A. ON THE WATERFRONT
(1.)Background:
Credits
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Screenplay by Budd Schulberg; based on an original story by Mr. Schulberg and suggested by the series of Pulitzer Prize-winning articles by Malcolm Johnson; directed by Elia Kazan; produced by Sam Spiegel; cinematography by Boris Kaufman; a Horizon picture presented by Columbia. The film also features Leonard Bernstein's first film score. Filmed: 1954.
Terry Malloy-Marlon Brando
Edie Doyle-Eva Marie Saint
Father Barry-Karl Malden
Johnny Friendly-Lee J. Cobb
Charley Malloy-Rod Steiger
Pop Doyle-John Hamilton
Kayo Dugan-Pat Henning
Glover-Leif Erickson
Big Mac-James Westerfield
Truck-Tony Galento
Trillio-Tami Mauriello
Barney-Abe Simon
Mott-John Heldabrand
Moose-Rudy Bond
Luke-Don Blackman
Jimmy-Arthur Keegan
J-P-Barry Macollum
Specs-Mike O'Dowd
Gillette-Marty Balsam
Slim-Fred Gwynne
Tommy-Thomas Handley
Mrs. Collins-Anne Hegira
ON THE WATERFRONT won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor (Brando), Best Supporting Actress (Saint), Directing, Writing, Cinematography, Art Direction, and Film Editing.
Included here are excerpts of reviews of Brando's work.
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Mr. Brando has a number of astonishing tour de force to his credit but this must surely be his subtlest performance-the slow awakening, the groping for the truth is brilliantly done.
-Fred Majdalany, TIME and TIDE
His basically decent, inarticulate dumb-ox is high art-meticulous, subtle character acting. To take an eye off him for a second is to miss something vital and telling.
-Stephen Watts, SUNDAY CHRONICLE
The movie has its roots in Malcolm Johnson's Pulitzer Prize winning series of investigative newspaper articles about organized crime on the New York docks in 1949. The film is in the tradition of the 1930s gangster movie with a social message. Bud Schulberg's screenplay is a powerful indictment of the way the mob corrupted the union, controlling all employment, extorting crippling dues, and murdering anyone who stood up to the mob bosses. ON THE WATERFRONT remains a powerful film because, even though it-has pretensions to social commentary, its subtext is the revelation of character through psychological motivation.
Marlon Brando plays Terry Malloy, an ex-prize fighter who is the mob's errand boy and hanger-on. He realizes the depth of union corruption only after he unwittingly sets up the killing of a young longshoreman who is about to "sing" to the Waterfront Crime Commission. The murder and his own involvement in it finally begin to awaken his conscience.
The enduring qualities of ON THE WATERFRONT derive from its inexhaustible stores of psychological material more than any pretension to social commentary. The confrontation between the mob and the longshoremen is no more than a moving and motivating background for the profound inner conflicts that beset each character's conscience. These conflicts remain alive and memorable for us in part because they are our own, and because the film leaves them deliberately unresolved. Father Barry cannot reconcile personal principles with church protocol. Edie cannot choose between honoring the memory of her murdered brother and loving the man who betrayed him. Terry Malloy believes until the last moments of the film that he can remain simultaneously loyal to his brother, his employer, and himself.
Kazan emphasizes the hopelessness of Terry's case by consistently focusing the camera's attention on Brando's face. The halting progress of the ethical debate is marked when Brando's eyes narrow, when his face falls slack, or when he withdraws a hesitant smile.
Kazan had been very much influenced by Stella Adler, and what she brought back from meeting with Stanislavski. Stella Adler was a noted actor of the stage in the 1940s. She studied at The American Laboratory Theatre with Boleslavski and was a member of The Group Theatre, along with Kazan and Lee Strasberg. She was Marlon Brando's acting teacher.
Kazan was considered to be an actor's director (he was an actor with The Group Theatre) and always tried to create spontaneity and the illusion of reality. Most of the film was shot on location on the docks in Hoboken, New Jersey, where longshoremen were hired as extras. The weather during the shooting was very cold and Kazan was happy with the fact that the actor's breath showed on film.
