Elia Kazan (1909-2003) was a dominant and hugely influential force in the postwar American cinema, a director whose keen intuition and perspicacity made him almost impervious to the vicissitudes of the declining studio system and ideally suited to take advantage of the gradual shift towards independent production. Prolific in spite of Hollywood's dramatic ebbs, Kazan created a group of vital, emotionally intense and frequently controversial films that helped define American film history and popular culture.
Kazan, who found first success on Broadway in the 1930s, possessed a remarkable ability to reinvent himself as an artist—turning brilliantly and almost effortlessly from stage to screen and, eventually, to the novel. Driven by enormous—some have said ruthless—ambition, Kazan is simultaneously celebrated today as one of the great stage directors-turned-filmmakers and ceaselessly rebuked for his troubling voluntary testimony against former colleagues and companions during the notorious witch hunts orchestrated by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952. Many have debated whether the fluttering of an unsettled conscience can be heard within key Kazan films, most notably in On the Waterfront (1954). Yet none have questioned the strength, daring and complex subtleties of Kazan's greatest and most enduring films, from the still-potent critique of media-made politics hurled by A Face in the Crowd (1957) to the defiantly sordid vision of debased sexuality conjured by A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Baby Doll (1956), and The Arrangement's (1969) anguished, heady vision of the good life gone terribly wrong. A first-generation immigrant (he was born Elia Kazanjoglous, in Istanbul, to Greek parents), Kazan held the United States as perhaps his greatest and most intimate subject, one he explored with an acute sensitivity to the contradictions of American culture. Indeed, an unquenchable, tremulous searching for the deeper soul of the American experience gives a rare power and authenticity to such masterpieces as East of Eden (1955), Splendor in the Grass (1961), Wild River (1960) and America, America (1963).
Kazan's training and many years with the legendary Group Theater in the 1930s—as well as his time with the Communist-supported Workers Laboratory Theater—proved absolutely critical to his subsequent film career, first at Twentieth Century Fox and then as a highly sought after independent director. The Group Theater's quixotic devotion to commercially impossible productions honed the deep appreciation for collaborative, dialogic creativity which Kazan brought to his remarkable creative partnerships with a tremendous roster of great American writers: John Steinbeck, Tennessee Williams, Budd Schulberg, William Inge. The raw talent, resourcefulness and occasional genius of the Group Theater's stock company helped Kazan forge his enormous, uncanny talent as an "actor's director" able, time and again, to draw out career-defining performances from upcoming stars—Marlon Brando, James Dean, Kim Hunter—as well as veteran actors —Vivien Leigh, Montgomery Clift, Kirk Douglas. Yet Kazan's real fascination was less with those singular, scene-stealing performances than the mercurial chemistry between performers and their characters, and within relationships where mutual dependencies tear deepest into the dark secrets of the human heart. Kazan's greatest films remain unmatched for their ability both to illuminate the most intimate emotions and orchestrate sweeping, symphonic visions of a society's deepest anxieties and ambitions. The Harvard Film Archive is pleased to offer this complete retrospective as an occasion to celebrate and debate the films and legacy of Elia Kazan and to rediscover the many still unsung films—Panic in the Streets (1950); Wild River; America, America; The Arrangement; The Visitors (1972)—that distinguish his legendary career.
Special thanks to Kent Jones; Mark McElhattan; Joan Miller, Wesleyan Cinema Archives; Pat Doyen, George Eastman House; May Haduong, Academy Film Archive; Kokkalis Program on Southeastern and East-Central Europe, Harvard; Mary Keene, Museum of Modern Art; Brian Block, Criterion Pictures USA; Sara Rubin, The Boston Jewish Film Festival.
East of Eden Directed by Elia Kazan.
With James Dean, Julie Harris, Raymond Massey
US 1955, 35mm, color, 115 min.
Print from Warner Brothers
Kazan worked closely with John Steinbeck to adapt his sweeping six-hundred page epic about two rival families in early 20th century Salinas, California, eventually distilling the story to the tortured relationship between a well-meaning patriarch and his two sons as they come of age and fall in love with the same winsome young woman. Featuring an unknown James Dean as the younger, awkward brother, East of Eden offers one of the 1950s' most memorable and harrowing portraits of familial discontent. Kazan's passion for the American landscape and history is made clear by the film's use of gorgeous, painterly landscapes and vivid period detail.
Panic in the StreetsDirected by Elia Kazan.
With Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes
US 1950, 35mm, b/w, 96 min.
