Focus Features

Kazan pictured with Marlon Brando, Julie
Harris and James Dean

Elia Kazan is the filmmaker who changed the style of American film acting. There's Before Brando and After Brando.

If you want to see a perfect example of these 2 very distinctive styles, watch On Golden Pond with Henry Fonda and his daughter Jane. Henry Fonda is an exemplar of the Golden Age of Movies – he simply presents himself to the camera, using that persona in every role, as did James Stewart, Cary Grant, John Wayne, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Rosalind Russell, etc. And he won an Oscar for his performance – basically a Life Achievement award for the persona he had created across his career.

On the other hand, in On Golden Pond you can see Jane Fonda digging deep inside herself to find the emotions required for the scenes with her father. She won an Oscar for her performance in Klute – her opening monologue direct to the camera in that film is a perfect example of Method acting at its best.

Kazan's first few films were studio products, with traditional performances from the likes of Gregory Peck, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. But it all changed with Kazan's film of the play A Streetcar Named Desire – and Brando's explosive performance.

Jeff Young, who edited Kazan on Kazan, has this to say about Kazan's impact on film acting:
“Had he done no more than to discover the two most enduring male icons of post-World War II America, Marlon Brando and James Dean, he would have earned a place in film history. But he did a great deal more. Film acting has never been the same since the day Kazan first stepped behind a camera and called, "Action."  He shattered clichés and stereotypes. Many actors have done their best work in his films. But he didn't just help them give better performances. He changed the nature of film acting.

No longer was an actor simply to illustrate the thoughts, feelings, and actions that the script and the director required. He was directed to experience those thoughts, feelings and actions. By doing so he would inevitably reveal the character's moment-to-moment truth. The effect was instantaneous and startling. Audiences everywhere knew they were watching something new. They might not have known why, but they certainly knew they were being moved in a different way by the performances in Kazan's films. The revolution in acting had actually begun with Konstantin Stanislavski and the Moscow Arts Theater at the turn of the 20th century. But Kazan was the one who brought it to film.”

There's a famous photo taken when Brando visited the set of East of Eden. In the photo, Kazan leans his arm on Brando, both of whom exude confidence, while James Dean is on the sideline, wracked with insecurity.

Brando's most iconic moment is probably the scene in On the Waterfront in the taxi with Rod Steiger when his character Terry Malloy says he could have been a contender; Dean's most iconic is in East of Eden when his character Cal confronts his father, throwing himself at him asking for his father's love.

Kazan said that his approach to actors was to tie it to their lives. For instance, in the case of Dean he said:
"You say to Dean that your father did something that Cal's father did to him. It's out of the script. When I took Dean out to California, I went with him, got in a car, stopped to see his father on the way into town. I watched Dean and his father. That's golden. I could have been doing something more interesting, I suppose, but not if I was concerned about making a good movie."

Extracts taken from Kazan on Kazan edited by Jeff Young (Faber & Faber, 2000).

Essential Viewing: A Streetcar Names Desire [Buy], On the Waterfront [Buy], Viva Zapata! [Buy], East of Eden [Buy], Wild River [Buy], Splendor in the Grass [Buy], America, America [Buy], and The Visitors [Buy].

The Visitors is an astonishing film about, as Kazan put it, "The price of the Vietnam War on the soul of the American people." But it was more astonishing coming from Kazan. It was as if, after 30 years of studio filmmaking, he had wiped the canvas clean and was starting again – this time as a Cassavetes-like film-maker. Obviously he was influenced by his wife, Barbara Loden, who had directed her own film, Wanda, 2 years earlier in the same kind of pared-down style. Loden died before she could make another full-length film, but Wanda is a masterpiece, so maybe that's enough.

Kazan pictured with Marlon Brando, Julie
Harris and James Dean

Elia Kazan is the filmmaker who changed the style of American film acting. There's Before Brando and After Brando.

If you want to see a perfect example of these 2 very distinctive styles, watch On Golden Pond with Henry Fonda and his daughter Jane. Henry Fonda is an exemplar of the Golden Age of Movies – he simply presents himself to the camera, using that persona in every role, as did James Stewart, Cary Grant, John Wayne, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Rosalind Russell, etc. And he won an Oscar for his performance – basically a Life Achievement award for the persona he had created across his career.

On the other hand, in On Golden Pond you can see Jane Fonda digging deep inside herself to find the emotions required for the scenes with her father. She won an Oscar for her performance in Klute – her opening monologue direct to the camera in that film is a perfect example of Method acting at its best.

Kazan's first few films were studio products, with traditional performances from the likes of Gregory Peck, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. But it all changed with Kazan's film of the play A Streetcar Named Desire – and Brando's explosive performance.

Jeff Young, who edited Kazan on Kazan, has this to say about Kazan's impact on film acting:
“Had he done no more than to discover the two most enduring male icons of post-World War II America, Marlon Brando and James Dean, he would have earned a place in film history. But he did a great deal more. Film acting has never been the same since the day Kazan first stepped behind a camera and called, "Action."  He shattered clichés and stereotypes. Many actors have done their best work in his films. But he didn't just help them give better performances. He changed the nature of film acting.

No longer was an actor simply to illustrate the thoughts, feelings, and actions that the script and the director required. He was directed to experience those thoughts, feelings and actions. By doing so he would inevitably reveal the character's moment-to-moment truth. The effect was instantaneous and startling. Audiences everywhere knew they were watching something new. They might not have known why, but they certainly knew they were being moved in a different way by the performances in Kazan's films. The revolution in acting had actually begun with Konstantin Stanislavski and the Moscow Arts Theater at the turn of the 20th century. But Kazan was the one who brought it to film.”

There's a famous photo taken when Brando visited the set of East of Eden. In the photo, Kazan leans his arm on Brando, both of whom exude confidence, while James Dean is on the sideline, wracked with insecurity.

Brando's most iconic moment is probably the scene in On the Waterfront in the taxi with Rod Steiger when his character Terry Malloy says he could have been a contender; Dean's most iconic is in East of Eden when his character Cal confronts his father, throwing himself at him asking for his father's love.

Kazan said that his approach to actors was to tie it to their lives. For instance, in the case of Dean he said:
"You say to Dean that your father did something that Cal's father did to him. It's out of the script. When I took Dean out to California, I went with him, got in a car, stopped to see his father on the way into town. I watched Dean and his father. That's golden. I could have been doing something more interesting, I suppose, but not if I was concerned about making a good movie."

Extracts taken from Kazan on Kazan edited by Jeff Young (Faber & Faber, 2000).

Essential Viewing: A Streetcar Names Desire [Buy], On the Waterfront [Buy], Viva Zapata! [Buy], East of Eden [Buy], Wild River [Buy], Splendor in the Grass [Buy], America, America [Buy], and The Visitors [Buy].

The Visitors is an astonishing film about, as Kazan put it, "The price of the Vietnam War on the soul of the American people." But it was more astonishing coming from Kazan. It was as if, after 30 years of studio filmmaking, he had wiped the canvas clean and was starting again – this time as a Cassavetes-like film-maker. Obviously he was influenced by his wife, Barbara Loden, who had directed her own film, Wanda, 2 years earlier in the same kind of pared-down style. Loden died before she could make another full-length film, but Wanda is a masterpiece, so maybe that's enough.