A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Number 1 - 1951
Top 5 - 1950s
Top 100 - American Films of All Time
"Stella!... Hey Stella!"
Tennessee Williams' sexually charged play is given a superb adaptation by Elia Kazan with a screenplay from Williams. Blance Du Bois is Vivien Leigh in a powerhouse performance that rightly got her a second Oscar. Kim Hunter is Stella Kowalski and the amazing Marlon Brando is Stanley Kowalski, with one of his finest performances and one that should have won him the Academy Award as his performance was 'greater' than Bogart's in the African Queen. Brando brings the brutishness, roughness and volatile personality of Stanley Kowalski that is one of Cinema's defining performances. This is a film, like the play about personalities, characters, in the intoxicating city of New Orleans; it is a film about charged sexuality, strange relations, mystique, wonderful undertones and one of the greatest ensembles of actors ever displayed on film. Elia Kazan's film rightly deserves its place in the National Film Registry in the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" - and this film is significant and very influential.
(Summary) As in the play, the film presents Blanche DuBois, a fading but still-attractive Southern belle whose pretensions to virtue and culture only thinly mask delusions of grandeur and alcoholism. Her poise is an illusion she presents to shield others, but most of all herself, from her reality, and an attempt to make herself still attractive to new male suitors. Blanche arrives from their hometown of Auriol, Mississippi at the apartment of her sister Stella Kowalski in the Faubourg Marigny of New Orleans, on Elysian Fields Avenue; the local transportation she takes to arrive there includes a streetcar route named "Desire". The steamy, urban ambiance is a shock to Blanche's nerves. Explaining that her ancestral southern plantation, Belle Reve in Auriol, Mississippi, has been "lost" due to the "epic fornications" of her ancestors, Blanche is welcomed with some trepidation by Stella, who fears the reaction of her husband Stanley. Blanche explains to them how her supervisor told her she could take time off from her job as an English teacher because of her upset nerves, when in fact, she has been fired for having an affair with a 17-year-old student. This turns out not to be the only seduction she has engaged in—and, along with other problems, has left Auriol to escape. A brief marriage scarred by the suicide of her spouse, Allen Grey, has led Blanche to live in a world in which her fantasies and illusions are seamlessly mixed with her reality.
In contrast to both the self-effacing and deferent Stella and the pretentious refinement of Blanche, Stella's husband, Stanley Kowalski, is a force of nature: primal, rough, brutish and sensual. He dominates Stella in every way and is physically and emotionally abusive. Stella tolerates his primal behaviour as this is part of what attracted her in the first place; their love and relationship is heavily based on powerful even animalistic sexual chemistry, something that Blanche finds impossible to understand.
The arrival of Blanche upsets her sister and brother-in-law's system of mutual dependence. Stella's concern for her sister's well-being emboldens Blanche to hold court in the Kowalski apartment, infuriating Stanley and leading to conflict in his relationship with his wife. Stanley's friend and Blanche's would-be suitor Mitch is trampled along Blanche and Stanley's collision course. Stanley discovers Blanche's past through a co-worker who travels to Auriol frequently, and Stanley confronts Blanche with the things she has been trying to put behind her, partly out of concern that her character flaws may be damaging to the lives of those in her new home, just as they were in Auriol, and partly out of a distaste for pretence in general. However, his attempts to "unmask" her are predictably cruel and violent. Their final confrontation—a rape—results in Blanche's nervous breakdown. Stanley has her committed to a mental institution, and in the closing moments, Blanche utters her signature line to the kindly doctor who leads her away: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers", reminding us of one of the flaws that has led her to this point--relying too heavily on the attentions of men to fulfil and rescue her.
The reference to the streetcar called Desire—providing the aura of New Orleans geography—is symbolic. Blanche not only has to travel on a streetcar route named "Desire" to reach Stella's home on "Elysian Fields" but her desire acts as an irrepressible force throughout the play—she can only hang on as her desires lead her.
Devastated with her sister's fate, Stella weeps and rejects Stanley's intention to comfort her and pushes him away. As he cries her name once more ("Stella! Hey Stella!"), Stella clings to her child and vows that she will never return to Stanley again. She goes upstairs to once again seek refuge with her neighbour.
Top performances from Leigh, Hunter, Brando and the excellent Karl Malden as Harold "Mitch" Mitchell, great set design and superb direction by Elia Kazan make this film an irresistible classic.
