Elia Kazan (1909-2003)

Dear Charlie,

The photo you see here is of Vivien Leigh, playing Blanche Dubois, and a sweaty Marlon Brando playing Stanley Kowalski, in Elia Kazan's famous film of Tennessee Williams' play "A Streetcar Named Desire", set in New Orleans. This role sealed Brando's reputation as one of the great screen actors, twenty years or so before "The Godfather", but British actress Leigh, previously famous for playing Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With the Wind",  is no less impressive. Another great Kazan film is "On the Waterfront" (known in French as "Sur les quais") about a strike, and the Mafia, in the docks around New York. When some of the workers break the strike, some see this as a reference to Kazan himself giving the names of former Communist friends to Senator Joe McCarthy during his famous witch-hunt.
Like Brando, James Dean was seen as belonging to the Method school of acting. You can compare the two styles if you also watch "East of Eden", Kazan's adaptation of Steinbeck's famous novel. Dean only made three films, so make the most of it!

Dean's co-star in another of his films, "Rebel Without a Cause" (La fureur de vivre), was Natalie Wood (also in "West Side Story"), and she turns up again in "Splendor in the Grass" (La Fièvre dans le Sang", a not dissimilar French title to the Dean film), opposite another Method-y actor Warren Beatty, a famous womaniser. This is another cult film, and the English title comes from a Wordsworth poem "Ode: Intimations of Immortality".

The other films are all interesting, and I particularly recommend the unsettling "The Visitors" (which doesn't star Christian Clavier, but the great James Woods). I myself am looking forward to discovering "Gentleman's Agreement", and "The Last Tycoon" (adapted from Fitzgerald's unfinished novel), but "Viva Zapata" (again with Brando), "Wild River" and "The Arrangement" (with Kirk Douglas) are all worth a look. It's just a shame they couldn't find a copy of his immigrant epic, "America America", based on the journey of his uncle to the United States.
Kazan's reputation has definitely suffered from what many saw as a betrayal of his old friends in the '50s. When he received an Honorary Oscar at the end of his life, many at the ceremony refused to give him a standing ovation. But many of his films have stood the test of time.
Go and see some of them in Aix over the next three weeks. The Institut de l'Image has come up trumps again!
http://www.institut-image.org/programme/le-cycle/
Mr Leah