Elia Kazan, R.I.P

The New York Times ran a respectful obituary of Elia Kazan, one of the men for whom the word “legendary” was coined. A success in Broadway and Hollywood, he is perhaps most known for ratting out members of his Communist cell from the 1930s during the McCarthy hearings two decades later.
That the Times did not mention those hearings until the seventh paragraph is an honorable decision, and indeed the long appreciation of his life places that episode in its proper context. If there was a case to be made against the McCarthy hearings, surely the most compelling is that constitution doesn’t grant the Federal government authority over movie studios. It wasn’t illegal to be a Communist, and being a director or screenwriter isn’t a public office. Soviet spies in the State Department were a real threat to the government and people of the United States and they should have been prosecuted and jailed. You can’t say the same thing about an actor who joined a Communist front group for a few months.
I will always remember Kazan for “On the Waterfront,” another movie with strong Catholic overtones. After a half-century, everything about the movie is still spectacular. If you know him as a bloated caracature of himself, you’ll see where Marlon Brando’s reputation comes from. The score by Leonard Bernstein is still jarringly effective, as is Boris Kaufman’s cinematography.
Brando’s Terry Malloy, who faces down the mob-run union oppressing his fellow dockworkers, is the center of the movie. He undergoes a saint-like transformation from mediocrity (“I coulda been a contender”) to reluctant hero. Kazan, a poor Greek immigrant, transparently sympathized with Malloy’s struggle against forces more powerful than himself.
Two supporting roles contribute mightily to the movie’s greatness. Eva Marie Saint, playing the Catholic-boarding-school-educated love interest Edie Doyle, ultimately inspires Terry to be a better man than he is. She hovers between her attraction to Terry and her aversion to his sometimes-uncouth ways (watch her reaction as she takes her first sip of beer.)
Karl Malden plays Father Barry, a priest you’d want for your own parish. His zeal for justice is awakened by the brutal murder of a parishioner cooperating with the authorities against the mob, and tries to mobilize the dockworkers against their corrupt bosses. In one scene, he knocks out a thug blocking his exit from a bar, and then drinks the man’s shot of whiskey. I’d say we could use a few more Father Barrys these days.
When Kazan recieved a lifetime achievement Oscar, many people criticized the Academy, though nobody argued that he didn’t merited it on artistic grounds. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. shot back, “If the Academy’s occasion calls for apologies, let Mr. Kazan’s denouncers apologize for the aid and comfort they gave to Stalinism.” Damn right. May you rest in peace, Elia.
Postscript: In this 2001 interview, Kazan tries to explain why “Waterfront” is so popular. “Something of the drama of the ordinary man who has feelings of guilt, who’s searching for redemption- it’s not a big word in the Catholic religion….” Well, actually it’s the word in the Catholic religion. There’s no other reason for it to exist. Still a great movie, though.