NYFF ’10: Letter to Elia

No director portrayed the immigrant experience or the struggles of the common man with greater sensitivity than Elia Kazan, but to this day, he remains widely reviled on the left. Even a figure of Martin Scorsese’s stature took heat for presenting Kazan a lifetime achievement Oscar at the 71st Academy Awards. Yet for Scorsese, Kazan’s influence extended far beyond his early stylistic debt to the great filmmaker. Scorsese explains Kazan’s significant both to cinematic history in general and himself personally in Letter to Elia, an hour-long documentary he co-directed with Kent Jones, which screens with Kazan’s epic America, America at the 48th New York Film Festival.

Regardless of political controversies, Kazan’s reputation as an actor’s director is without peer. A co-founder of the Actor’s Studio, Kazan began his career on the boards before finding his calling as a theater director. Letter reminds us it was Kazan who helmed the Broadway premieres of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Of course, he would revisit Streetcar on film with original cast-member and frequent collaborator Marlon Brando, one of several legitimate masterpieces he crafted. However, for Scorsese, East of Eden stands out first and foremost in his consciousness, claiming to have “stalked” the film through second-run cinemas as a boy.

Looking straight into the camera, Scorsese forcefully and lucidly describes Kazan’s contributions to stage and screen, with the help of generous clips from the director’s filmography. While Eden and the best picture nominee America, America capture the most screen time, Scorsese and Jones duly include Kazan’s arguably single most famous scene, Brando’s “could have been a contender” speech from On the Waterfront, the classic tale of union corruption.

In contrast, they are clearly uncomfortable addressing Kazan’s testimony to the HUAC committee. Kazan was a former Communist who became disillusioned after the Stalin-Hitler (Molotov-Ribbentrop) non-aggression pact came to light. Considering Communism a severely flawed ideology, Kazan defended his decision in an op-ed piece, but Scorsese and Jones largely ignore his motivations, preferring to gloss over the incident with vague language of “difficult choices,” which does little to serve Kazan’s memory.

Of course, Scorsese is on solid ground when celebrating movie history. Letter is definitely an effective commercial for Kazan’s rich body of work, which really speaks for itself throughout the documentary. However, if any of his masterworks is under-represented, it would be Gentleman’s Agreement, a powerful examination of anti-Semitism that won Kazan his first Oscar.

Truly, Kazan is due for a critical renaissance, unblinkered by partisan score-settling. Letter is a well intentioned, mostly well executed effort to spur just that. Due to be included in a forthcoming Kazan boxset, Scorsese and Jones’ film screens this coming Monday (9/27) with a rare big screen presentation of America, America at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of the 2010 NYFF.

Kazan at Film Forum: Man on a Tightrope

By the time Elia Kazan testified before the HUAC Committee, the gist of the Great Purge and Stalin’s forced collectivization policies had been reported in the west. Yet for many in Hollywood, Kazan remains the villain for trying to expose the activities of the Moscow-controlled CPUSA in his chosen field. As a result, despite directing some of the greatest masterpieces of American cinema, Kazan was treated like a pariah in the industry he sought to save. As the first film Kazan helmed after testifying, the lesser known Man on a Tightrope takes on tremendous personal and political significance given the context of his tumultuous history. Rarely seen in repertory, it screens once next Tuesday as part of the Film Forum’s welcomed Elia Kazan retrospective.

Karel Cernik is not a great clown, but he understands comedy better than the Party bosses who now regulate the circus still bearing his name. Of course, “the people” now own it, but Cernik is allowed to stay on as the manager. However, he chafes under the edicts of the Czechoslovak Communist Party.

Cernik has other problems too. His wife Zama openly carries on with Rudolph, the Robert Goulet-looking lion-tamer, while his daughter Tereza is making eyes at Vosdek, the suspicious drifter who recently signed on as a handyman. Most pressing is the revelation of a spy in their midst, who has fed incriminating information to the local authorities. Though they know he has listened to forbidden western radio broadcasts, they do not seem to suspect the full extent of Cernik’s plans. He intends to make a mad dash for the border, with the elephants and the rest of the circus animals in tow.

It is hard not to draw parallels between Kazan and Cernik, two men appalled by the politicizing of their art. Indeed, Cernik is the heart and soul of the film. Used to playing a supporting role in his own circus while others enjoy the spotlight, he is a man who silently suffers the indignities of life. Yet, he is capable of great courage and sacrifice for the sake of those he loves—his immediate family and the extended family of the circus.

Frederic March gives one of the great unsung screen performances as Cernik. His circus everyman is heroic, even noble, but not saintly. This is fully developed character, warts and all. Unfortunately, the supporting cast largely falls below his considerably high standard. Adolphe Menjou (also a HUAC witness) is perfectly cast as Fesker, Cernik’s moustache-twisting tormentor, but Cameron Mitchell seems to be doing a subpar Brando impersonation as Vosdek.

Shot on location in Europe with the participation of the real-life Brumbach Circus, Tightrope looks convincingly authentic. Kazan elicits a truly remarkable performance from March, and nicely stages Cernik’s unlikely act of desperation. Together with On the Waterfront, a story of another everyman who dared to confront corruption, Tightrope offers a clear rejoinder to those who vilified his “naming names.” Described by Kazan as his “ode to individualism” Tightrope is an above average Hollywood studio film that has clearly has a wider historical import. It screens next Tuesday night (10/20) at Film Forum.