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It was so hard not to put the immortal monologue portion from On The Waterfront
as the title here. 'You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.' There is a damn good reason that line is immortal, is one of the great recognisable lines - because it is so freaking good. Not just that the words themselves are brilliant, but that Marlon Brando's delivery of them is so incredibly moving. Just thinking about them, about his performance in the back of that car, makes my entire inner being heavy. Far beyond bringing tears to the eyes (it doesn't do that to me), it makes me want to lie down in a dark room and just give up. Yes, it is that good.
The whole film is very good, in fact, but it will be that scene that will stick with you for its sheer power. Brando plays Terry, an ex fighter who is now a longshoreman working the docks in New Jersey (I assumed is was NJ - correct me if I'm wrong.) He is valued by mob boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) who runs the docks, and assists in an early murder of someone who Johnny wasn't too keen on. Subsequently, he befriends the man's sister, Edie (Eva Marie Saint) and mourns the responsibility he feels for the role he played in her sorrow. Edie, in turn, is angry about what happened to her brother and the position she can see her father and Terry in, introducing Terry to Father Barry (Karl Malden), who is determined to break the mob's stranglehold on the docks and see fairness instilled in the workplace. Terry's opinions change and his loyalties shift as love blossoms, seeing him taking a central role in his own self-actuation as something more than just a bum.
The film won eight Oscars, and was notably nominated three times in the Best Supporting Actor race, for Cobb, Malden and Rod Steiger - none of them won, presumably because of a serious split in the voting for them. Director Elia Kazan deservedly picked up his second Oscar for his turn helming the film, drawing out such incredible performances to yield five acting nominations and two wins (for Brando and Saint in a bit of a category-fraud Supporting Actress result), as well as delicately weaving the film through melodramatic possibilities to keep it in check and in touch with the reality of the situation. Beautifully shot in black and white by Boris Kaufman, the film is a true classic of American cinema, heeding its post-noir placement with Kazan showing his European roots in his handling of what is ostensibly a gangster tale. 5 stars.
Oh, James Dean. I would sit here and weep for you, would it not seem absurd to weep for someone who died a solid thirty years before I was even born. So I will weep for you with words instead.
East Of Eden, by Elia Kazan, was Dean's first of three major motion picture appearances, netting him his first of two posthumous Oscar nominations for Best Actor, and indeed the first posthumous Oscar nomination ever. He followed on with the acclaimed Rebel Without A Cause and his final performance in Giant. He received the nomination for playing Cal, son of Adam (Raymond Massey) and brother of Aron (Richard Davalos.) With a staunchly religious father, Cal is the black sheep of the family, unable to do good in the eyes of his father, vastly different from his brother who shines with his family allegiance and with his blossoming relationship to Abra (Julie Harris), loved by Adam.
Adam has an entrepreneurial plan to harness the burgeoning world of refrigeration in the shipping of lettuces from their home on the Californian coast across the country, betting pretty much everything he is worth on its success. When it doesn't succeed, an outcome accepted stoically by Adam, Cal plans to invest in the growing of beans in the pre-WWII market, banking on America joining the war, therefore pushing the price of beans skyhigh, netting him a tidy profit that he can return to his father in the hope of receiving the love and respect he so craves. To finance his entry into the agricultural market he goes to his mother Kate (Jo Van Fleet), who Cal and Aron have been brought up believing is dead, but whom Cal has recently discovered is alive and well, running a brothel in the neighbouring town of Monterey. She agrees to co-investing with him, financing his involvement, on the understanding that her existence remains a secret out of respect to Adam.
With Cal's sudden change into a good son, Adam is impressed and Cal and Abra start developing a close relationship, noticed and not particularly liked by Aron. Abra and Cal plan a surprise birthday party for Adam, where Cal plans on giving the money to his father, but Aron trumps him by announcing his engagement to Abra, something that takes both Cal and Abra by surprise, especially considering their growing attraction to each other. Adam rejects Cal's offer of money, accusing him of war profiteering, something that Cal sees as another rejection from his father, this one all the more painful due to the effort, thought, time and risk he put into it. Abra follows Cal as he runs from the house, in turn followed by Aron, who orders Cal to stay away from his fiance. Devastated and furious, Cal takes Aron into Monterey, where he introduces his brother to their mother, throwing the door closed behind them.
Cal returns home alone, bearing the news of where Aron is at that time to his father. Shortly the sheriff arrives to alert the family to the fact that Aron has drunkenly enlisted in the army to go off and join the war that Cal has profited off, with his train leaving early the next morning. The shock of this causes Adam to suffer a stroke, leaving his life touch and go in the balance.
It is a beautiful story of two very different father and son relationships told in the same family, where closeness is apparent, but where vast chasms of disappointment and hostility run deep. Dean's performance gives Cal an incredible depth, offering up his continual pain at the perceived rejection of his father in favour of his brother, but also giving us his optimistic fervour, his unsuppressed desire to win over his father no matter what the cost. The performances of his supports are somewhat less rounded, though effective as somewhat one-dimensional catalysts for the progression of Cal onwards. While Harris as Abra is probably the weakest point, never truly delving into what her character is feeling, Van Fleet as their weary mother with so many secrets allows us into her every thought with the most subtle movements and affectations, making her one of the more memorable characters without much time on screen at all, netting her a deserved Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Kazan, probably best known for his work bringing Marlon Brando his first Oscar nomination and later his first win for his two powerhouse performances in A Streetcar Named Desire and On The Waterfront respectively, pulls it out again with the watershed that was Dean's performance. He tender handling of the delicate father/son relationships shown here also delve into a world not often seen on film, that of the distance between men and the hurt that can cause.
An excellent film, stopping just short of extraordinary. 4.5 stars.
