Spoilers Below
Dockworker Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) has unknowingly set up fellow dockworker Joey Doyle to be murdered for testifying against the mob that runs the dock. As he looks towards where Joey has fallen off the roof of his apartment, Terry lets out a weathered 'pooof" of air. It's this moment, so unaffected and real that stood out to me when I first saw the On the Waterfront as a teenager in the 2000s (geez I'm old) Brando's performance is perhaps my favourite performance of all time. I'd go so far to say this is *the* Brando performance. Yes, The Godfather is probably his most iconic performance- and maybe the most iconic film performance of all time- but On the Waterfront is Brando in his prime.. While he had done A Streetcar Named Desire on stage and screen, played The Wild One and even challenged himself by doing Shakespeare, Terry Malloy is Brando's most complete and well-rounded performance up to this point- masculine but sensitive, a beautiful bum with the prospect of redemption. The film is also director Elia Kazan's masterpiece. If A Streetcar Named Desire is a little-intentionally so- boxed in cinematically, then On the Waterfront feels more lived in and vivid as a cinematic experience, fuller, more completer.
Brando and Kazan only did three movies together, (Streetcar, Viva Zapata! and On the Waterfront), as well as the original Streetcar on Broadway and the play Truckline Cafe (which only ran for 10 performances) but they brought forward a new kind of psychological realism on stage and screen. Before she was a critic Pauline Kael tells a story of coming in late to see Truckline Cafe (this was 1946). On stage she sees a man who she believes is having a seizure. It wasn't until the man she was with grabbed her arm and said "Watch this guy," that she realized he was an actor. Of course, it was Brando
A lot is talked about these days concerning "Method Acting," and it's become synonymous with male actors being assholes, and of course the "Try acting" story about Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman has been repeated so often that's it lost any real meaning. It's unfortunate that it has such a bad reputation because its an important piece screen and stage acting history. I think the problem is people think method acting is something that it's not. I don't method acting was about staying in character or building a log cabin, or not wearing a wool coat because it's a period piece. My understanding of method is it was about finding a more psychologically real approach to acting. Instead of just performing an emotion, you draw from your own experiences, even painful ones to feel what the character is feeling. While it's associated strongly with American actors you have to travel back in time to Russia to find it origins. Konstantin Stanislavski called it "the system," rather than the method and then it was co-opted by American acting teachers like Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg. Brando never called himself a "method actor," disliking Strasberg's methods. Brando said it was Adler and Kazan who taught him everything about acting.
Kazan actually started as an actor, moving to New York after studying drama at Yale and becoming part of the Group Theatre, which included the aforementioned Strasberg, and which specialized in lesser known plays that delt with social issues, which Kazan would continue to explore as a stage and film director. In 1947 he founded the Actors Studio, a non-profit organization of which Strasberg became the director, who of course introduced "the method," and amongst his students were Montgomery Clift, Julie Harris, Karl Malden, Mildred Dunnock, Patricia Deal and Eli Wallach.
While Kazan was never a teacher or practitioner of the method, he did use actors who practiced the method or something akin to it, actors like Brando and Malden, who co-starred in Truckline Cafe and then in the stage and film versions of Streetcar, as well as On the Waterfront. Kazan also worked with the always underrated Clift in the equally underrated Wild River. Clift often gets overshadowed by Brando, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe when it comes to 50s icons but I think he deserves as much credit as Brando for bringing a new kind of raw naturalism to the screen. His performance in A Place in the Sun is tremendous in how it creates a genuinely complex character who's neither hero or villain. He's also wonderful in his first film The Search, directed Fred Zinnemann, who also directed Brand in his first film role a couple of years later, The Men. In The Search, Clift plays an American soldier in Post WWII Germany who's attempting to reunite a boy with his mother, both of whom were in Auschwitz before being separated. Clift's chemistry with young actor Ivan Jandi (who won an Juvenile Oscar) provide the film with much humour and warmth, and it's definitely a movie worth seeking out.
Kazan also introduced James Dean to the world in East of Eden, based on the John Steinbeck novel, though condensed considerably by Kazan and Steinbeck, who had co-wrote Viva Zapata! together as well. The condensation of the generation spanning story of the Trask family, only focusing on the last section, centers the story on Cal Trask (Dean) and his fraught relationship with father Adam (Raymond Massey.) This was the only film of his Dean was alive to see, dying shortly before Rebel Without a Cause was released. Dean received criticism at the time for mimicking the acting style of Clift and Brando. It's true that Dean did emulate Brando and Clift, but I think the moodiness and mystery, as well as self-amusement belongs solely to Dean himself.
Kazan never worked with Monroe but it's an intriguing what-if? Monroe studied the method under Adler and wanted to be more respected as an actress. Her last role in The Misfits, as long as Bus Stop years earlier, show a dramatic potential that could've flourished if Monroe had lived.
Coming back to Brando, it's unfortunate that he got so lazy and pissed away his talent, because he obviously had a gift and charisma thar not everyone has. I'd argue Clift, Dean and Monroe had it but all died prematurely. Brando used to care so much about acting that he asked Kazan what the difference between Terry and his Streetcar character, Stanley Kowalski. This shows that Brando wanted to separate the two performances. I think it's easy for an actor sometimes to repeat themselves, but I don't Brando does in Waterfront, I think Terry is a different man than Stanley. Kazan wrote Brando a letter where he talked about the differences between the two men. He felt Terry was a more complex character than Stanley, which I agree. Kazan didn't feel there was a divide in Stanley, that he was more confident than Terry, lacking the the loneliness that pervades Terry. Kazan sums up Terry's journey throughout the film as "A bum becomes a man." I think Stanley is a reprehensible animal in Streetcar whereas Terry feels more sympathetic and more well drawn.
