John Whitehead's Commentary
Elia Kazan: A Great Filmmaker Nonetheless
Elia Kazan, the Academy Award-winning director of such influential films as On the Waterfront and East of Eden, among others, is dead at 94. A true genius of film, Kazan's work is marred by his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1952. There he named eight people he said had been members of the Communist Party with him in the mid-1930s. All were eventually blacklisted.
Because of his testimony, Kazan was shunned by friends and colleagues alike. And when he received a special Oscar in 1999 for his amazing life's work, there was only a smattering of applause. Some audience members, too young to remember his testimony, showed their disapproval with silence. It is easy, however, to cast stones from a distance. One wonders how Kazan's present critics would have fared had they lived through the incredible tension of the early fifties.
America at that time was in the midst of an anti-Communist hysteria, led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisc.). McCarthy specialized in sensational and unsubstantiated accusations about Communist infiltration of the American government. He targeted well-known actors and directors from Hollywood, trade unionists and teachers. Movies and magazines also caught the spirit, warning of "a red under every bed."
Many others were brought before HUAC for questioning. Based on past associations (real or rumored), thousands were regarded as bad risks. The accused struggled to secure employment. Some were jailed. The witch hunt ruined careers. Some were hounded into suicide. Immigration was tightened to exclude alleged subversives.
In the Depression years of the 1930s, the Communist Party attracted many young idealists and intellectuals such as Elia Kazan who hoped Communism would end fascism and improve conditions for the people. However, as the atrocities of Stalin were revealed, many, like Kazan, changed their minds. In fact, Kazan came to view Communism with a very skeptical eye. Strangely enough, Allied propaganda (including that from the American government) during World War II had actually officially blessed the Red Army and the Soviet people and thereby persuaded some Americans to temporarily support Communism.
But McCarthyism changed all that. And it eventually smeared the alleged Communists and Communist sympathizers with the same broad brush, whether the evidence was good, bad or nonexistent. McCarthy appealed to the low, base instincts of envy, paranoia and dislike for the intellectual establishment. An atmosphere of fear eroded civil liberties, and for a short while, it seemed that our Constitution might be in jeopardy.
Tragically, the so-called "free" press acquiesced to McCarthy's masquerading. "The real scoundrel in all this," writes author David Halberstam, "was the behavior of the members of the Washington press corps, who, more often than not, knew better. They were delighted to be a part of his traveling road show, chronicling each charge and then moving on to the next town, instead of bothering to stay behind and follow up. They had little interest in reporting how careless McCarthy was or how little it all meant to him."
Moreover, the anti-Communist crusade elicited the involvement and tacit support of various liberal groups and individuals. This included the American Civil Liberties Union, which from 1953 to 1959 succumbed to fear and refused to defend alleged Communists who were under attack or lost jobs.
However, on March 9, 1954, Edward R. Murrow, the most respected newsman on television at the time, attacked McCarthy on his weekly show, "See It Now." Murrow interspersed his own comments and clarifications into a damaging series of film clips from McCarthy's speeches. He ended the broadcast with a warning:
"As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves--as indeed we are--the defenders of freedom, what's left of it, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad and given considerable comfort to our enemies, and whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create the situation of fear; he merely exploited it, and rather successfully. Cassius was right: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves."
CBS reported that of the 12,000 phone calls received within 24 hours of the broadcast, positive responses to the program outnumbered negative 15 to 1. McCarthy's favorable rating in the Gallup Poll dropped from 50% to 46%, never to rise again.
When Eisenhower reclaimed the presidency for the Republicans in 1952, McCarthy's usefulness to the party waned. McCarthy made himself increasingly ridiculous with his heavy drinking (he ate a stick of butter to coat his stomach in order to help him hold his liquor) and his unfounded accusations.
In December 1954, the Senate voted 67-22 to censure McCarthy. Even publicly attacking President Eisenhower could not earn McCarthy a newspaper headline. Former "friends" avoided him. At a 1956 political event in Milwaukee, McCarthy tried to take a seat near one-time ally Richard Nixon. After an aide asked McCarthy to leave, a reporter found the senator outside crying. McCarthy died in 1957 of a liver condition due to alcoholism.
Kazan survived, however, and went on to make some of his best films. One of the finest was On the Waterfront in 1954--several years after his HUAC testimony. On the Waterfront is both an emotional melodrama addressing one man's personal redemption and the nature of union corruption on the New York waterfront. However, Kazan used the film to justify being an informer before HUAC, with his protagonist, Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando), acting as a heroic stand-in for himself. Malloy becomes an informer in an extremely precarious situation: if he breaks the neighborhood code of silence, he will be labeled a Judas. But if he doesn't speak out, the audience will judge him with moral cowardice. Kazan later said he identified with Malloy. "Terry Malloy felt as I did. He felt ashamed and proud of himself at the same time.... He felt it was a necessary act."
In fact, at the end of the film when Brando yells at the mob boss "I'm glad what I done--you hear me?--I'm glad," as Kazan writes in his autobiography, "that was me saying, with identical heat, that I was glad I'd testified as I had." The film was, as Kazan said, "my story, now told to all the world."
