films of the 1930s and 1940s. It’s a story from the streets. It’s gritty. It poses a problem, delineates its outlines. It tracks the progress of a noble young man who decides to do what is unpopular but right.
This directing style was receptive to the advances of the Method approach in acting, which called for the summoning of sense memory and emotional truth to embody a character. This revolutionary system, derived from the work of Russian great Constantin Stanislavsky and his American disciple Lee Strasberg, meant that people were emoting and pondering onscreen, looking for something “real” to enact. Kazan’s troupe was the vanguard of the Method’s inroads into the film acting approach of American performers. It feels real.
The script’s skeleton was constructed by famous playwright Arthur Miller, who wrote the first version of the script. The studio wanted him to make the corrupt union members who play the villains into Communists. Miller declined. In fact, Miller was so pissed off at Kazan that he bailed. He was replaced by Budd Schulberg. The end result is a taut yet insightful look at the underside of racketeering in America.
It’s taken as a given. Corruption riddles the industry. Goons run the union and exploit their workers. They kill people who threaten to rat them out.
Kazan got the best for his cast. Marlon Brando is still astonishing as Terry Molloy, the conscience-stricken longshoreman who used to be a “contender,” a prizefighter with possibilities who threw a fight for his brother, corrupt union hireling Charley the Gent (Rod Steiger) and ruined his career. He’s privy to the union officials’ execution of a potential government witness, Joey Doyle.
Brando is at the top of his game – he’s fully alive in every scene, he’s spontaneous, he’s irresistible. He won the Best Actor Oscar for this performance – back when he was still accepting them.
Steiger is amazing as Terry’s savvy older brother, and their interplay, especially in their iconic taxi scene, is intense. Eva Marie Saint won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for this, her first film, as Joey’s sister Edie. Karl Malden is equally brilliant as the waterfront priest. Lee J. Cobb is the classic bad man, “Johnny Friendly,” who dominates and makes his money off the labor of his union members. BOOO!
Terry is drawn to Edie, who’s out to find the killer of her brother. She and Terry fall in love with each other, but when he confesses his role to her, she runs away from him.
Charley has to convince Terry to take a job with the organization – or he has to take him to his death. Terry refuses. Charley gives him a gun and tells him to run. Charley is murdered.
Terry testifies. He later goes to the docks and exclaims that he was glad he testified, and calls Johnny out. The two battle, then Friendly’s goons rush in and almost beat Terry to death. The dockworkers won’t go to work unless Terry leads them. He struggles painfully to his feet and enters the warehouse. They follow. The warehouse door swings down.
It’s classic, and deeply moving. It features an excellent score by Leonard Bernstein. It won Best Picture. It won Best Director. It won for Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Editing. It features a lot of soon-to-be-known actors. There ‘s Martin Balsam! There’s Pat Hingle! There’s Fred Gwynne! There’s Nehemiah Persoff!
It’s a fascinating, compelling film. The performances are legendary.
Kazan won a honorary Oscar in 1999. Many present there sat on their hands rather than applaud his achievement.
The NFR Project is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Rear Window.