Kazan's use of method actors or actors akin to method actors correlates with his tendency towards social realism. While casting a big star like Brando in the role of a dockworker amongst actual dockworkers would seem counterintuitive but Brando feels less like a movie star trying to be a everyday worker than a truly embodied kind of performance. Doing it now, you would Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pit or Bradley Cooper trying real hard to appear natural. In general they fight really hard against their movie star image and I think Brando is one of the few who did it naturally. Don't get me wrong, I think the aforementioned actors have been great in certain roles and I'll go to bat for those performances. I still think Leo should've won for Wolf of Wall Street or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Brando almost wasn't in the film due to his dislike of Kazan testifying in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, giving up names of communists to Joseph McCarthy. While it allowed him to still work it did and does give him a black mark to this day. When he received his Honorary Oscar in 1999, you had people like Nick Nolte and Ed Harris refusing to even clap. Years before, Orson Welles called Kazan a "traitor" though also called him a fine director. I think Welles was kind of blowhard. That, and calling him a traitor seems to ignore how ruthless, cutthroat and remorseless a place Hollywood. I don't mean to condone Kazan's actions but let's not romanticize Hollywood as a completely rosy place.
Malden, who was a Academy board member, was the proponent of the Honorary Oscar. His speech in front of the board supposedly drew applause and Charlton Heston also supported the decision, saying political differences shouldn't deny him of the honor, noting that Kazan was denied lifetime achievement honors because of his testimony, and the film is often seen as Kazan's defense of his actions.
The film is unambiguously on the side of Terry informing. Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) and his goons are thugs, bullies and murderers. When Terry's brother Charley (Rod Steiger) is killed because he failed to convince Terry not to testify, as well as not killing him, it's like yeah, fuck those guys. Now, I don't think this film works as an defense on Kazan's part of his own actions- the people he testified against weren't murderers or any kind of villains. In real life, it was Joseph McCarthy who was the real villain. When it comes to Kazan, I think his actions are complicated than his critics believe.
I don't straight up condone but Kazan did but I feel he believed he was doing the right thing. I agree with Malden who felt the blame needed to be placed on politics. I think we should hate McCarthy more than Kazan.
Budd Schulberg, who won an Oscar for the film's screenplay, was also a "friendly witness" for HUAC. His screenplay I think is one of the most perfectly constructed. The way the film sets up Terry's past as a prizefighter and finally pays it off in the famous taxi scene (which I'll talk about later.), as well as its handling of a diverse ensemble of characters all while still keeping it a character study of the Terry character.
When Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro (who starred in Kazan's The Last Tycoon) presented Kazan with the Honorary Oscar Scorsese described Kazan as "This poetic realist," which I think may be the best description of Kazan as a filmmaker outside the oft used "Actor's director" used for directors of his kin. Kazan's films exist in a place where a new kind of psychological realism meets something more stylized and sometimes theatrical. The famous cab scene where Terry essentially tells Charley that he ruined his life, that if we wasn't asked to throw a fight years earlier he could've been a "contender." This scene walks a fine line between realism and melodrama, expertly (by the actors and Kazan) never losing the audience. It takes place in this enclosed place compared to the more lived in locations of the previous scenes, this taxi cab where the blinds are drawn in the back and we never see the driver until the end. It almost feels like a play, where everything is driven strictly by the actors and the dialogue. When we finally see the sinister driver, who we know is going to kill Charlie, it's a startlingly change of perspective. And you have to wonder, what was this guy thinking about when these two brothers were having this soul baring conversation?
Compare the closed-off theatricality of the taxi scene with the docudrama scenes on the waterfront,. showing the workaday life and environment of the dockworkers. Then you have the noirish scenes
like when Charley is found dead and Terry and Evie (Joey's sister) are chased by a car. I mean, that shot of the goons on the roof at the beginning is straight something from a crime film. And Terry is a noirish character, a man haunted by his past, a guy who exists in a morally grey area. Terry ultimately has a more triumphant and redemptive ending than most noir characters - unlike most noir characters who are doomed by the femme fatale, Terry is saved by the angelic Evie, played by Eva Marie Saint in her film debut, which won her the Best Supporting Actress Oscar alongside Brando's Best Actor win. I feel bad for not mentioning her character earlier because she's so significant and is a big impetus for Terry's interna conflict. When she says "No wonder they call you a bum," so disgusted by Terry not wanting to help, it hurts us as much as Terry.
Karl Malden's priest character Father Barry is also crucial to Terry's decision to testify because after Charley's murder Terry to strike out violently but Barry- who is right- tells him it's better to fight Friendly in court. Barry's character is also another instance of realism and theatricality blending and blurring in this film. Barry's sermons are probably the weakest part of this film and kind of drags it down.
On the Waterfront's denouement may strike some as too Hollywood, and it provides a bitter irony when contrasted with Kazan's reputation- which unlike Terry, is not that of a hero. Kazan never asked for forgiveness, maybe because he didn't feel he needed. Kazan did say in interviews that he probably would've done the same thing even if he had thought about it again. Despite Kazan's testimony, On the Waterfront won eight Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Kazan. It's one of the best Best Picture winners, though Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window is my favourite that year. I understand it's hard for people to separate their feelings about Kazan from the film, largely because it's so reflective of his beliefs on testifying. People use the expression "Separate the art from the artist" but I think it's so much difficult and complicated than that. Like I said, the film reflects Kazan's belief that he was right to testify, and I don't think the film works on that level, for I reasons I laid out earlier. I still appreciate the film for Brando's performance and for the story in its context. It remains a reminder of Kazan and Brando's immense talent and importance to cinema, as complicated as it is regarding Kazan.
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