We’re so far removed from that strange world, or at least I am, that it’s difficult to grasp everything that was going on at the time. It’s hard to separate fact from fiction, and I’m referring to McCarthyism in general here. Sure, paranoid Joe kind of went off the deep end eventually, but the threat of communism was real at that time. There were, in fact, real attempts of subversion in many of our institutions So, in the beginning, I think that his motives were genuine. But, of course, power corrupts the mind and he took it too far, casting his paranoid web in every direction trying to ensnare anyone with a hair out of place, which eventually caused his downfall. And deservedly so. I only experienced and became aware of the Cold War at it’s tail end. But it was some scary shit. And it was real. Should McCarthyism’s tentacles have reached as far as Hollywood? Not sure. Probably not. Did Elia Kazan believe he was doing the right thing? Probably. Did he regret it later on. Again, probably. All I know for sure is that I have “Baby Doll”, “On The Waterfront” and “A Streetcar Named Desire”.
he’s a rat bastard. no one forced him to name names.
“no one forced him” Yes, that’s what I said, he probably thought he was doing the right thing and later regretted it. But too late, peoples lives were ruined by that point. It truly is one of the uglier times in Hollywood history. Bobby, ? based on Claus’s directors baggage thread, and I’m just curious, does your opinion of him as a rat bastard effect your opinion of his films in any way. Do you like his movies and if you do, can you separate those two conflicting points of view?
I do not, will not watch any or ever buy any of his films, period.
I don’t condone what he did but I can still watch his films. I hated John Wayne’s politics but I don’t refuse to watch The Searchers because of it.
It’s not his politics that bother me. He ruined people’s lives and merrily went about his business as if his actions had no impact on his co-workers. Gutless.
Chris-Point taken.
I don’t think anyone can excuse what he did, but I’ve always believed you have to seperate a person’s personal failings from their body of work and I’ve always tried to do that with any artist (the lone exception for me being R. Kelly but that’s another story and probably not one of interest to the people on this forum). The real irony with Kazan I think is that arguably his greatest movie, On the Waterfront, he made to try and justify his actions (this is what he has stated, not my personal interpretation). Sometimes great art comes from dubious intentions.
Noel – You certainly know how to pick them with these topics! I wasn’t going to respond to this one, except some posters are very naive to think that Kazan really didn’t do anything that bad or are trying to justify what he did by just being very ignorant of the whole subject. So, even though I had no intention of posting about this, I couldn’t let this state of ignorance go unanswered. Obviously, a lot of people don’t know what really happened.
“he’s a rat bastard. no one forced him to name names.” In this case, I couldn’t agree more with Bobby W. Kazan did something unforgiveable – he threw his own friends to the wolves to save his own skin. These weren’t bad people, just people with a social conscience and politically active on the left. None posed any threat, real or imagined, to anybody. Many were highly talented in their own right. Imagine if your good friend were to betray you for just following your own conscience and beliefs to save himself and destroy your life – could you forgive him? Were I in the audience when he got his honorary oscar, I too would have refused to honour him. Do I watch the films he directed that I admire – Yes. He was a great director of actors, one of the greatest American directors, but an absolute backstabbing s.o.b., nonetheless. He wrecked many lives and those lives he wrecked and their friends could and never should have forgiven him, nor should we. However, we can still watch and enjoy films like Streetcar Named Desire, but there is no need to honour the man.
Watch the interview, which I recently did, with black-listed director Jules Dassin on Criterion’s Rififi. He explains how he was denied work in America, fled to Europe and was even denied work there, until the French took up his cause. He had a wife and kids and they were almost literally all destitute as a result for many years. When he was supposed to do a film in Italy, the American film interests insisted he be removed from the project, otherwise, the film would be boycotted in the US. He was just one of hundreds of film artists and entertainers who suffered this fate. Those who in any way condone this behaviour are totally ignorant of the period or what was going on and how insidious it all was. Many creative lives were destroyed or ruined by it. Read the many books, articles, and studies of this infamous episode – don’t just google this either. It was a very black period in American history and Kazan was one of the biggest and most dangerous offenders – as is well-known.
as i said in the other thread, in relation to hitchcock’s quote, my love of cinema outweighs any considerations of morality. whatever i think of the man, i’ll still watch his films. he’s not my favorite of directors, but i’ve seen a few of his works. nothing overly special to me.
On the Waterfront has its unusually high, undeserved critical reputation because of this. It’s a bad film, to be honest. Preachy, melodramatic, directed in a mediocre way, etc.
@BOB – Right, I did saw Dassin’s interview from the dvd – devastating. Reminded me of other victims like John Garfield and Joseph Losey.
