Elia Kazan: Why he falls just a bit short...
steve
films...well,"Streetcar...", anyway...and I like many of his films. But he
often falls just a bit short for me. I think I can articulate why, and I
wonder if anyone agrees with me.
In varying degrees I find his films somewhat forced or obvious. Even
moments in "Streetcar..." strike me that way. For example, there are
several moments in that film where the couple upstairs are used to make a
point; to demonstrate the two levels of their relationship at odds, animal
and intellectual. This is done repeatedly (and primarily) with snatches of
dialog overheard as they pass through the courtyard or up the stairs. There
is nothing wrong with this approach (and I suspect it comes from the
original play in one form or other) but the presentation, in a rather subtle
way, lacks the necessary subtlety that the film requires, IMO. Rather than
feeling these occurances as part of the films natural flow, I am made quite
aware, each time it occurs, that a point is being demonstrated. As the film
is otherwise quite naturalistic (a word I've picked up from you film buffs,
BTW) these brief episodes feel just plain wrong.
"A Face in the Crowd" (another film I like but do not love..one I havent
seen in a couple years) is anything but subtle and more consistently
violates it's own naturalistic presentation.
"Splendor in the Grass"...wow, it's been a while since I've seen this
one...but I recall this film having many problems. My general impression
(and specifics evade me) is that this film tends to wander in search of
direction. Ideas are presented in a rather obvious fashion, but they feel
unsupported by the film as a whole. Sorry to be vague, but it's probably
been 5-10 years since I've seen this film.
Compare Kazan to one of my favorites, John Huston, for example. Hustons
films, though they often contain strong moral statements, never feel forced
or contrived. And I think the comparison is apt because they made films in
a similar vein during the same period.
I expect Nony will tell me I'm a terrorist or something, but...comments?
steve
--
"It aint me, man, it's the system."
Charles Manson
John Harkness
>Make no mistake I respect this director and love some of his
>films...well,"Streetcar...", anyway...and I like many of his films. But he
>often falls just a bit short for me. I think I can articulate why, and I
>wonder if anyone agrees with me.
>
>In varying degrees I find his films somewhat forced or obvious. Even
>moments in "Streetcar..." strike me that way. For example, there are
>several moments in that film where the couple upstairs are used to make a
>point; to demonstrate the two levels of their relationship at odds, animal
>and intellectual. This is done repeatedly (and primarily) with snatches of
>dialog overheard as they pass through the courtyard or up the stairs. There
>is nothing wrong with this approach (and I suspect it comes from the
>original play in one form or other) but the presentation, in a rather subtle
>way, lacks the necessary subtlety that the film requires, IMO. Rather than
>feeling these occurances as part of the films natural flow, I am made quite
>aware, each time it occurs, that a point is being demonstrated. As the film
>is otherwise quite naturalistic (a word I've picked up from you film buffs,
>BTW) these brief episodes feel just plain wrong.
>
There's nothing "natuarlistic" about Streetcar -- it's a highly
theatircal, stylized film. You can smell the greasepaint.
>"A Face in the Crowd" (another film I like but do not love..one I havent
>seen in a couple years) is anything but subtle and more consistently
>violates it's own naturalistic presentation.
>
>"Splendor in the Grass"...wow, it's been a while since I've seen this
>one...but I recall this film having many problems. My general impression
>(and specifics evade me) is that this film tends to wander in search of
>direction. Ideas are presented in a rather obvious fashion, but they feel
>unsupported by the film as a whole. Sorry to be vague, but it's probably
>been 5-10 years since I've seen this film.
>
>Compare Kazan to one of my favorites, John Huston, for example. Hustons
>films, though they often contain strong moral statements, never feel forced
>or contrived. And I think the comparison is apt because they made films in
>a similar vein during the same period.
>
>I expect Nony will tell me I'm a terrorist or something, but...comments?
Apples and oranges. There's nothing at all "naturalistic" or
"realistic" about Kazan's style -- it's overheated, florid and
theatrical (read Manny Farber's comments on Kazan in Negative Space,
particularly in an essay called "The Gimp".
John Harkness
Risto Karttunen
>
>I expect Nony will tell me I'm a terrorist or something, but...comments?
>
"bigger-than-life"-feeling in Kazan's films, plus certain mushiness,
like excessive use of pedal in piano playing.
--
risto
steve
On 11-Feb-2003, smacked up and reeling, j...@attcanada.ca (John Harkness)
blindly formulated the following incoherence:
> >
> There's nothing "natuarlistic" about Streetcar -- it's a highly
> theatircal, stylized film. You can smell the greasepaint.
Help me to understand this, John. Am I using the wrong term or do you think
I'm misreading the film?
