NFR Project: 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' (1945)

 

NFR Project: “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”

Dir: Elia Kazan

Scr: Tess Slesinger, Frank Davis

Pho: Leon Shamroy

Ed: Dorothy Spencer

Premiere: Feb. 28, 1945

128 min.

The naturalistic drama is a rare bird in American cinema, and a specialty of its director Elia Kazan (1909-2003), whose first film this was. He was to go on as the prodigiously honored and vastly popular director of such films as Gentleman’s Agreement, A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, and East of Eden. He is also noted for his testimony against supposed Communists in his industry to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952. You loved him or you hated him.

All that lies in the future. Kazan came out of the performance collective known as the Group Theatre (1931-1941), which grew from the teachings of Russian performer and teacher Konstantin Stanislavski (1863-1938). Kazan was noted for his ability to conjure great performances out of actors, particularly those in need of mentoring, such as Brando, Dean, and Peck. These were the early days of Method acting, which swept the industry in the 1950s.

The deeply felt tale of growing up in the slums of Brooklyn in 1912 seemed well-suited to Kazan’s strengths. He was able to get actors to play above their heads, to do extraordinary work. He helped two actors in the film win Oscars.

He did it by keeping the players close to the camera. This is a movie of faces, carefully scrutinized. The challenge to the actor is to present in a new way, to let them work, at their own pace, to the moment. This is most evident in his work with Peggy Ann Garner, who won a special juvenile Oscar for playing the young heroine Francie.

The film is adapted from the bestselling 1943 novel by Betty Smith. Francie is 13, has a little brother, Neeley, and lives with him and her father Johnny Nolan (James Dunn) and her mother Katie (Dorothy McGuire). Francie and Neeley are “ragpickers,” scavengers of the streets who sell their finds to the junk man for pennies. Her mother scrubs the tenement’s floors to make extra money. Katie is sister to Sissy (Joan Blondell), a serial monogamist.

Johnny is a drunk. An amiable, charming drunk, but a drunk nonetheless. He can’t hold down a job, save for performing occasionally as a singing waiter. He sings beautifully, and he dreams of a better life.

He and Francie have a special bond. He fudges some paperwork so that she can attend a better school nearby. Meanwhile, the family moves to a cheaper, smaller apartment. Katie becomes pregnant. One night, Johnny goes out into the snow to find and job and dies. The kids get after-school jobs.

The baby comes, and Francie and Neeley graduate from their respective schools. The kindly Officer McShane (Lloyd Nolan), proposes to Katie,.and he adopts the baby as his own. Finally, it seems the danger is over, the family will not starve.

At all times, Kazan eschews fancy camerawork. He stays on level or slightly below his players, trained on their reactions to the severe circumstances they find themselves in. Francie is a reader, a dreamer, a committed future writer. Kazan lingers on Garner’s faces as she takes in bad news, the way she melts into happiness onscreen. Dorothy McGuire is thoroughly three-dimensional, and James Dunn . . . Dunn was a real-life alcoholic Kazan captures the innate pathos of the alcoholic on Dunn’s face, and Dunn won Best Supporting Actor for the role.

What happens in this school-of-hard-knocks tale is covered compassionately and patiently. The actors are using the screen as a canvas, gaining power as the focus of the audience’s attention. We feel we are watching real life; there’s not a false note in any of the performances. This serious engagement with character swept the audience up in its commitment and energy. A story of poverty-level living in America, Tree is the indicator of a new direction in onscreen acting.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: V-E + 1 (May 9, 1945).