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- Kazan Revisited
Top critics and scholars reconsider the cinematic legacy of Elia Kazan
A groundbreaking filmmaker dogged by controversy in both his personal life and career, Elia Kazan was one of the most important directors of postwar American cinema. In landmark motion pictures such as A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, East of Eden, and Splendor in the Grass, Kazan crafted an emotionally raw form of psychological realism. His reputation has rested on his Academy award-winning work with actors, his provocative portrayal of sexual, moral, and generational conflict, and his unpopular decision to name former colleagues as Communists before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952. But much of Kazan's influential cinematic legacy remains unexamined. Arriving in the wake of his centenary, Kazan Revisited engages and moves beyond existing debates regarding Kazan's contributions to film, tackling the social, political, industrial, and aesthetic significance of his work from a range of critical perspectives. Featuring essays by established film critics and scholars such as Richard Schickel (Time), Victor Navasky (The Nation), Mark Harris (Entertainment Weekly), Kent Jones (Film Comment), Jonathan Rosenbaum (Essential Cinema, 2004), Jeanine Basinger (The Star Machine, 2007), and Leo Braudy (On the Waterfront, 2008), this book is a must for diehard cinephiles and those new to Kazan alike.
Contributors include: JEANINE BASINGER, LEO BRAUDY, LISA DOMBROWSKI, HADEN GUEST, MARK HARRIS, KENT JONES, PATRICK KEATING, SAVANNAH LEE, BRENDA MURPHY, VICTOR NAVASKY, BRIAN NEVE, JONATHAN ROSENBAUM, RICHARD SCHICKEL, ANDREW TRACY, and SAM WASSON.
Acknowledgments
Introduction – Lisa Dombrowski
On Kazan the Man – Jeanine Basinger
The Quiet Side of Kazan – Kent Jones
Elia Kazan, Seen From 1973 – Jonathan Rosenbaum
"The Director, That Miserable Son of a Bitch": Kazan, Viva Zapata! and the Problem of Authority – Leo Braudy
Mr. Kazan Goes to Washington: A Case Study in Misguided Ambivalence – Victor Navasky
Man on a Tightrope: Kazan as Liberal Anti-Communist – Brenda Murphy
"Independence" and the "Art Film": Baby Doll and After – Brian Neve
The Search for Humor and Humanity in Baby Doll and A Face in the Crowd – Sam Wasson
A Straight Director's Queer Eye: 1951-1961 – Mark Harris
The Other Side of the Story: Elia Kazan as Director of Female Pain – Savannah Lee
Documentary and Democracy in Boomerang! and Panic in the Streets – Andrew Tracy
Elia Kazan and the Semi-Documentary: Composing Urban Space – Patrick Keating
Choreographing Emotions: Kazan's CinemaScope Staging – Lisa Dombrowski
Lost River – Richard Schickel
Late Kazan, or the Ambiguities – Haden Guest
Filmography as Director
Select Bibliography
Contributors
Index
LISA DOMBROWSKI is an associate professor of film studies at Wesleyan University and the author of The Films of Samuel Fuller: If You Die, I'll Kill You! (2008).
"Dombrowski offers a number of telling examples from each film...that illustrate Kazan's mastery of a format most directors found troubling."
~Dan Georgakas, CINEASTE
"A must for movie lovers, this terrifically readable collection is striking for its breadth of critical perspectives on a complex directorial personality. This is not just an unqualified celebration of Kazan and his work but a mosaic of very different points of view."
~Molly Haskell
"By boldly questioning all the cliches and received truths about him, this book opens up a space which allows us to appreciate Elia Kazan as a much more inventive visual stylist and complicated personality than had previously been the official story. The writing throughout is informative and analytically insightful and clear-headed: a model for film studies."
~Phillip Lopate
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