Aside from Blanches audible delusions, isnt the presentation of streetcar
earthy and realistic? Is that not "naturalistic"? Brandos acting
style...naturalistic?
> >Compare Kazan to one of my favorites, John Huston, for example. Hustons
> >films, though they often contain strong moral statements, never feel
> >forced
> >or contrived. And I think the comparison is apt because they made films
> >in
> >a similar vein during the same period.
> >
> >I expect Nony will tell me I'm a terrorist or something, but...comments?
>
> Apples and oranges. There's nothing at all "naturalistic" or
> "realistic" about Kazan's style -- it's overheated, florid and
> theatrical
Overheated, certainly, but also earthy and guttural. As for florid and
theatrical...perhaps I dont understand what you're getting at. The TW
language is certainly "florid", but that didnt stop Huston from creating
something quite real in "Night of the Iguana"....and with Burton as the
star, no less.
In any case, what do you think about my general point about Kazans stuff?
Is it not often forced and obvious? Do you see that as a weakness?
John Harkness
>
>On 11-Feb-2003, smacked up and reeling, j...@attcanada.ca (John Harkness)
>blindly formulated the following incoherence:
>
>> >
>> There's nothing "natuarlistic" about Streetcar -- it's a highly
>> theatircal, stylized film. You can smell the greasepaint.
>
>Help me to understand this, John. Am I using the wrong term or do you think
>I'm misreading the film?
>
>Aside from Blanches audible delusions, isnt the presentation of streetcar
>earthy and realistic? Is that not "naturalistic"? Brandos acting
>style...naturalistic?
Earthy and realistic are not equivalents.
Do not confuse any "method" style acting with realism, despite the
claims for the Method at the time -- contemporary reviews talked about
it as a new realism, it's as highly stylized as kabuki, or the sharp
style of Broadway acting in the 20s that one hears in the movies of
the 30s.
As to Streetca, look at the gauzy lighting, the overly groomed
locations ("could we make the waterstain a little bigger, pleeze".),
Kazan's fondness for pitched camera angles, which reaches a kind of
apex in East of Eden, where there doesn't seem to be a single flat
location for him to set his tripod.
Literarily speaking almost no Southern writer from this era is
particularly realistic -- they're all rather Gothic and overly fond of
the grotesque. Williams is an extreme example of the type.
This was, AT THE TIME, hailed as a "realer" or "rawer" or "earthier"
than we were used to in Hollywood movies, but they were talking about
content and mistaking if for form.
John Harkness
Jack Stalnaker
>
> "Splendor in the Grass"...wow, it's been a while since I've seen this
> one...but I recall this film having many problems. My general impression
> (and specifics evade me) is that this film tends to wander in search of
> direction. Ideas are presented in a rather obvious fashion, but they feel
> unsupported by the film as a whole. Sorry to be vague, but it's probably
> been 5-10 years since I've seen this film.
I will sit through this movie from time to time, and I've even been tempted
to pick up the DVD (well, Phyllis Diller is in it), but something in this
film has always bothered me too. It's like "Splendor" is too slick and
contrived or something. And maybe the leads are too "movie star" or
something. I really don't know. I like Natalie Wood way better in just about
anything else -- even a Tab Hunter western. Especially a Tab Hunter western.
And I've never really been much of a Beatty fan, except maybe in
Frankenheimer's "All Fall Down."
Maybe Frankenheimer would have been better for "Splendor." Or maybe it
really is a Douglas Sirk movie (not at his best) and they just put Kazan's
name on it by mistake. At any rate, even though I kind of like the film on
it's own terms, I really kind of don't like it either. It's the only Kazan
film that bothers me.
A Kazan film rarely discussed (or rarely remembered) is 1953's "Man On a
Tightrope." This is an odd one, very moody, and I like it a lot. This is a
circus film that came a year after DeMille's Oscar-winning "Greatest Show On
Earth," and, set during the war, "Man On a Tightrope" has a totally
different tone. It's in a different Universe...well, Europe. However, both
of these circus films have Gloria Grahame in showy roles -- and that's a
lot! (For the record: I love (make that LOVE) the DeMille film, as corny as
it is, so you can be sure I turned in my cineaste card decades ago.)
JCS
http://www.meekermuseum.com/
**************************************************************
The Meeker Museum is a nonprofit, nonexistent organization
dedicated to the pursuit of inner peace through movie stars.
David
>There's nothing "naturalistic" about Streetcar -- it's a highly
>theatrical, stylized film. You can smell the greasepaint.