We don’t have to forgive Kazan for his naming of names before we can look at his movies, enjoy some of them (and parts of many). Do you really wish to turn your back on EAST OF EDEN because Elia turned his on friends and colleagues in 1952?
Just last year I looked at BABY DOLL again, a small but fine film. I had forgotten how truly funny it is, how fine and witty the writing. And I don’t believe Eli Wallach ever gave us a better performance. Carol Baker is very good. Malden always makes me wince a little with his earnest over-acting, and I winced more than once watching, but forgave him in the end (his Archie seeming truer than his waterfront priest).
VIVA ZAPATA! was good. STREETCAR.
Forgive him not, but you gotta give him his due.
I happen to own “Waterfront” in 16mm and when you view it as a ‘film’; it takes on an almost primal quality that I never got from the videos of it. The brutality intended really shines through.
I cannot turn my back on a film because of its maker, for the same reason that I cannot reject good music that was done by people who otherwise were, in many ways, failures in some way in their lives. I prefer to think that I am seeing or hearing the one fine aspect of their soul that will help redeem them.
Phil Spector has created some of the greatest pop/rock songs in history; he was a genius in the strudio. I will have to live with the wild-haired maniac (and possible murderer) in the courtroom, even as I rejoice in his productions.
Kazan, Riefenstahl, Adolphe Menjou and many others…..all we can do is choose. If it makes you uncomfortable, then let it go, and live with it.
nice explanation. i agree that the piece of art we see from someone comes from a unique and important place in the soul, that could be the very factor that redeems that person in the eyes of their maker. who knows. but for me, its good enough.
I agree with Mr. Mr. Harding. There is, however, a difference between Leni Riefenstahl and Elia Kazan. The former lent her name a not inconsiderable talents to promoting and etherializing the most despicable political regime the world has ever seen. I think it is her attempt to make Nazism and what it sponsored something of a religious experience that I find most repellent, but chacun a son gout. As for Kazan “Waterfront” was his putative apologia for his crummy actions. Bando’s performance is very good— admit it— almost as good as his in "Viva Zapata (a better movie by far), but the movie as a whole left me sickened when I saw it when it was released.
By the way, it may appear that these issues are now dead, but they’re not. Look around you.
Bobby and Robert,
Thank you for weighing in. I can’t condemn someone if they in fact created something that moved me. Because it means that somewhere in them, there was the ability to do so, and that means they had a heart and a sense of beauty, however buried it might be at other times.
Robert,
Absolutely. If anything lives on, it’s extremism. And the best kind knows how to change clothes. The US, until the 20th, we had a hell of a regime right here. The only question is how much Obama can, or is allowed, to change. I wish him the best, but I still fear the worst.
The McCarthyism topic in general is a tough nut to crack, as plenty of people (e.g. Howard Hawks, John Wayne) openly supported blacklisting because of the information available to them at the time. I have to agree with Soybean that while the response was hyperbolic to say the least, communism appeared to be a very real threat. However, from what I understand Elia Kazan didn’t name names out of his own political beliefs but out of fear for his own well-being. HUAC was threatening him with blacklisting so he confirmed a list of names to take the punishment themselves in his place. However despicable it might have been (and I completely agree that it was and is), it’s hard to say what you’d do in the same situation. As Dassin and others found out, McCarthy’s grasp was far and wide and could completely destroy someone’s reputation and career.
That said, Arthur Miller, who was one of Kazan’s best friends at the time, denounced his actions with A View From the Bridge, a very compelling play that acts as an excellent counterpart to On the Waterfront. It is also of interest that later in life Miller forgave Kazan, so who knows really occurred.
I do.
And so will you when you read “Mike Connolly and the Manly Art of Hollywood Gossip” by Val Holley (McFarland, 2003)
Everyone knows Hedda and Louella but within the industry a far more important scribe was Connolly — a viscious closet queen who wrote for the “Holywood Reporter.” If you got on his bad side your career was over. Like Roy Cohn Connolly was a staunch anti-0communist. Not that he knew shit about politics, it was simply that going after the commies kept everyone’s eyes averted from his sexcapdes — which were notorious. See the opening credits of “MiLK” to lean what happened to less-well-connected gay men back then.
Anyway Kazan had planned to testify about himself and not mention anyone else. Connolly got wind of it and let Kazan know that the film he and Budd Schulberg were planning to make — a little potboiler called “On the Waterfront” (and I quite agree with Matthias Galvin about it) would never be made unless he named names.
So for the good of his own career Gadge sold his friends down the river.
The week he was getting his Special Career Achievement Oscar the organization to which I belong , the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, was giving its career achievement award to Abraham Polonsky — one of the blacklists most talented victims.
