A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Drama

Director: Elia Kazan

Cast : Vivien Leigh / Marlon Brando / Kim Hunter

Plot

Impoverished and homeless, eccentric Southern belle Blanche DuBois comes to stay with her sister Stella and her husband Stanley in their New Orleans apartment.  Blanche, disturbed and manipulative, and Stanley, fiery and violent, despise one another, competing in a personal power struggle for control over Stella.

What I Liked

Although I have seen the young Brando in other movies (“On the Waterfront,” for example), it wasn’t until I sat and watched “A Streetcar Named Desire” that I could truly witness what made him such a sensation upon his arrival on the American film scene.  One needs only to compare his performance with that of star Vivien Leigh to understand the one-man revolution (and revelation) he was to film acting.  Leigh, one of the legends of the old style of acting is a study in preposterous facial expressions and exaggerated gesticulations which always seem like leftovers from the silent era.  This all made her perfect to play the ruined neurotic that is Blanche DuBois and thus is no hindrance to the film’s success as a drama.  However, in Brando we have a man who is utterly believable and wholly natural in the skin of his character.  His performance is rounded out by both seething passion and subtle complexity.

Of course, there was more to Brando than simply his acting.  Karl Malden, another method actor, plays a meaty supporting role with just as much artistry as Brando.  Yet Malden, while a greatly admired actor of the era, never achieved Brando’s legendary status.  Certainly a great deal of that had to do with the young Marlon’s sensual good looks.  Particularly in the first several scenes he and the filmmakers do a great deal to play up his sexual attractiveness.  I never truly understood why Brando was considered a sex symbol in his youth until I saw this movie.  Lots of times I hear women talking about how handsome and actor is and I look at the guy and think, “Really?  He just looks like a normal dude to me.”  Watching “Streetcar,” I get why women fell for Brando.  I’m a straight male, but I can admit the man was definitely gorgeous.  But there was even still more than looks.  Lots of people are good looking, but never magnetize audiences the way Brando could.  Some performers, whatever their medium, just have that undefinable “It” element.  ‘Charisma’ is a word often thrown around to describe it, or ‘screen presence.’  Both descriptions fall short of capturing those who are truly great at that unnamable quality.  Brando is one of those greats.  Vivien Leigh was one of the biggest stars of her generation, with loads of her own on-screen charisma, and she gives one of the most iconic performance of her career.  On paper, her character is also more interesting than Stanley.  Yet Brando absolutely outshines her in each and every moment they share the same frame.

What I Didn’t Like

Elia Kazan is one of the great directors of American films, though he is undeservedly left out of the first names to roll off of the typical movie fan’s lips.  Coppola, Chaplin, Hitchcock, Scorsese, Spielberg, and Ford almost always get mentioned long before Kazan on any list, yet his filmography (“Streetcar,” “On the Waterfront,” and “East of Eden,” among others) can compare rather favorably against most of those other men.  Yet Kazan’s talent was in his ability to get the most out of his actors to tell the stories, not in cinematographic technique, style, or innovation.  “Streetcar” in particular is shot with a matter-of-fact, straight-ahead simplicity that was obviously intended but nonetheless dry.  I imagine Kazan’s unembellished approach was a way for him to focus on the stark reality he intended to present.  He did not want flourish and dazzle to rob his films of their authenticity.  His films are about the characters and their relationships, not style.  Good for him.  But would it have hurt to give us an interesting camera angle just once?

Part of the problem with watching this movie now is the influence it had on later cinema and television.  So much of “Streetcar” is now evident in lesser films and cheap soap operas that the clichés of its imitators have dampened the impact of the drama in the original.  I first started watching this film with my wife, but about halfway through we were both falling asleep.  When it came time to finish, my wife declined to watch the rest, saying she just wasn’t “into it.”  I can’t blame her.  “Streetcar” is now an intellectual treat, a document of the development of cinema as an art.

Most Memorable Scene

The sensuality of “Streetcar” reaches an early climax when Stella and Stanley make up following a row shortly after Blanche’s arrival.  In the steamy rain of a humid New Orleans night, Stanley lures Stella out of hiding with his desperate cries.  She is drawn hopelessly down to him until they clasp against each other in an impassioned embrace, the muscles of Brando’s glistening in the lamplight as Stella’s hands cling to his flesh with unbridled desire.  Even today the sexual charge of the scene is impressive, considering how jaded we are today with flesh and sex on TV.  Kazan and his actors achieve a highly erotic scene that stands the test of time without resorting to nudity, sex, or shock value.

My Rating: 4 out of 5