205. On the Waterfront

Song - The Boxer (Simon & Garfunkel)

Movie: On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954)

I always enjoy 1950's classic Hollywood movies starring up-and-coming actors, some of them on the brink of superstardom, influenced by The Actors Studio and method acting. It's interesting to see the clash between the theatrical and expressionist filmmaking style and the naturalistic, psychologically grounded acting of the new talents. It's productive too, especially as many of these films are about the (generational) unease caused by the societal transformations taking place between the Second World War and thhe 1960's. I really liked On the Waterfront, but as one of the founders of The Actors Studio, Elia Kazan has no trouble adjusting his style to the likes of Brando and Steiger, making it a bit more of a straightforward realistic film, lacking the fascinating disbalanced energy of something like Rebel Without A Cause (a far more interesting film than I gave it credit for in a very early entry of this blog). 

Kazan is evidently very good at making straightforward realistic films though. He barely makes use of any sets and the entire film is set on the streets of Hoboken, New Jersey, and more specifically its harbor, where longshoremen struggle to get work. Each wide shot is filled with so much (background) detail, you get the idea the film knows every nook and cranny of the area, creating a sensc of immediacy and urgency. That is further developed by Kazan's unadorned and direct shooting style. Most of his shots are elegant and pretty, but barely stylised, only conveying the most relevant information. One notable exception is the moment when Father Barry (a really great Karl Malden) is lifted off a ship's hull, rising above the many admiring longshoremen on his way back to the deck.  Story-wise, the film has a lot of patience showing the work of the longshoremen and how they are affected by the corruption of their union. 

Elia Kazan was the most prominent director to testify in front of the House of Un-American Activittees committee, branding many of his colleagues (some of them even wrongly) as communists, consequently ruining their careers. In On the Waterfront, Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando, giving a great performance that currently plays like the blueprint for Jack Nicholson's entire career) is an informer, who by testifying against Lee J. Cobb's Johnny Friendly (unfortunately it seems this name was not an inspiration for Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) becomes a hero who brings down the corrupt union bossess. Understandably, because of this, the film has come to be seen  by some as Kazan's apologia/justification for his own testimony. While this was obviously on Kazan's mind, the film deserves to stand on its own. Aside from testifying and being ostracised for it, the situations Kazan and Terry find themseelves in are very different. The film is based on real cases of corruption along the docks of New Jersey and New York, and it looks at this world with great moral and journalistic clarity. Nothing here plays as a strained metaphor, or as propaganda, and any critical viewer should be able to easily make the argument that Terry's actions were justified, while Kazan's were not.