Print courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art
For his final Fox picture, Kazan contributed one of the strongest entries in the studio's popular semi-documentary cycle, a grippingly realistic account of police and government efforts to contain a near outbreak of bubonic plague in New Orleans. Often taken as an allegorical panegyric for big government, Panic in the Streets nevertheless avoids the cold abstraction typical of the semi-documentaries by rendering vivid its non-studio locations in working-class and immigrant New Orleans and by giving ample screen time to the private, domestic life of Richard Widmark's harried public health official. Noteworthy as well is the casting of Brando's former Streetcar understudy Jack Palance, in his first screen appearance, as a snarling, predatory smuggler, eccentrically paired with comic Zero Mostel as his blustery sidekick.
Splendor in the Grass Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Warren Beatty, Natalie Wood, Pat Hingle
US 1961, 35mm, color, 124 min.
Print from Warner Brothers
Among the most emotionally powerful of all Kazan's films, Splendor in the Grass effectively uses its period story and setting—the 1929 Wall Street Crash—to speak implicitly to the emergent youth movement and generational tensions of the early 1960s. Working closely with playwright William Inge, Kazan fought off multiple attempts to censor the film's frank critique of American Puritanism and capitalist excess as two sides of the same counterfeit coin. Inge and Kazan's shared interest in psychoanalysis pushed their characterization of sexual awakening to a devastating extreme, a limit point of superimposed desire and madness embodied by a radiant and fragile Natalie Wood and a dashingly awkward Warren Beatty, in his first screen role.
Pinky Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Jeanne Crain, Ethel Waters, Ethel Barrymore
US 1949, 35mm, b/w, 98 min.
Print from Criterion USA
Kazan recovered the helm of Zanuck's cherished and pointedly controversial "message picture" about racist bigotry in the Deep South after various misunderstandings caused the abrupt departure of John Ford, the film's original director and, briefly, Kazan's mentor. In order to avoid a feared Southern boycott of Pinky's interracial story, Zanuck cast a Caucasian actress, Jeanne Crain, in the main role of a pale-skinned African American "passing" as white in the North, a seemingly retrograde decision that nevertheless may have contributed to the film's phenomenal commercial and critical success. Kazan characteristically explores the inner life of the characters, using the legendary Ethel Waters to great effect and divining an unexpectedly raw and vulnerable performance from Crain.
Directed by Ralph Steiner.
US 1934, 16mm, b/w, 20 min.
Print courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art
Kazan costars in his second collaboration with Ralph Steiner, a scrappy, improvised parody about Depression-era resourcefulness and theatrical bombast, largely shot in a garbage dump.
America, America Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Stathis Giallelis, Linda Marsh, Paul Mann
US/Greece 1963, 35mm, b/w, 168 min.
Print from the Harvard Film Archive Collection
After concentrating for many years exclusively and with great success on American subjects and settings, Kazan turned abruptly away, towards his native land and family history, by adapting his own novelization of his Turkish uncle's arduous journey from his small Anatolian village to Constantinople and ultimately to New York City. Using a cast of little known Greek and American actors and shooting exclusively on location in Greece and Turkey, Kazan set out to accurately recreate the bitter poverty and struggle faced by aspiring immigrants at the turn of the century. With a young Haskell Wexler bringing his signature hand-held cinematography and auteur editor Dede Allen quickening the pace, America, America offers a rare example of a spontaneous and richly energetic period film.
Splendor in the Grass Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Warren Beatty, Natalie Wood, Pat Hingle
US 1961, 35mm, color, 124 min.
Print from Warner Brothers
Among the most emotionally powerful of all Kazan's films, Splendor in the Grass effectively uses its period story and setting—the 1929 Wall Street Crash—to speak implicitly to the emergent youth movement and generational tensions of the early 1960s. Working closely with playwright William Inge, Kazan fought off multiple attempts to censor the film's frank critique of American Puritanism and capitalist excess as two sides of the same counterfeit coin. Inge and Kazan's shared interest in psychoanalysis pushed their characterization of sexual awakening to a devastating extreme, a limit point of superimposed desire and madness embodied by a radiant and fragile Natalie Wood and a dashingly awkward Warren Beatty, in his first screen role.
Wild River Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Montgomery Clift, Lee Remick, Jo Van Fleet
US 1960, 35mm, color, 105 min.