10/10
Number 1 - 1951
Top 5 - 1950s
Top 100 - American Films of All Time
"Stella!... Hey Stella!"
Tennessee Williams' sexually charged play is given a superb adaptation by Elia Kazan with a screenplay from Williams. Blance Du Bois is Vivien Leigh in a powerhouse performance that rightly got her a second Oscar. Kim Hunter is Stella Kowalski and the amazing Marlon Brando is Stanley Kowalski, with one of his finest performances and one that should have won him the Academy Award as his performance was 'greater' than Bogart's in the African Queen. Brando brings the brutishness, roughness and volatile personality of Stanley Kowalski that is one of Cinema's defining performances. This is a film, like the play about personalities, characters, in the intoxicating city of New Orleans; it is a film about charged sexuality, strange relations, mystique, wonderful undertones and one of the greatest ensembles of actors ever displayed on film. Elia Kazan's film rightly deserves its place in the National Film Registry in the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" - and this film is significant and very influential.
(Summary) As in the play, the film presents Blanche DuBois, a fading but still-attractive Southern belle whose pretensions to virtue and culture only thinly mask delusions of grandeur and alcoholism. Her poise is an illusion she presents to shield others, but most of all herself, from her reality, and an attempt to make herself still attractive to new male suitors. Blanche arrives from their hometown of Auriol, Mississippi at the apartment of her sister Stella Kowalski in the Faubourg Marigny of New Orleans, on Elysian Fields Avenue; the local transportation she takes to arrive there includes a streetcar route named "Desire". The steamy, urban ambiance is a shock to Blanche's nerves. Explaining that her ancestral southern plantation, Belle Reve in Auriol, Mississippi, has been "lost" due to the "epic fornications" of her ancestors, Blanche is welcomed with some trepidation by Stella, who fears the reaction of her husband Stanley. Blanche explains to them how her supervisor told her she could take time off from her job as an English teacher because of her upset nerves, when in fact, she has been fired for having an affair with a 17-year-old student. This turns out not to be the only seduction she has engaged in—and, along with other problems, has left Auriol to escape. A brief marriage scarred by the suicide of her spouse, Allen Grey, has led Blanche to live in a world in which her fantasies and illusions are seamlessly mixed with her reality.
In contrast to both the self-effacing and deferent Stella and the pretentious refinement of Blanche, Stella's husband, Stanley Kowalski, is a force of nature: primal, rough, brutish and sensual. He dominates Stella in every way and is physically and emotionally abusive. Stella tolerates his primal behaviour as this is part of what attracted her in the first place; their love and relationship is heavily based on powerful even animalistic sexual chemistry, something that Blanche finds impossible to understand.
The arrival of Blanche upsets her sister and brother-in-law's system of mutual dependence. Stella's concern for her sister's well-being emboldens Blanche to hold court in the Kowalski apartment, infuriating Stanley and leading to conflict in his relationship with his wife. Stanley's friend and Blanche's would-be suitor Mitch is trampled along Blanche and Stanley's collision course. Stanley discovers Blanche's past through a co-worker who travels to Auriol frequently, and Stanley confronts Blanche with the things she has been trying to put behind her, partly out of concern that her character flaws may be damaging to the lives of those in her new home, just as they were in Auriol, and partly out of a distaste for pretence in general. However, his attempts to "unmask" her are predictably cruel and violent. Their final confrontation—a rape—results in Blanche's nervous breakdown. Stanley has her committed to a mental institution, and in the closing moments, Blanche utters her signature line to the kindly doctor who leads her away: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers", reminding us of one of the flaws that has led her to this point--relying too heavily on the attentions of men to fulfil and rescue her.
The reference to the streetcar called Desire—providing the aura of New Orleans geography—is symbolic. Blanche not only has to travel on a streetcar route named "Desire" to reach Stella's home on "Elysian Fields" but her desire acts as an irrepressible force throughout the play—she can only hang on as her desires lead her.
Devastated with her sister's fate, Stella weeps and rejects Stanley's intention to comfort her and pushes him away. As he cries her name once more ("Stella! Hey Stella!"), Stella clings to her child and vows that she will never return to Stanley again. She goes upstairs to once again seek refuge with her neighbour.
Top performances from Leigh, Hunter, Brando and the excellent Karl Malden as Harold "Mitch" Mitchell, great set design and superb direction by Elia Kazan make this film an irresistible classic.
10/10