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.