In accepting his award Abe said “Well I hope you’re prepared for the shit your gonna get for doing this, because there’s another organzation in this town that’s giving it’s career Achievement award to a RAT!!!!! Everyone says you should ‘Forgive and Forget.’ Well I NEVER forgive because I NEVER forget!!!!!”
I wasn’t aware of the blacklisting and what not until I watched “The Front” about a month ago. I couldn’t believe that such things went on. I had yet to view one of Kazan’s film’s before this week. I watched “A Face in the Crowd” and it will be the last film of his I view. I am glad this thread was started because I ohterwise wouldn’t have known he was involved in such going ons. Thank you Noel!
The separation of art and artist has always been a touchy subject. I mean, you can’t like or agree with or even respect every artist who produces masterpieces, take wagner for example. In ignoring such contributions to cinema like On the Waterfront, you’re really only depriving yourself of an education. Once again, in my opinion.
Frankly, I’m guessing that none of us know the pressure that some of those actors and filmmakers were under. For those of you who want to find out more about Hollywood Blacklisting of that period, there is a great book called “Naming Names.” I think it won a National Book Award or something. Reading it, you’ll be surprised at how many actors/directors you love named names and cooperated with HUAC.
There was no “communist” threat at the time of McCarthyism. In fact, truth be told by the time of the witch hunts anything resembling actual communist socialism no longer existed in the Soviet Union. Joseph McCarthy used ignorant people’s ideas about a “mythological” thing called communism. This is some evil force that has no relationship to Marx/Engels or any later socialist writer and even very little relationship to anything that ever happened under “real lived” socialism. It was just a rightwing ploy to entrench a more ruthless form of conservative capitalism and roll back post-WW II advances in civil/human rights. Kazan’s actions were selfish and cruel. He may have convinced himself that he was doing the right thing, but, he wasn’t.
The only people who would be threatened by “real” communism would be the super rich exploiting class. Really in a capitalist nation as advanced as the United States was after WWII it would only be “real” communism that could possibly have taken root. The Soviet Union was communist initially in terms of aspiration, but, by this time period the USSR was not in the least bit interested in creating a global communist movement. In fact, they generally betrayed organic communist populist movements and suppressed all real socialists in their own borders. Russia had not sufficently established capitalism to be able establish socialism so the early Bolshevicks had to industrialize the nation and fend off capitalist subversion at the same time. Was there espionage in the West? Yes, but it posed no real threat and was primarily motivated by defensive and/or economic interests.
Many of the people who actually self-identified as Communists in Hollywood had become disenchanted with the authoritarian nature of the Soviet Union and were interested either in Trotskyism or some other form of socialism. The idea that there was a strong pool of pro-Stalinist types in Hollywood is silly. Most of the people who were black listed weren’t even remotely interested in communism but were liberals or progressives of one shade or another. Most were liberal capitalists that simply had a distaste for unfairness, cruelty and greed.
All this said Kazan was a great filmmaker. Many of his films are wonderful and even the least among them has interesting qualities. On The Waterfront is from an ideological analysis idiotic! However, in terms of acting and some of it’s formal qualities it is an important addition to cinema history. His films should be watched and studied. His conduct as a citizen/intellectual should be criticized.
in the immortal words of that masterpiece of cinema, “clue”…communism is just a red herring.
I don’t think much of Kazan as a director and think even less of him as a person.
Wrong.
There are a lot of directors (most notably Bergman, and Godard) that if I met in the street I’d probably hate them, but their films are great. Kazan is most certainly one of those people.
It’s interesting to note that Arthur Miller, a former close friend of Kazan’s who refused to name names and who crafted The Crucible in opposition to Mcarthyism, supported Kazan’s lifetime achievement award at the Oscars. Somehow, Miller, a hero of the era, was able to forgive Kazan (although they were never again close) and seperate his work from his actions.
Miller had his reasons.
Abe Polonsky had his.
Abe’s are better.
NIGHTSHIFT
I don’t mean to be an instigator, but since I already started the Leni Riefenstahl (and we’re definitely not Nazi sympathizers obviously) thread, let’s talk about other touchy stuff – like the Hollywood witch hunt. Some folks in theauteurs will not be comfortable with this stuff I understand, but I think it’s an important subject worthy of discussion.
ELIA KAZAN – Great director, but he’s been known to have “named names” during the commie witch hunt era- resulting in many lives destroyed, blacklisted artists esp. great filmmakers and writers exiled out of the country, or not being able to work at all for many years. When he was awarded the Lifetime Achivement Award to a standing ovation, many well-known faces in the film world refused to stand and acknowledge. They aren’t commies but the reactions say a lot.
I would love to hear your opinions…