On the Waterfront

On the Waterfront was directed by Elia Kazan and starred Marlon Brando as a dock worker who acts as a whistleblower against elements of organized crime among longshoremen. In 1954 this film, its director, leading actor and "Supporting Actress" (in a lead role) Eva Marie Saint won Academy Awards for their work.

In 1952 Kazan had testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and named eight members of the Group Theatre who had been Communist Party members or sympathizers during the Depression. This act was part inspiration for Arthur Miller's The Crucible, and led to Kazan's being ostracized from the Hollywood community for the rest of his career.

In 1999 Kazan received a lifetime achievement award, which was fairly controversial event as many members of the motion picture community, including plenty who did not live through the events in question, chose to sit and not applaud.

Many have suggested that this slighting of Kazan was inappropriate, especially as Hollywood warmly welcomed Charlie Chaplin home for a lifetime achievement award after years of exile as a result of the Red Scare. As Los Angeles film critic Kenneth Thran put it, "We applauded when the great Chaplin finally had his hour. It’s now time for Elia Kazan."

Because having a personal political philosophy is exactly the same as identifying others' political philosophies before a hostile government committee. But I sarcastically digress.

Kazan chose this project in response to his own persecution by those who judged his actions, not least of whom his collaborative partner, Arthur Miller. Marlon Brando as failed boxer Terry Malloy, doing odd jobs for a corrupt union boss, gently tending his flock of pigeons, is a troubled and sympathetic figure, raising pigeons and trying to get by. The most familiar, oft-imitated line is "I coulda been a contender," but it's what Brando says next -- the plaintive, "I coulda been somebody" -- that rings mournfully in my ears. Terry's decision, after he witnesses a murder, to testify in court against the union bosses, is the central conflict of the movie.

How this down-and-out lug daring to finger murderous gangsters compares with the artistically and financially successful Kazan identifying those who never committed a crime, I don't know. But we all like to think of ourselves as the underdog. Especially the gangsters, you know?

Sources:
FilmSite.org
ModernTimes.com

Modern Times

"A story of industry, of individual enterprise - humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness."
DISSOLVE TO: Sheep herded through a narrow pen.

DISSOLVE TO: Working men crowding up through the subway onto the sidewalk.

Good God! Chaplin was a COMMUNIST!

Sorry, I meant satirist.

In spite of the advent of "talkies" Chaplin insisted as late as 1936 that his Tramp character would not survive as a powerful image if he spoke. Modern Times was his last silent film, and largely regarded as one of his best. His comic depictions of the de-humanizing nature of modern industry have been emulated by scores of other performers. The American Film Institute rated it the 81st greatest film of all time in 1998 - raising that to the 78th greatest film two years ago.

Witness the subtlety and comic timing of the scene in which the Tramp is arrested for communist agitation. Just released from a psychiatric ward, the Tramp happens to see a flatbed truck with a long load, trailing an obligatory red warning flag at the end. When the flag falls off the back of the load, the Tramp helpfully scoops it up, waving it to try to get the driver’s attention — not realizing that a throng of unemployed workers from his old job has come up behind him, demonstrating in the streets. To the police, of course, the Tramp waving his red flag at the head of the crowd looks like the leader of these agitators; and he is quickly bundled off to jail.

Note how gracefully Chaplin weaves together the demands of (a) his medium (although the film is black and white, we know the flag is red because it comes from the back of the long load on the flatbed), (b) his comedy-of-errors genre (an innocent attempt to help is mistaken for political agitation — just the kind of thing that would happen to the Tramp), (c) the continuity of his story (the demonstration doesn’t simply appear from nowhere for the sake of the gag, but flows naturally and logically from past events), and (d) the social concerns underlying the film (the workers’ plight mirrors real problems — as does that of the Tramp, neither the first nor the last to be wrongly persecuted for the belief that he is a Communist). - Decent Films Guide