On The Waterfront
Insight text article on On the Waterfront
Article by Rosemary O’Shea
ON THE WATERFRONT Directed by Elia Kazan
INTRODUCTION
On the Waterfront is a classic Hollywood movie, winning eight Academy awards in 1954. Marlon Brando’s portrayal of Terry, the simple young dockworker who takes on the corrupt waterfront bosses, is one of the great screen performances in cinema history. The film explores the struggle between conscience and self interest and the question of where loyalty belongs. Eva Marie Saint plays the innocent Edie whose love encourages Terry to become a hero. The film’s black-and-white photography gives a stark presentation of the dirty tenements and the treacherous docks where the characters live and work.
BRIEF SYNOPSIS …show more content…
Kazan is widely believed to have made the film in order to justify his actions, and he makes it endorse the moral judgement of one who stands against public opinion and follows his conscience. On the Waterfront is set on the docks at Hoboken, New Jersey, and it was also filmed there, with many dockworkers taking roles as extras in the movie. The tenements, rooftops and narrow streets of the area were used in the film as much for its small budget as to achieve realism. Shipping business went on during filming and Kazan incorporated the sights and sounds of the busy dock into the action. This is done to great effect in the scene where Terry’s frantic confession to Edie is drowned out by the ship’s horn blast. The characters of Terry, Johnny Friendly and the crusading priest, Father Barry, were based on real people. With so many realistic elements and with its gritty, uncompromising approach to revealing an ugly side of American society and politics, On the Waterfront was an immediate critical and financial success, ensuring acclaim for Kazan and enduring admiration for …show more content…
Cobb) is determined to maintain control and no concern for justice or the law is allowed to interfere with it. He enjoys power and its trappings, the cigars and the expensive clothes as well as the fear and deference people show him. He is ruthless and unforgiving, grinding the Union members for money, punishing his own associates when they step out of line and arranging the murder of ‘canaries’. He shows a rough affection for Terry, but his attitude towards Terry is also patronising and cynical. Friendly’s fear is that he will be seen as ‘just another fella’, and will lose the status and power he holds. This fear is realised after the inquiry. The final scene of Friendly dwarfed by the crowd of men surging past him shows him reduced to ineffectual blustering. Within the moral framework of the film, Friendly’s cruel treatment of all whom he comes into contact with present him as almost
Article by Rosemary O’Shea
ON THE WATERFRONT Directed by Elia Kazan
INTRODUCTION
On the Waterfront is a classic Hollywood movie, winning eight Academy awards in 1954. Marlon Brando’s portrayal of Terry, the simple young dockworker who takes on the corrupt waterfront bosses, is one of the great screen performances in cinema history. The film explores the struggle between conscience and self interest and the question of where loyalty belongs. Eva Marie Saint plays the innocent Edie whose love encourages Terry to become a hero. The film’s black-and-white photography gives a stark presentation of the dirty tenements and the treacherous docks where the characters live and work.
BRIEF SYNOPSIS …show more content…
Kazan is widely believed to have made the film in order to justify his actions, and he makes it endorse the moral judgement of one who stands against public opinion and follows his conscience. On the Waterfront is set on the docks at Hoboken, New Jersey, and it was also filmed there, with many dockworkers taking roles as extras in the movie. The tenements, rooftops and narrow streets of the area were used in the film as much for its small budget as to achieve realism. Shipping business went on during filming and Kazan incorporated the sights and sounds of the busy dock into the action. This is done to great effect in the scene where Terry’s frantic confession to Edie is drowned out by the ship’s horn blast. The characters of Terry, Johnny Friendly and the crusading priest, Father Barry, were based on real people. With so many realistic elements and with its gritty, uncompromising approach to revealing an ugly side of American society and politics, On the Waterfront was an immediate critical and financial success, ensuring acclaim for Kazan and enduring admiration for …show more content…
Cobb) is determined to maintain control and no concern for justice or the law is allowed to interfere with it. He enjoys power and its trappings, the cigars and the expensive clothes as well as the fear and deference people show him. He is ruthless and unforgiving, grinding the Union members for money, punishing his own associates when they step out of line and arranging the murder of ‘canaries’. He shows a rough affection for Terry, but his attitude towards Terry is also patronising and cynical. Friendly’s fear is that he will be seen as ‘just another fella’, and will lose the status and power he holds. This fear is realised after the inquiry. The final scene of Friendly dwarfed by the crowd of men surging past him shows him reduced to ineffectual blustering. Within the moral framework of the film, Friendly’s cruel treatment of all whom he comes into contact with present him as almost