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Marlon Brando reinvents film acting in On the Waterfront |
Director: Elia Kazan
Cast: Marlon Brando (Terry Malloy), Karl Malden (Father
Barry), Lee J. Cobb (Johnny Friendly), Rod Steiger (Charley “The Gent” Malloy),
Eva Marie Saint (Edie Doyle), Pat Henning (Timothy Dugan), John F Hamilton
(“Pop” Doyle), Ben Wagner (Joey Doyle), James Westerfield (Big Mac)
When’s the right time to speak out for what you know is
right? It’s a question we’ve all faced at some point, and it’s the question
that changes the life of Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) after he is indirectly,
and unwittingly, involved in the murder of a fellow dock worker. The killing
was ordered by the corrupt, mob-connected union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J.
Cobb), who rules the workers of the shipyards of Hoboken, New Jersey with an
iron fist. The victim was going to talk to the cops, and suddenly Terry finds
himself in the middle of a major ethical bind: should he give evidence or play
“D and D” (deaf and dumb) like the rest of the workers.
His bind grows ever tighter as the local priest Father Barry
(Karl Malden) takes up breaking the power of the union as his own personal
mission. Not to mention Terry’s growing closeness to the victim’s sister Edie
(Eva Marie Saint), with whom he finds himself slowly falling in love. On the
other side is his brother Charley (Rod Steiger), a lawyer and right-hand man of
Johnny Friendly, who has been running his brother’s life forever, ruining
Terry’s boxing career by ordering him to take a dive so Friendly could make a
killing on the betting circuit. What will Terry do?
Elia Kazan’s multiple Oscar winner is a powerful,
beautifully made, engrossing and uplifting modern morality drama that still
packs a wallop today. Shot largely on location in New Jersey, with lashings of
Kazan’s brilliant realism and ability to bring poetic beauty and emotional
force to the most everyday of settings, On
the Waterfront is sublime, a film to make you rail against the injustice of
corruption and the unthinking cruelty of everyday folk when given a chance to
stigmatise someone.
Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg (whose script is a
beautifully judged mixture of soulful dialogue and the rhythms of every day
conversation) were both drawn towards the story after their engagement with McCarthyism
in Hollywood. In this hunt for reds under the Hollywood bed, both Kazan and
Schulberg named names. Both of them felt that they had been lied to and
exploited by the communist movement in Hollywood – and also that Stalinist
Russia was not a cause worth defending – but that didn’t stop many people
rejecting them for breaking the rule of silence (the same rule that runs
through this film). On the Waterfront
is a heartfelt defence of the whistleblower (or the informer), and why that can
sometimes be the only option open.
Based on a true story, Kazan’s film is a masterclass in
carefully controlled, intelligent direction bringing out brilliant acting
performances (always one of Kazan’s major strengths as director). Leading the
way here is Marlon Brando, giving possibly the most famous, most influential
acting performance in film history in the lead role. It’s not really an
understatement to say it changed the face of movie acting. Brando here performs
with a low-key, casual, almost tender naturalism that stands completely at odds
with the more exhibitionist performers of the late 40s. And he funnels all this
beautifully into Terry Malloy, a tough guy whom he inhabits with a
vulnerability and gentleness that never once feels out of place with his temper
and pride. There is instead an awe-inspiring transformation here, of the actor
becoming the mumbling, uncertain character – not afraid for words to be lost,
not worried about making eccentric or unexpected choices as a performer.
Two scenes stand out. In the first, Brando has his first
long conversation with Edie Doyle, having rescued her from being set on by
union men. In a single take – a carefully orchestrated willingness to let the
actors explore the emotional truth of the scene from Kazan – Brando’s Terry
shyly, gently, haltingly asks about her life and tries to explain his own. At
one point, Edie drops her glove and Brando picks up the glove, fiddles with it
and then puts it on – the sort of inspired naturalism that feels like nothing on
paper, but on film carries a strange emotional force, a physical representation
of the bond between them (and don’t underestimate the way Saint pulls the glove
gently from his hand). The entire scene has the air of reality to it, Brando
chewing gum, Saint wondering how much of herself to show to a man she isn’t
sure she can trust. It’s masterful.
The other scene is of course possibly one of the most famous
scenes in movies ever: I coulda been a contender. For films, this is like the
To Be or Not To Be speech, a speech that has been quoted and riffed on ever
since. But again, Brando resists the temptation throughout for histrionics –
when Charley pulls a gun, Brando reacts not with shock or anger but sadness,
almost tenderly pushing the gun aside and letting his voice fill with a world
of regret for what has become of their relationship. Steiger is superb in this
scene, but you can’t look at anyone except Brando here, awkward, sad,
struggling to work out what to do with his life and finally confronting the
broken past between the brothers with pointed regret and calm realisation
rather than the anger and rage that other actors would have chosen. This is an actor
who redefined his profession, at the top of his game.
The film is crammed with excellent performances. Eva Marie
Saint (Oscar winning) has just the right measure of gutsy determination, fear
and tender sweetness as the woman who opens Terry’s eyes to right and wrong.
The film gained three Supporting Actor nominations (they all lost). Steiger is
cocksure but self-loathing as Terry’s ambitious brother. Lee J. Cobb rages as
only he can as the blowhard bully Friendly, demanding absolute loyalty. But on
this rewatch, I loved Karl Malden’s moral certainty, courage and stubbornness
as Father Barry. In any other film Barry’s speech railing against the dockers
for being part of the system that oppresses them, all the time being pelted by
food, would be the highlight of the film: here it’s just one of several
stand-out moments.
Kazan was a superb visual stylist, this black-and-white
masterpiece brilliantly shot by Boris Kaufman to create a world that feels the
perfect mixture between the documentary realism and the theatrical. And working
with a superb script that he felt such investment in helps to create a story
that carries real emotional force, carefully investing you right from the start
in Terry’s fundamental goodness and naivety, inviting you to feel rage on his
behalf as he is sent to Coventry by his workmates. Topped off with a beautiful
score by Leonard Bernstein – part jazzy, part wonderful orchestral stylings –
this has barely aged a day in it’s over 60 years.
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