This is a movie with so many extraordinary strengths and legendary parts that it is hard to even view it objectively any more. For many years when I was young- many years ago, this was my favorite movie. It had a mythical quality for me.
So let me just sum up what I think are the great and remarkable things that make this movie a must see:
1. Clearly, Marlon Brando. This is rightly considered to be one of the great performances in film history. Of all the brilliant choices he makes in crafting this role, there is one which (as an actor myself) I would like to point out as an illustration of his peerless technique.
The scene is the one in which Terry and Edie are walking along the waterfront in the park, having just met, or rather rediscovered each other for the first time since childhood. At one point Edie drops a glove- a small white dress glove, and Terry picks it up. As he sits on a child's swing, telling her his philosophy of life, he absently pulls the small white glove on his hand.
Whenever I watch this scene I literally shudder with pleasure at this gesture. It unleashes a flood of connotative information- Terry's vulnerability, his background as a boxer, his brutishness against the purity of the white glove. I don't know if this was an improvised or planned moment on Brando's part, but it demonstrates the genius that informed his instincts.
This is a performance that any actor can go to school on.
2. The locations and cinematography. Films are simply not shot entirely on location anymore and it shows. No amount of art direction will ever create a setting as convincing as this real one. Legend has it Kazan wanted the pale, sunken cheeks that filming during a cold New York (actually Hoboken) winter produced. This film is not only a great piece of fiction, but also a significant historical record.
3. The score by Leonard Bernstein. Others may find this a little much, but I think its some of the great music composed for the movies by a great composer. I particularly think of the moment when (spoiler) as Terry is being called for Charlie and at the last minute he and Edie narrowly escape a truck, the truck passes to reveal Charlie's body. The score resolves from a pounding tension to a lyrical passage. A composer might be able to illuminate what he does here with the chord change- I can't, but it is very powerful, and very moving.
4. The scene. For me the great pivotal scene only begins with the classic taxi cab scene- it doesn't end there. In one uninterrupted dramatic build we cut from the cab being driven into the back of a truck to Terry pounding on Edie's door. This is an almost equally famous scene as he breaks open the door, smashing the jamb, she fights him off and they finally collapse in an embrace, wedged in the tiny hallway of the apartment. There is the most momentary release of tension, and then we hear them calling Terry, telling him that Charlie wants to see him, and we are in the alley with the truck bearing down on them. This is all one long build from the cab, reinforced musically, and climaxes with the discovery of Charlie, hanging by a meat hook. The emotional complexity that Brando brings to this moment, as he gently lowers him, is heart-rending.
Obviously, I could go on about the entire film, which I think has the same level of texture, detail, and emotional complexity in every scene. The cast is uniformly brilliant as is the direction. A masterpiece.
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