Thus, even in death Kazan's story goes on being told through his films. And as his detractors and enemies fade, the memory of Elia Kazan as a great filmmaker will remain.
Because of his testimony, Kazan was shunned by friends and colleagues alike. And when he received a special Oscar in 1999 for his amazing life's work, there was only a smattering of applause. Some audience members, too young to remember his testimony, showed their disapproval with silence. It is easy, however, to cast stones from a distance. One wonders how Kazan's present critics would have fared had they lived through the incredible tension of the early fifties.
America at that time was in the midst of an anti-Communist hysteria, led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisc.). McCarthy specialized in sensational and unsubstantiated accusations about Communist infiltration of the American government. He targeted well-known actors and directors from Hollywood, trade unionists and teachers. Movies and magazines also caught the spirit, warning of "a red under every bed."
Many others were brought before HUAC for questioning. Based on past associations (real or rumored), thousands were regarded as bad risks. The accused struggled to secure employment. Some were jailed. The witch hunt ruined careers. Some were hounded into suicide. Immigration was tightened to exclude alleged subversives.
In the Depression years of the 1930s, the Communist Party attracted many young idealists and intellectuals such as Elia Kazan who hoped Communism would end fascism and improve conditions for the people. However, as the atrocities of Stalin were revealed, many, like Kazan, changed their minds. In fact, Kazan came to view Communism with a very skeptical eye. Strangely enough, Allied propaganda (including that from the American government) during World War II had actually officially blessed the Red Army and the Soviet people and thereby persuaded some Americans to temporarily support Communism.
But McCarthyism changed all that. And it eventually smeared the alleged Communists and Communist sympathizers with the same broad brush, whether the evidence was good, bad or nonexistent. McCarthy appealed to the low, base instincts of envy, paranoia and dislike for the intellectual establishment. An atmosphere of fear eroded civil liberties, and for a short while, it seemed that our Constitution might be in jeopardy.
Tragically, the so-called "free" press acquiesced to McCarthy's masquerading. "The real scoundrel in all this," writes author David Halberstam, "was the behavior of the members of the Washington press corps, who, more often than not, knew better. They were delighted to be a part of his traveling road show, chronicling each charge and then moving on to the next town, instead of bothering to stay behind and follow up. They had little interest in reporting how careless McCarthy was or how little it all meant to him."
Moreover, the anti-Communist crusade elicited the involvement and tacit support of various liberal groups and individuals. This included the American Civil Liberties Union, which from 1953 to 1959 succumbed to fear and refused to defend alleged Communists who were under attack or lost jobs.
However, on March 9, 1954, Edward R. Murrow, the most respected newsman on television at the time, attacked McCarthy on his weekly show, "See It Now." Murrow interspersed his own comments and clarifications into a damaging series of film clips from McCarthy's speeches. He ended the broadcast with a warning:
"As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves--as indeed we are--the defenders of freedom, what's left of it, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad and given considerable comfort to our enemies, and whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create the situation of fear; he merely exploited it, and rather successfully. Cassius was right: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves."
CBS reported that of the 12,000 phone calls received within 24 hours of the broadcast, positive responses to the program outnumbered negative 15 to 1. McCarthy's favorable rating in the Gallup Poll dropped from 50% to 46%, never to rise again.
When Eisenhower reclaimed the presidency for the Republicans in 1952, McCarthy's usefulness to the party waned. McCarthy made himself increasingly ridiculous with his heavy drinking (he ate a stick of butter to coat his stomach in order to help him hold his liquor) and his unfounded accusations.
In December 1954, the Senate voted 67-22 to censure McCarthy. Even publicly attacking President Eisenhower could not earn McCarthy a newspaper headline. Former "friends" avoided him. At a 1956 political event in Milwaukee, McCarthy tried to take a seat near one-time ally Richard Nixon. After an aide asked McCarthy to leave, a reporter found the senator outside crying. McCarthy died in 1957 of a liver condition due to alcoholism.
Kazan survived, however, and went on to make some of his best films. One of the finest was On the Waterfront in 1954--several years after his HUAC testimony. On the Waterfront is both an emotional melodrama addressing one man's personal redemption and the nature of union corruption on the New York waterfront. However, Kazan used the film to justify being an informer before HUAC, with his protagonist, Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando), acting as a heroic stand-in for himself. Malloy becomes an informer in an extremely precarious situation: if he breaks the neighborhood code of silence, he will be labeled a Judas. But if he doesn't speak out, the audience will judge him with moral cowardice. Kazan later said he identified with Malloy. "Terry Malloy felt as I did. He felt ashamed and proud of himself at the same time.... He felt it was a necessary act."
In fact, at the end of the film when Brando yells at the mob boss "I'm glad what I done--you hear me?--I'm glad," as Kazan writes in his autobiography, "that was me saying, with identical heat, that I was glad I'd testified as I had." The film was, as Kazan said, "my story, now told to all the world."
Thus, even in death Kazan's story goes on being told through his films. And as his detractors and enemies fade, the memory of Elia Kazan as a great filmmaker will remain.
ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
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