In last week’s article I talked about how perhaps the greatest playwright of all time has the most lacklustre film adaptations, for me there are a few exceptions, but the truest encapsulation of Williams on screen still remains 1951’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Below follows a review and retrospective of the 1951 classic film. Upon the news of us having been given the task of preparing a working knowledge of A Streetcar Named Desire, I found myself returning to a piece I had written regarding the classic film adaptation of the stage play from 1951. Having written this review prior to my extensive study of the play and other Williams’ works, I found this piece a reflection of the previous writer and viewer and critic that I was before my true obsession, research and critical rebirth regarding the theatre came into effect. The piece however I still find to be an intriguing critical hauling of the film as a masterwork. Even now, in my later years, I find that I share a similar opinion in the matter that the film and of course it’s base text is one of the greatest works of fiction the world has come to know.
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Of the five films nominated for the best picture Oscar at the 24th Academy awards in 1951, only two are still talked about today; the winner, An American in Paris and it’s more adult, more vicious and far superior rival mate A Streetcar Named Desire. However, the academy (and to some extent the whole of the USA) were not ready for the harsh reality that A Streetcar Named Desire would force them to acknowledge. Although in my opinion Gene Kelly’s An American in Paris is a classic in the old MGM musical tradition, A Streetcar Named Desire is a classic in the tradition of film. From the offset as we hear the first chords of Alex North’s pulsating score, we are plunged into New Orleans and into the lives of The Kowalski’s and the now solitary DuBois. I started to read the play before watching the film but found myself distracted by the men’s Wimbledon semi finals and hence turned my attention towards that, after only reading the first three pages I decided to watch the film first before reading the play; however from only reading the first three pages I was initially met by Eunice and the Kowalski’s, a contrast to the opening of the film. In celluloid, we are first met by the beautiful yet damaged Blanche DuBois played by the beautiful yet damaged Vivian Leigh, Leigh arrives through a plume of smoke from a train and immediately fills every inch of the screen with her immaculate presence. The performance from Leigh is just perfect, perfectly encapsulating the moth like description that Williams gives us in his first utterance of Blanche, every subtle gesture oozes pain and hurt which makes the character attractive to the audience and ultimatleyt to the brute Brando. Leigh’s personal troubles only extenuate the line drawn between method acting and living on screen, with Brando’s method performance as force of nature Stanley against Leigh’s performance heavily distinguished by her own suffering of bipolar disorder. It is keen to note that Leigh later in her life even had difficulties in distinguishing her life from that of Blanche DuBois. In more than a few ways the casting of Leigh perfectly works on multiple levels, for we know what Blanche's early life as a Southern Belle was like, for we have already viewed 4 hours with Leigh as such a character in Gone With the Wind. A comparison that I am certainly not the first to note.
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The film and play initially brought forward the moth-like, hurt caricature of a mentally ill woman in dire need of help being shunned by her friends and family, a tradition carried on in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard with Norma Desmond and Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine with Cate Blanchet’s beautifully inspired portrayal of Jasmine. These remarkably strong women facing down immense troubles and mental strain leads to the ultimate juxtaposition of a character and makes us viewing them a very painful experience indeed. But we chiefly also like these characters, allowing us to pass off some of the more snide or even rude comments that they may speak from time to time. The similarities between Blue Jasmine and A Streetcar Named Desire are very evident, both feature a socialite of significant wealth who has returned to her sister who has since fallen into a relationship with a hardworking 'man’s man'; in addition, both leads face a complete mental breakdown. But who is to blame for Blanche’s downfall? Her sister, herself or most likely her new brother in law; Stanley Kowalski played effortlessly by Marlon Brando.
From his introduction Brando raises the tension in each scene he appears to practically unbearable levels, much like him in his shirt, we are uncomfortable in the apartment. Everything in the apartment lends to this growing sense of dread, whether it be the brilliant set design which actually had the apartment set shrink over the time of filming as to build to Blanche’s growing sense of paranoia, or the hauntingly Gothic set design. But at the centre of all of this is Brando, early word spread about Brando’s amazing talent in the film to the extent that Brando was paid a sizeable amount of $75,000 for his work on the film, partially because of the insider scoop that hailed Brando’s acting styles at the “most revolutionary thing to hit Hollywood since the talkies”. After originating the role on Broadway, the foundation was already there for an academy award winning performance; shockingly however despite the film being one of only two films to ever win three acting awards, Brando went home empty handed. The film suffered, despite being the fifth biggest hit of the year, the film still suffered. People just weren’t ready for the stark realism that the play offered; this greatly annoyed the director Elia Kazan who was quoted saying that “the audiences were coming for the sex and we couldn’t give it to them”, due mainly to the MPAA.
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In conclusion, the film is a masterpiece. Although that may sound like an overstatement for a film that is primarily set in an apartment block in a time when people were used to grand sprawling epics, that is one of the reasons why the film is so brilliant. It returned people to the thrill of a human drama, the thrill of talking and conversation, audiences were used to having to see their main character fall after a large grandiose battle in the Gobi desert. A Streetcar Named Desire managed to keep everybody’s attentions and interests without these things and that is why many cite the film as one of the fifteen movies that changed film forever, an opinion that is favoured by this humble critic.
-Thomas Carruthers
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