A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

US, 1951, 122 minutes, Black and white.
Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden.
Directed by Elia Kazan.

A Streetcar Named Desire has become a classic film of a classic play. It is one of Tennessee Williams’ most striking and famous plays. It has been revived a number of times including a television version with Ann- Margret and Treat Williams. Other performers who have essayed the role of Blanche Dubois include Jessica Lange and Glenn Close.

However, the role was originated on the New York stage by Jessica Tandy who, unfortunately, was not considered box office enough for the film. She played opposite Marlon Brando who made an impact in the 1940s when he was just over twenty. At the time of making the film version he was twenty-six.

Vivien Leigh is not a surprising choice for the role of Blanche Dubois. She had won her Oscar in 1939 for her southern belle, Scarlet O’Hara?, in Gone With The Wind. Blanche Dubois could be seen as a kind of Scarlet O’ Hara really gone to seed. She belongs to decayed aristocracy and has remained in her home town trying to preserve the mansion while teaching. However, with mental illness, more than a touch of nymphomania, she has declined and has been sacked from her position in the school. She seeks refuge with her sister in post-war New Orleans.

The film recreates the atmosphere of New Orleans, the confined spaces, especially of the apartment of which Blanche disapproves. By contrast, Kim Hunter is bright and sympathetic as Stella. She makes us believe that she really does love Stanley Kowalski. Marlon Brando does a tour-de-force as Kowalski, having fought in the war, having married Stella, considering himself not cultured and educated but nevertheless using his intelligence with Napoleonic Law and other matters. Karl Malden completes the quartet as the neighbour, Mitch, who is looking after his mother and is attracted to Blanche.

While the film keeps much of the dialogue of the play, it does not feel as if it is merely a filmed play. The performances certainly carry the impact.

The film was directed by Elia Kazan who directed it on-stage. The film was nominated for many Oscars, winning for Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden. Brando was beaten that year by Humphrey Bogart and The African Queen and the film was beaten by An American in Paris and Kazan by George Stevens for A Place in the Sun. However, Kazan had won an Oscar for Gentleman’s Agreement in 1947 and was to win another one, along with Brando, in 1954 for On the Waterfront. (In On the Waterfront, Karl Malden gives a very powerful performance as the crusading priest.)

A Streetcar Named Desire was certainly anchored in its time. However, the quality of the writing means that it is still contemporary and relevant. Insight into the human condition?

1.The impact of the play in its time? Marlon Brando’s performance? The creation of the characters of Blanche Dubois and Stanley Kowalski? The choice of Vivien Leigh for Blanche Dubois?

2.The quality of the cast, Oscar nominations and Oscar wins? The quality of the film, awards and nominations? Tennessee Williams and his reputation and career?

3.The black and white photography, the re-creation of the atmosphere of New Orleans, the inner city, slums, apartments? The title? the streetcar but the inner desire as well as the destination? The musical score?

4.The quality of the play, opened out for film purposes? The structure of the play? Close-ups? How much an impression of a filmed play? The strength of the dialogue and language?

5.The film made soon after the time in which it was set? A contemporary play? Compared with later versions which are looking back from the later decades of the 20th century and analysing and dramatising the 1940s? The post-war period?

6.The decline of the south, its gentility, the French families, the manners, the language, Blanche as an English teacher? Stanley saying he was uneducated but able to use more elevated language and ideas? The contrast with his violence and roughness, brutality? Appearances and reality?

7.The presentation of the sexual intensity between the two – in the style of the early 1950s? Suggestion, Stanley changing his shirt, Blanche and her changing her clothes, flirtatious, language?

5. The French families and their reliance on elegant tradition? Decay and corruption? The move to the new parts of the city, slum tenements? The experience of World War Two? The contrast with the new Americans. the Poles? The clash of the two worlds, old and new? The locations: tenements, parks and carriages, tramcars?

6. The significance of the title, the streetcar? New Orleans and its districts? The symbolism of desire? Highlighting relationships, identity, psychological and emotional insight?

7. Vivien Leigh’s portrait of Blanche: her arrival on the streetcar, dressed in white, lady and manners? The smoke at the station? Her dismay at Stella's home? Finding Stella at the bowling alley? The glimpse of Stanley? Her love for Stella yet her feeling Stella's blame? Memories of Bellerive? The initial clash with Stanley? Her reaction to his coarseness, calling him primitive? Her ladylike behaviour: baths, her elegant clothes? Faded gentility? Her books? Yet her drinking? The blend of surface respectability and deeper sensuality? The long sequence of her flirting with the messenger boy? Her enjoying Mitch's company, outings with him. the possibility of marriage? The irony of never letting herself be seen in the light? Stanley's continued attack, suspicions of her, exposing her? The tense meal when Mitch did not turn up? Her drinking and the clash with Mitch? Truth told in anger? Stella going to hospital, Stanley coming home, the violence and the rape? Her physical and mental collapse? Her being taken off to the asylum - as a lady? Her strengths and weaknesses? Her story - her marriage, the homosexual, his relationship, shooting himself (and her continually hearing the shot)? A figure of pathos?

7. Marlon Brando as Stanley and his war experience, tough, insensitive, shrewd, brutal? His work, friends, the drinks, card-playing? His domination of Stella? His reaction when she seemed to order him about? His strong stance on being a Pole rather than a Polack? His taunts of Blanche, going through her clothes, looking for the documents about Bellerive? A sensual man, the heat and the sweat? The fight with Stella and her leaving, their continued reconciliations? Stella in hospital, the final confrontation with Blanche, attraction and repulsion, the violence and the rape? His not sensing his responsibility for Blanche's collapse?

8. Stella: a good woman, home, love for Stanley, sharing his life? Her not wanting to face the truth about Blanche? Suspicions about her? Covering up for her? The outings with her? Her drinking? The clashes with Stanley, his refusing to be dominated by her, her moving out, the returns? The meal with Blanche? Her telling the truth? The baby?

9. Mitch as one of the boys, his care for his mother, interest in Blanche, his becoming a gentleman caller, his refined manner, the outing, good manners, New Orleans style? His hearing Blanche's story? Her not telling him the full truth? Stanley's telling him the truth, his checking it out, not turning up for the dinner, his drinking, arrival and attack? Disillusionment?

10. The use of the tenements and the rooms, the friends playing cards, the place of the women, the disputes amongst the tenement-dwellers?

11. Ordinary life, squalor, clashes, love and hate? The intruder and her disruptions? Differences, difficulty and destruction? Sanity and madness?