Print from Criterion USA
Kazan's mid-career masterpiece introduced a newly ruminative tone and political subtlety to his work by that offers a tempered reconsideration and questioning of the very New Deal notions of progress (to which his own early career was intimately tied). One of Kazan's personal favorites, Wild River pits a timid yet determined Tennessee Valley Authority official—portrayed by a fascinating Montgomery Clift—against a hamlet targeted for imminent flooding and a young resident—played by a radiant Lee Remick—smitten by his eccentric charm. The harnessing of nature takes on almost Biblical dimensions, thanks to the magnificent Cinemascope photography and the electrifying performance of Jo Van Fleet as the town matriarch who alone understands the river's unspoken diluvian powers.
People of the Cumberland Directed by Sidney Meyers, Jay Leyda, Elia Kazan.
US 1937, 16mm, b/w, 20 min.
Print courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art
An early screen credit was awarded Kazan as co-director of this concerned intervention about Tennessee strip miners, produced by the radical left-wing documentary troupe Frontier Films, with a screenplay by Calder Williams and music by Alex North, who would eventually compose cinema’s first true jazz score, for A Streetcar Named Desire.
Man on a Tightrope Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Frederic March, Terry Moore, Gloria Grahame
US 1953, 35mm, b/w, 105 min.
Print from Criterion USA
The last of Kazan's studio assignments, and perhaps his least known film, the anti-Communist thriller Man on a Tightrope was offered by Zanuck as a means for Kazan to establish his credentials as a "rehabilitated" director immediately following his outspokenness with HUAC. Based on the true story of a Czech circus troupe's daring attempt to escape to the West, the film is energized by Kazan's extensive location shooting in Eastern Europe, the casting of members from the real life troupe, and a steely performance by Frederic March as the harried circus leader dreaming of a better life.
On the Waterfront Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb
US 1954, 35mm, b/w, 108 min.
Print from Sony Pictures
Kazan and Bud Schulberg's devastating portrait of mob controlled corruption and grinding working class struggle within the New Jersey longshoreman community was a landmark both in terms of its politics and its showcasing of Method acting—embodied by Marlon Brando as an intuitive yet carefully controlled mode of gestural performance. Rejected for fear of controversy by all the major studios, Kazan was forced to independently produce his hard-hitting and risky project, cutting costs by working with upcoming Group Theater actors such as Brando and Kazan regular Karl Malden. Featuring one of Leonard Bernstein's most accomplished scores and fabulous black-and-white cinematography by Soviet legend Boris Kaufman, On the Waterfront defines a beautifully moody and spontaneous updating of the Ash Can School that captures the hard-bitten poetry of cold water flats, lonely cafeterias and lives broken by years of hard, unhappy labor.
Directed by Annie Tresgot.
France 1982, 16mm, color, 56 min. English with French subtitles
Print from Tamasa Distribution
An insightful documentary portrait centered around a long interview conducted with Kazan by French critic and close friend Michel Ciment and shot by cinema verité legend Michel Brault.
The Sea of Grass Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Walker
US 1947, 16mm, b/w, 123 min.
Print courtesy of the George Eastman House
The most difficult to see of Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn's nine films together, Kazan's second feature, The Sea of Grass, is a sweeping proto-Giant (1956) epic centered around the difficult relationship between a hubristic New Mexican cattle baron and his strong-willed St. Louis socialite bride. Kazan specifically sought out the project, even negotiating the move from Fox to MGM because of his strong desire to recreate the frontier story's setting. When MGM refused to allow location shooting, Kazan compensated by focusing intently on the psychological and familial clash at the heart of the film, interweaving Tracy and Hepburn's tempestuous marriage with the pitched battle between the determined homesteaders and the cattleman's dynasty.
Wild River Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Montgomery Clift, Lee Remick, Jo Van Fleet
US 1960, 35mm, color, 105 min.
Print from Criterion USA
Kazan's mid-career masterpiece introduced a newly ruminative tone and political subtlety to his work that offers a tempered reconsideration and questioning of the very New Deal notions of progress (to which his own early career was intimately tied). One of Kazan's personal favorites, Wild River pits a timid yet determined Tennessee Valley Authority official—portrayed by a fascinating Montgomery Clift—against a hamlet targeted for imminent flooding and a young resident—played by a radiant Lee Remick—smitten by his eccentric charm. The harnessing of nature takes on almost Biblical dimensions, thanks to the magnificent Cinemascope photography and the electrifying performance of Jo Van Fleet as the town matriarch who alone understands the river's unspoken diluvian powers.