I have to agree with John here. "Streetcar" the play isn't an example
of realism (in that it doesn't present the normal & it isn't
especially naturalistic: you've got many of those elements that belong
to different literary traditions, like the overt symbolism (Blanche's
dress, the cherry soda pop, the paper lanterns) & the psychological
paraphernalia (the "erotic moan" of the jazz trumpet, the dromomania,
the haunted memories). There are deliberate naturalistic devices &
tropes (Stanley as animal or brute, the oppressiveness of circumstance
& environment on characters like Blanche so that they are reduced to
degradation & desperation), but they are hyperstylized in "Streetcar"
in an almost painterly way (Stanley taking his shirt off or walking
around in his undershirt, Blanche's whole butterfly or moth shtick
when confronted by danger). All the neuroses of the characters are
amplified & refracted at strange angles. The truly Gothic quality is
in the way that the crumbling & selling off of the old plantation,
Belle Reve, prefigures exactly what happens to Blanche. These are all
unrealistic & unnaturalistic motifs, at least in the literary sense.
But I think I see what you mean about the interruptive quality of the
movie, Steve. Kazan moves his actors around in stagey ways---from
foreground to background in planned alternating patterns, from inside
to outside & even up & down those stairs. He draws your attention
mechanically to a theme or an image or even something a character
says---whatever he wants to emphasize. The most obvious example I can
think of just now is the echo on the soundtrack of key lines to
indicate Blanche's mental confusion. The entire mise en scene of the
movie reminds me of a sophisticated version of some of the dark rides
at Disneyland, like "Pirates of the Carribean." And then of course
there's the language: some of the best poetic dialog of any American
play. It's sublimated poetry.
James Allen
Well put, John. I love Streetcar (the play and the film), but if you need only
read a few of Williams' plays (and I've read a bunch) to know that Tennessee
Williams is not Mr. Realism (and I don't mean to imply that's a bad thing, it
isn't.) In that sense Kazan's style fit Williams writing like almost like a
glove.
steve
On 12-Feb-2003, smacked up and reeling, David
<dobe...@NIHILSPAMsocal.rr.com> blindly formulated the following
incoherence:
> I have to agree with John here. "Streetcar" the play isn't an example
> of realism (in that it doesn't present the normal & it isn't
> especially naturalistic: you've got many of those elements that belong
> to different literary traditions, like the overt symbolism (Blanche's
> dress, the cherry soda pop, the paper lanterns) & the psychological
> paraphernalia (the "erotic moan" of the jazz trumpet, the dromomania,
> the haunted memories). There are deliberate naturalistic devices &
> tropes (Stanley as animal or brute, the oppressiveness of circumstance
> & environment on characters like Blanche so that they are reduced to
> degradation & desperation), but they are hyperstylized in "Streetcar"
> in an almost painterly way (Stanley taking his shirt off or walking
> around in his undershirt, Blanche's whole butterfly or moth shtick
> when confronted by danger). All the neuroses of the characters are
> amplified & refracted at strange angles. The truly Gothic quality is
> in the way that the crumbling & selling off of the old plantation,
> Belle Reve, prefigures exactly what happens to Blanche. These are all
> unrealistic & unnaturalistic motifs, at least in the literary sense.
I have to say, Dober-dude, that I'm finding this discussion fascinating.
It's seems clear to me that I still dont understand the term "naturalistic",
and I'm struggling to see how literary devices (which abound in Streetcar)
fit (or dont) in that description. Streetcar packs a good deal of genuine
emotion and realistic personal conflict into the literary scheme you
accurately characterize, and I was under the impression that these were
considered elements of realism and "naturalistic" acting. You mention
"presenting the normal". Is that part of the definition? What do you mean
there?
Do you guys see "Night of the Iguana" differently? That film, similar in so
many ways, works so perfectly and feels so real...despite the same types of
literary devices (no surprize) and the same great poetic language. Clearly
superior, IMO, to Streetcar.
About the language: My wife and I discussed the fact that TWs language is
quite sophisticated, yet (when delivered by Vivian Leigh or Richard Burton)
it feels quite natural...unusual dialog, yes, but the realistic as the
product of a strong intellect and/or culture and breeding. That is a
statement unto itself, if you know what I mean.
And, while were at it...what about "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (now there
is a fucking great film!)? No obvious literary devices, but broad strokes
making big statements.
Stop me before I ask some high school students to "compare and contrast"...
> But I think I see what you mean about the interruptive quality of the
> movie, Steve. Kazan moves his actors around in stagey ways---from
> foreground to background in planned alternating patterns, from inside
> to outside & even up & down those stairs. He draws your attention
> mechanically to a theme or an image or even something a character
> says---whatever he wants to emphasize.
You've put your finger on my objection...wait...that sounded wrong....
