In a broader context, the film is usually interpreted as Kazan’s response to the criticism he received due to his testimony before the Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Kazan was a member of the American Communist Party for a total of 18 months between 1934 and 1936, so in 1952 he was summoned by HUAC to testify about his Hollywood communist activities and connections, and the director, who refused to answer at first, named eight (already known to HUAC) at the second hearing ) co-creator, because of which many of his friends turned away from him, and in fact until the end of his life he saw him as a Hollywood traitor (stool pigeon), who sold his friends for the sake of his career, and the hatred felt for him only increased by the fact that in his later statements he did not show the expected regret, but proudly he proclaimed that he had helped Hollywood rid itself of communists worse than the devil.
So in 1955, it won 8 Oscars (including Best Film, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress) On the wharfcould – in the words of Orson Welles, who criticized Kazan – also be interpreted as a film of “the glorification of the informer”, as Kazan himself puts it in his 1988 autobiography “On the wharf my story, every single day of filming I let the world know which side I was on and that my critics could go to hell.”
Photo: Columbia Pictures
Part of the truth is that already a year before the committee hearing, in 1951, Kazan said yes to the playwright (and then his friend) Arthur Miller, who was working on the first version of the script, and to Columbia Pictures to make the film – and in fact, only a few dropped sentences (“I was considered a rag figure, but I’m not a rag”) and the ending of the film (which seems forced to today’s eyes) contains the answer intended for Kazan’s critics, the starting point of the film is the port reality of the late 1940s, to which the authentic portrayal is also adapted , i.e. pulled out On the wharf-ta HUAC hearing, the film remains what it is: the tragedy of the edge of the city and a man struggling with his feelings.
What is school-creating, even by the standards of today’s acting, is made possible by outstanding performances. Especially Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb and Eva Marie Saint in her first role (immediately Oscar winner) make Kazan’s film unforgettable.
Not incidentally On the wharf returns in a whole series of films. THE Raging bullfor example, in the role of Jake La Motta, Robert De Niro literally quotes Brando’s famous “I could have been someone” monologue (after all, Scorsese is one of Kazan’s greatest admirers, highlighting that neither American cinematic realism nor method acting could have gained ground without him), but the other great American boxing film, the Rocky Stallone partly modeled his protagonist on Terry Malloy, who then a Coplandrepeated in On the wharf his hero’s dilemma regarding the public interest and higher decency, while Lee J. Cobb’s sudden outburst of anger is evoked by Jack Nicholson in A matter of honorwho, according to the rumor, bought the house next to Brando on Mulholland Drive so that he could become the role model of himself and of all worthy Hollywood male actors from behind the curtain – who, in Elia Kazan’s films, Desire becomes a tramin, a Viva Zapata!in and On the wharfopened a new chapter in the history of American acting.