Director Bruce Ricker in Person
Friday August 14 at 7pm
Directed by Bruce Ricker, Appearing in Person
US 2009, video, color, 103 min.
Print courtesy of Bruce Ricker
To mark the centenary of Johnny Mercer's birth, director Bruce Ricker's latest jazz documentary focuses on the music and legacy of the great American songwriter, interweaving interviews with Tony Bennett, Andre Previn and Harry Connick, Jr. with screen performances of Mercer ballads by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and Nat King Cole. The Harvard Film Archive is pleased to welcome Bruce Ricker to discuss his latest film and to celebrate the very generous donation of his important film collection to the Archive.
Blues in the Night Directed by Anatole Litvak.
With Priscilla Lane, Betty Field, Richard Whorf
US 1941, 16mm, b/w, 89 min.
Print courtesy of the George Eastman House
Johnny Mercer’s close collaboration with Harold Arlen resulted in the
wonderful score for Blues in the Night, a dark-edged yet affectionate story of a struggling jazz band directed by the underrated Anatole Litvak, with a tart script by Robert Rossen and surrealist-inspired montage sequences by future director Don Siegel. Featuring screen appearances by legendary bandleader and arranger Jimmie Lunceford with his swing orchestra, Blues in the Night also showcases Kazan’s talent as a character actor specializing in hard but likeable underworld immigrant types.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, James Dunn
US 1945, 35mm, b/w, 128 min.
Print from Fox
Kazan's Group Theater years were formative to his first Fox assignment, a sensitive adaptation of Betty Smith's best-selling memoir about her difficult childhood in an early 1900s Brooklyn Irish ghetto. Kazan's dynamic sculpting of crisp studio sets—aided by legendary cinematographer Leon Shamroy—into almost abstract dramatic stages heightens the dreamlike, wide-eyed qualities of Smith's melancholic ode to temps perdu. Kazan's transformative direction of the young Peggy Ann Garner and veteran character actor James Dunn extracted Oscar winning performances that vaulted each to a career high and gave a depth of feeling and power to this exceptionally tender and honest portrait of the vulnerabilities and resolve of the working poor.
Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Patrick McVey, Patricia Joyce, James Woods
US 1972, 35mm, color, 88 min.
Print courtesy of Wesleyan University
A pointed departure from Kazan’s bigger-budgeted late studio work, The Visitors is an intimate and intense film made in close collaboration with his son Chris, who wrote the taut screenplay about a traumatic, unexpected reunion of damaged Vietnam veterans. Deeply inspired by Wanda (1970), the brilliantly edgy cult classic written and directed by his wife Barbara Loden (and on which he served as second unit director), Kazan elected to work with an absolutely minimal crew that included Wanda’s cameraman, Nick Proferes. Shot entirely in and around Kazan’s Connecticut home with a young James Woods in the lead role, The Visitors is a wintery, introspective and rarely screened late work that returns to the subject of violence and frustrated masculinity that recurs throughout Kazan’s work.
The Last Tycoon Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Robert De Niro, Tony Curtis, Robert Mitchum
US 1976, 35mm, color, 125 min.
Print from the Harvard Film Archive Collection
Kazan's final feature is a lush, nostalgic evocation of lost Hollywood and a still misunderstood attempt to reach the romantic heart of F. Scott Fitzgerald's now mythical unfinished novel. Working closely with Harold Pinter, Kazan stayed true to the abstract, remote qualities of Monroe Star, played with vulnerable intensity by Robert De Niro. The almost overwhelming roster of Old Hollywood talent—Ray Milland, Robert Mitchum, Dana Andrews—marked The Last Tycoon as "adult," and against the returning tide of youth oriented filmmaking, contributing to the dismal box office and ungenerous critical reception that convinced Kazan to abruptly retire from cinema.
The Arrangement Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Kirk Douglas, Faye Dunaway, Deborah Kerr
US 1969, 35mm, color, 127 min.
Print courtesy of the UCLA Film and Television Archive
Kazan adapted his own best-selling autobiographical first novel into this complex and turbulent portrait of a prosperous Los Angeles ad man turned suddenly and irretrievably sour to his luxurious life, beautiful wife and giddily successful career. Kirk Douglas' manic, high-keyed portrait of a man desperate to escape his gilded cage is matched by the nervous pacing and experimental flourishes of Kazan's most avant-garde feature. The Arrangement offers both a harrowing portrait of mid-life malaise and a sunblinded vision of L.A. as a cauldron of 20th century anxieties.