> And then of course
> there's the language: some of the best poetic dialog of any American
> play. It's sublimated poetry.
It's so easy to love TW. Not just the poetry but the touching acceptance of
human weakness.
John Harkness
You're talking about content, we're talking about FORM -- Put it this
way. People can attend mass in San Lorenzo in Florence. People can
attend mass in a church in Costa Mesa California that looks like a
Swedish gas station. The mass is the same in both places (allowing for
the linguistic difference), but the box it comes in is very different.
You can put "real" emotion in any kind of container you like. That
doesn't make the style of the film realistic.
Huston's a fairly plain style, "realistic" director, regardless of his
attempts to be "stylish" -- the color palette experiments in Moulin
Rouge, the attempt to make Moby Dick look like engravings.. -- he
doesn't, in his best films, go out of his way to "dress up" the story
-- Maltese Falcon, Treasure of Sierra Madre, Asphalt Jungle (sort of,
within the limitations of genre)
Realistic is a style of filmmaking -- take a look at the Italian films
of the immediate post-war era (Open City, Shoe Shine, Bicycle Thief)
or a lot of the American indie films of the early 70s -- Five Easy
Pieces, The Last Detail, The French connection) "Realistic" doesn't
demand that you shoot on location, but it often helps. Kazan is, at
the Streetcar phase of his career, very stagebound -- he's not really
a born filmmaker and is inclined to force style into his films.
(It's the interesting tension in Scorsese's work between the
improvised, Cassavetes-ish, "realistic" impulse and the fact that deep
down, he wants to Vincente Minnelli -- he doesn't have a "realistic"
aesthetic bone in his body.)
>Do you guys see "Night of the Iguana" differently? That film, similar in so
>many ways, works so perfectly and feels so real...despite the same types of
>literary devices (no surprize) and the same great poetic language. Clearly
>superior, IMO, to Streetcar.
Never seen it.
>About the language: My wife and I discussed the fact that TWs language is
>quite sophisticated, yet (when delivered by Vivian Leigh or Richard Burton)
>it feels quite natural...unusual dialog, yes, but the realistic as the
>product of a strong intellect and/or culture and breeding. That is a
>statement unto itself, if you know what I mean.
Well, what you're hearing there is the triumph of a pair of extremely
well trained classical actors -- it takes a LOT of skill to make
Williams dialogue (or Arthur Miller's, for that matter) sound natural.
Stage dialogue is a trick form.
>And, while were at it...what about "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (now there
>is a fucking great film!)? No obvious literary devices, but broad strokes
>making big statements.
>
You're rather infatuated with "big statements", aren't you?
Traven, of course, is a different bag of fish altogether -- he's
really one of the hard-boiled existentialists, like Hammett or Richard
Jessup, and those guys tend to adapt like a dream. (Much easier than
James M.Cain)
>> And then of course
>> there's the language: some of the best poetic dialog of any American
>> play. It's sublimated poetry.
>
>It's so easy to love TW. Not just the poetry but the touching acceptance of
>human weakness.
You think so? I've never found it easy. Of course, I also got to the
end of Death of a Salesman and thought "a hooker in a hotel room?
that's IT?"
John Harkness
steve
On 12-Feb-2003, smacked up and reeling, j...@attcanada.ca (John Harkness)
blindly formulated the following incoherence:
> You can put "real" emotion in any kind of container you like. That
> doesn't make the style of the film realistic.
Yes, John, I see what you mean.
> >Do you guys see "Night of the Iguana" differently? That film, similar in
> >so
> >many ways, works so perfectly and feels so real...despite the same types
> >of
> >literary devices (no surprize) and the same great poetic language.
> >Clearly
> >superior, IMO, to Streetcar.
>
> Never seen it.
Really? Might be interesting for you. Seems to be scarce these days in the
rental shops, unfortunately.
> >And, while were at it...what about "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (now
> >there
> >is a fucking great film!)? No obvious literary devices, but broad
> >strokes
> >making big statements.
> >
> You're rather infatuated with "big statements", aren't you?
...when they are well presented and imbued with truth and insight.
> >It's so easy to love TW. Not just the poetry but the touching acceptance
> >of
> >human weakness.
>
> You think so? I've never found it easy. Of course, I also got to the
> end of Death of a Salesman and thought "a hooker in a hotel room?
> that's IT?"
The opening moments of "Night of the Iguana" (you gotta see it) had me on my
feet the first time I saw it. Of course, TWs language fits like a glove
coming from the pulpit. And, unlike Kazan, Hustons film gives the viewer
more credit for perception. He lets you see things rather than making you
see them.
Thanks, John. It's been an education.