During the height of the Red Scare, the Hollywood Blacklist, and the anti-Communist witch hunts of the late 1940s and early 1950s, Kazan and "Waterfront" screenwriter Budd Schulberg created a firestorm of controversy (and a lot of enemies) by testifying before HUAC and "naming names" of supposed Communists working in the industry.
The stigma of that decision dogged Kazan and Schulberg for pretty much the rest of their lives. Do you remember when Kazan was given a Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 1999 and some in the audience (including Nick Nolte) refused to applaud for him? It was because of his testimony 50 years previous.
Incidentally, I met Schulberg in the mid 2000s when he came to talk to our screenwriting class at Boston University. The man was near the end of his life, terribly frail, but still sharp as a tack. He told wonderful stories about his career and graciously answered all of our questions. But we were told beforehand, in no uncertain terms, that we were NOT to bring up the Blacklist.
Honestly, I'm not interested in sitting judgment on these guys. The Red Scare ruined a lot of lives, but if I had been at that Oscar ceremony, I would have applauded. It's hard for me to know what choice I would have made if I had been in their position, and I just don't believe that one decision under tremendous pressure, no matter how potentially damaging to the careers of others, invalidates an entire lifetime of artistic achievement. Kazan and Schulberg were not Hollywood hacks. They were the cream of the crop, artists at the top of their game who not only told powerfully compelling stories on film but also consistently used their voices to pursue issues of social justice. We all love "The Wire," right? That show wouldn't exist without the foundation laid half-a-century before by "neorealist" filmmakers like Kazan and Schulberg.
If we can make excuses for Roman Polanski, it seems to me there should be room in our hearts for Kazan and Schulberg.
"On The Waterfront" — the story of Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando), a dock worker and washed-up boxer who, under enormous pressure, decides to turn against a corrupt union boss (Lee J. Cobb) and his own brother (Rod Steiger) — is often seen as apologia for informing, where the act of testifying is presented as a heroic act. Indeed, the film came very shortly after the Blacklist scandal, so it's hard to imagine that this wasn't in some way on Kazan and Schulberg's minds.
That's an interesting question for film history debates, but it kind of misses the point. The fact is "On the Watefront" is a great fucking movie. The assuredness of the storytelling, the depth of the characters, the quiet intensity of the performances, the whipcrack dialogue and the steady turning of the screws — all of this makes "Waterfront" a movie that still feels strikingly contemporary. It's a powerful, near perfect film.
Brando was never better, before or since. But the big stunners for me are Steiger as Terry's conflicted, corrupted brother Charley the Gent, and Karl Malden as seething priest Father Barry, who has made bringing Johnny Friendly (Cobb) down a religious crusade. Eva Marie Saint approaches the potentially thankless role of the angel-on-the-shoulder love interest with a grounded sense of melancholy, transforming the role from a plot device into the emotional heart of the film.
Terry is pulled in a hundred different directions throughout, and at no point does his final decision feel inevitable. We feel the tug of war going on in his soul, right up until the end.
And of course, there's this oft-parodied scene. "I coulda been a contender... I coulda been somebody." It's easy to snicker at that, but in context, it's still heartbreaking.
No comments:
Post a Comment