Baby Doll Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Karl Malden, Carroll Baker, Eli Wallach
US 1956, 35mm, b/w, 114 min.
Print courtesy of the UCLA Film and Television Archive
Among Kazan’s most controversial films, this dynamic and intensely cinematic adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ provocative study of sexual desire inflamed a passionate outcry from the Production Code Administration and the Legion of Decency, who tried to derail the film by branding it with their lowest rating of “C,” for “condemned.” Centered around Carroll Baker’s still shocking performance as the thumb-sucking yet sexually precocious Baby Doll and principally shot in rural Mississippi, Kazan’s mid-career masterpiece offers one of the finest renditions of the psychosexual territory of Williams’ mysteriously deep, Deep South. Print courtesy of UCLA Film and Television Archive.
Boomerang! Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Dana Andrews, Jane Wyatt, Lee J. Cobb
US 1947, 35mm, b/w, 88 min.
Print courtesy of the UCLA Film and Television Archive
Kazan developed this engrossing policier—based on an actual unsolved crime, the murder of a Connecticut priest—with Louis de Rochemont, inventor of the semi-documentary form so successful at Fox after WWII. While Boomerang! adheres to central tenets of the semi-documentary (location shooting, notable use of nonprofessional extras, detached voiceover commentary), the film also hones in on the figure of the crusading District Attorney, played with signature virile nonchalance by Dana Andrews, to create a gripping moral and epistemological puzzle about the ineluctability of truth and the dangers of cold, hard facts.
Viva Zapata! Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Marlon Brando, Jean Peters, Anthony Quinn
US 1952, 35mm, b/w, 113 min.
Print from the Harvard Film Archive Collection
Filmed at the time of Kazan’s notorious HUAC testimony, Viva Zapata! offers a dramatically searching yet ultimately unresolved return to the director's roots in radical left-wing theater and politics. Written in close collaboration with lifelong Mexicophile John Steinbeck, who shared Kazan's fascination with Zapata's vision and failure, the film uses the idealistic revolutionary to offer an unflinching critique of the limits and corrosive potential of power. Featuring one of Brando's underappreciated bravura performances, Viva Zapata! is today considered one of the most evocative screen depictions of the Mexican revolution, despite the intense efforts by the Mexican film industry to suppress and censor the film during its early production stages.
A Streetcar Named Desire Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter
US 1951, 35mm, b/w, 125 min.
Print from Warner Brothers
Perhaps the quintessential Kazan film, Streetcar is, ironically, among the closest to his stage work. Only the urging of his good friend Tennessee Williams convinced Kazan to reluctantly take on the screen version of a play he had already directed successfully on Broadway. Kazan decided eventually to retain the play's general form while also increasing the tightness and tension of the dominant interior scenes by shooting largely in close-ups and medium shots. The only aberration from the play's mesmerizing original line-up was Vivien Leigh—forced upon Kazan by producer Charles Feldman, who insisted on the presence of a tested marquee star.
A Face in the Crowd Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa
US 1957, 35mm, b/w, 125 min.
Print courtesy of the UCLA Film and Television Archive
Budd Schulberg and Kazan reunited to adapt Schulberg's own cautionary tale about the manipulative and treacherous potential of television and advertising as political tools. Misunderstood at the time, and badly wounded at the box office, A Face in the Crowd seems uncannily prescient in its depiction of right-wing extremism cloaking itself as all-American cracker-barrel folksiness.Kazan's successful and highly unconventional casting of untested comedians and character actors—Dunn in Tree, Mostel in Panic—reached its apogee in his ingenious selection of stand-up comic Andy Griffith, in his first feature film, as Lonesome Rhodes, the hayseed populist transformed into an ultimately uncontrollable televisual sensation. Print courtesy of UCLA Film and Television Archive.
Gentleman's Agreement Directed by Elia Kazan.
With Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, John Garfield
US 1948, 35mm, b/w, 118 min.
Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive
Fox production chief Darryl Zanuck staked his professional reputation on using an all-star cast— led by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and John Garfield—to deliver a high-minded picture directed against anti-Semitism. Kazan rose to the challenging assignment of adapting celebrated playwright Moss Hart's first screenplay while avoiding didacticism or an oversimplification of the film's subject. Without diluting the message of Gentleman's Agreement, Kazan added psychological depth and nuance by sensitively rendering the wayward paths of an awakening consciousness and the stubborn, unspoken contradictions that frustrate and foster relationships.
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2012
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