Evan D. As a project this year we are taking a trip through time to revisit all of the Best Picture winners in history, Wings to Anora. On The Waterfront is the twenty-seventh film in that series, to see all the other Best Picture reviews, click here. With great art comes a natural inclination to read into the mind of its creator. Sometimes that can be a fool’s errand. Other times it is painfully obvious what is on an artist’s mind. Already one to cinematically wear his heart on his sleeve, there is no doubt what Elia Kazan what’s thinking about with his second Best Picture winner, On the Waterfront.
Once a prizefighter contending for boxing championships, Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) has seen his luster fade as he works the docks of Hoboken New Jersey. Dockworker might be generous to Terry though as he collects a check for sitting around the docks doing mostly nothing. His real labor is carrying out “favors” for the union head Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb.) He doesn’t put much thought into these missions of intimidation until he’s asked to lure Joey Doyle to the roof where Johnny’s men await. See, Joey was thinking about talking to federal investigators about Johnny’s operation. Terry didn’t think they’d kill the kid but even after they did he was little more than mildly surprised. On Friendly’s docks you’ll get your cut so long as you stay deaf and dumb to anything that might risk the operation. Joey didn’t and it cost him his life. But Joey was different than the average bums on the docks. He was well liked and genial with everyone. His death sparks a movement — led by his sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint) and the priest Father Berry (Karl Malden) — to take down Friendly’s whole operation. A movement that would force Terry into an impossible bind. Widely considered to be Kazan’s address over his decision to name names in the McCarthy hearings, the actual content of On the Waterfront does little to dissuade of that notion. Terry is a well meaning dockworker just trying to keep his head above water. He toes the line and doesn’t stir up any trouble. Until Johnny Friendly comes after him and those he cares about. He turns on the brazenly corrupt dockworkers union to save the group from itself, even at great personal risk. The contexts couldn’t be more different but it’s an interesting insight into how Kazan saw his own actions and nearly impossible to separate the two. Beyond the clear personal allegory, the film itself is quite astonishing. Much of that can be attributed to Marlon Brando’s portrayal of Terry Malloy, a performance that blossoms from cautious sheepishness into a lashing, rage filled release. There’s a captivating uncertainty to the character as Brando sands down his boxer’s rough edges and hides behind the weary eyes of a man much younger than his experience would suggest. He turns Malloy into one of the most fascinating screen characters of the era and through sheer force of performance connects the dramatic threads of the film. Narratively the storytelling is tight and compelling throughout. There is a palpable haggardness to the people and sets comprising Hoboken. You can feel the pain Johnny Friendly’s corruption has inflicted on folks as well as the fear that keeps them ossified in their impoverished state. Leonard Bernstein’s swelling score — only his second effort on screen — adds a tremendous intensity as the plot pulls Malloy and Friendly perilously closer. Truly the most disorienting feature of On The Waterfront comes only when viewing Malloy as a stand in for the director. Without that context, it is a genuine achievement in filmmaking, certainly more so than Kazan’s first Best Picture winning effort. That asterisk will always exist even as time may isolate the film from the world in which it was made. Until that day it will remain a confounding, yet excellently made, dissection of corruption and the moral imperative to stand up against it. Certainly it stands out as one of the most interesting films of Hollywood’s Golden Age. 8/10
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