In Marlon Brando's autobiography
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, Brando: SONGS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME, he illustrated how Kazan worked by citing one of the most famous two-character scenes in film history, the taxi-cab scene. In this scene, Brando, as Terry Malloy, and Rod Steiger, who plays his brother, Charlie, a corrupt union leader, is trying to improve Terry's position with the mob. As Brando describes the rehearsal of the scene, Charlie has been told to set Terry up for a hit because he is going to testify before the Waterfront Commission about mob corruption of the union.
The script called for Steiger to pull a gun and threaten Terry. If Terry didn't change his mind about testifying at the hearings, he would be killed. Brando complained to Kazan that it was totally unbelievable that his brother, who had looked after him for thirty years, would suddenly stick a gun in his ribs and threaten to kill him. He and Kazan argued about this until finally Kazan said, "All right, wing one." Brando and Steiger improvised the scene, changing it completely.
Kazan was convinced and printed the scene. Brando, describing the improvisation says,
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When my brother flashed the gun in the cab, I looked at it, then up at him in disbelief. I didn't believe for a second that he would ever pull the trigger. I felt sorry for him. Then Rod started talking about my boxing career. If I'd had a better manager, he said, things would have gone better for me in the ring. "He brought you along too fast." "That wasn't
him
, Charlie," I said, "it was
you
. Remember that night at the Garden you came down to my dressing room and said, ‘Kid, this isn't your night.' MY NIGHT! I could have taken Wilson apart. So what happened? He gets the shot at the title outdoors at a ballpark and what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palookaville. You was my brother, Charlie, you should have looked out for me a little bit. You should have taken care of me better so I didn't have to take the dives for the short-end money . . . . I could have had class. I could have been a contender. I could have been
somebody
instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it. It was you, Charlie. . ."
Brando goes on to say that when the movie came out he was credited with a marvelous job of acting. But he believes that the scene was "actor-proof," and that it demonstrated how audiences often do much of the acting themselves in an effectively told story.
It couldn't miss because almost everyone believes he could have been a contender, that he could have been somebody if held been dealt different cards by fate, so when people say this in the film, they identified with it. That's the magic of theater; everybody in the audience became Terry Malloy, a man who'd had the guts not only to stand up to the Mob, but to say, "I'm a bum. Let's face it; that's what I am. . ."
(2.) STRATEGIES:
I have chosen four lessons that focus on the practical use of Method acting exercises utilizing the film ON THE WATERFRONT. The film and The final shooting script will be our text.
LESSON ONE: To encourage ensemble acting, the students will begin their acting exercises on the film by doing sensory exercises (with imaginary and real objects) and by doing first reading exercises. These lessons will combine ensemble exercises, sensory exercises, and improvisations. Lesson One will be outlined in Sample Lesson Plan One.
LESSON TWO: Improvisation, as we've seen, was the basis for the taxi-cab scene. In Lesson Two, the students will discuss the immediate given circumstances for the characters of Terry and Charlie: they will improvise what each character is doing before the written scene begins. Students will also improvise the taxi-cab scene by studying the scene in the film and in the final shooting script.
LESSON THREE: Lesson Three will include the scene of Terry walking Edie home. This scene also has improvisational elements. Apparently, Eva Marie Saint accidentally dropped her glove in this scene. Therefore, all of Brando's business with the glove was improvised. Students will view the scene, discuss each character's behavior, and look at the use of objects (the glove in particular). Working through tenet number seven, students will discuss the value of objects in the scene, both as behavioral tools and symbolic tools. Students will act the scene.
LESSON FOUR: Lesson Four will include a larger group improvisation. Johnny Friendly's Bar and poolroom office will be explored in a "place exercise." After reviewing the first scene inside the Bar, students will set up the place. Each student will enter the place as a character from the movie or as an imaginary character who might have been in this scene. Each character will come in with an objective.