Year 11 English:

Reading & Comparing

Texts
On The Waterfront
 Background
Produced at the time of Americas red scare of the 1950s
Set on New Yorks Docklands
Longshoreman dock worker who loaded / unloaded ships cargoes.

Documentary style approach

Black-and-white photography gives a stark presentation of the dirty tenements and the
treacherous docks

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 The film is based on a series of Pulitzer Prizewinning news articles by Malcolm Johnson,
published in the New York Sun in 1949.

The articles exposed the murder, extortion and stand-over tactics infesting the docks, which
were controlled by the corrupt Longshoremens Union.

A Congressional inquiry, like the one in the film, was set up to hear evidence from the
dockworkers in an attempt to clean up the waterfront.

The movie reflects an aspect of American life at that time.

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Context

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 Elia Kazan, the films director
Had his own reasons for wanting to tell the story of a courageous whistleblower who risks
life and reputation to follow his conscience and give testimony.
Kazan, a Communist Party member in his youth, had testified in 1952 to the HUAC
(House Un-American Activities Commission) against his peers in the film industry and
had been subjected to much contempt and rejection.
HUAC subpoenaed many actors, screenwriters, and directors to coerce them into
informing on their colleagues making public which of their friends now had, or formerly
had, any associations with the Communist Party.
HUAC subpoenaed Kazan once, and at his initial hearing he refused to divulge details.
At a second hearing in 1952, however, Kazan chose to give the names of seven former
colleagues from his Group Theatre days.

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 The choice Terry makes to inform on the union officials echoes the choice Elia
Kazan made to inform before HUAC on former communists, but Terry achieves
results that are far less morally ambiguous than the results Kazan achieved.

Kazan effectively blacklisted for decades many of his creative, intelligent, and
politically active peers. The only loser from Terrys decision is Johnny Friendly, a
merciless bully who clearly deserves what he gets.

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Kazans testimony allowed him to pursue a directing
career undisturbed.

However, many of his subsequent films deal with themes similar to those in On
the Waterfront.

The recurring themes also suggest that Kazan felt a need to continually assert the
right of the individuals conscience over that of a mob or governmental authority.

At the end of On the Waterfront, Terry is surrounded with people who admire
and respect him. His informing has elevated him in the longshoremens eyes, and
he has no reason to doubt his decision.

Kazan, though he built a successful career, was never fully embraced by

Hollywood, and his own decision to inform stranded him in morally ambiguous
territory.

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 Kazans justifications, however, met with much criticism, particularly from his good friend
Arthur Miller, who believed naming names was a betrayal of fellow artists.
On the Waterfront celebrates as a hero a man who informed on mob leaders, and many
people believe that Kazan made the film as a response to Miller, and other critics.
Millers play The Crucible, whose hero dies rather than accuse people of being witches, of
course represents the opposing view.

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Structure and Style

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 Structure and style
Kazan wanted his directing in On the Waterfront to be invisible so
that the actors performances could be the focus of the film.

Conveys the sense of a community:

exhausted, paralysed and rendered fearful by corrupting forces
within its midst that have wrested democracy from the grasp of the
common people. It aint part of America.

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Cinematography: black-and-white film.
Shadowy tenement buildings and laneways seem to close in
around the characters, who are trapped in their narrow lives,
and
the sharp vertical lines of cranes and staircases hint at the
dangers that await them. Contrasting with this darkness is the
expansive rooftop, open to the sky, Terrys place of refuge.

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 Two entwined narratives.
1. The love story: Edie goes down to the docks to find out about Joeys death
2. Terrys redemption begins when he is first attracted to the beautiful, angry girl.

How are they entwined:

It takes Edies moral strength to draw Terry away from his allegiance to corruption
and it takes the sexual attraction between them to draw Edie out of her convent-bred
conservatism.
The two main characters are: the flawed young man and the angelic young woman
who helps him overcome his doubts and failings to become a hero.

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The actors faces and gestures
help the viewer to understand the character.
Terrys stretching of the woollen glove onto his workmans
hand as he walks with Edie in the park teases her but shows
his fascination with her;
Terrys gentle turning aside of the gun Charley pulls on him in
the taxi says everything that is needed about the love between
the brothers
the confusion and misery on Terrys face as he talks to Edie in
the pub reveal the internal struggle of this inarticulate
character.

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 Kazan makes use of symbolism

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colours used to

represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Clothes symbolise their wearers.

a. The windbreaker that is passed from Joey to KO to Terry connects its wearer to
the struggle for justice.
b. The fine, warm overcoats of the Union bosses show their swaggering prosperity,
c. while the workers poverty is apparent as they shiver in shabby jackets.

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 Kazan makes use of symbolism
The prize fight that Terry has lost, and that still rankles him, foreshadows his taking on
the Union, with even higher stakes and a second chance to be somebody.

Empire State Building. Across the Hudson, the Empire State Building looms like
the Emerald City from the Wizard of Oz, distant and strange. It represents
dreams and a different life, yet its always glimpsed through a fog. Its sleek
jutting frame contrasts dramatically with the ramshackle rooftops of Hoboken,
with their discolored patches and mismatched roof levels.

The Hudson River - separates Hoboken, New Jersey, from New York City.
Manhattan may as well be a thousand miles away, since the Manhattan life the
longshoremen imagine is so different from daily life on the waterfront. The river
is a border, an edge that the longshoremen will never be able to cross.
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Symbolism: Pigeons
The pigeons are cooped up in a cage. Theyre fragile. Their natural impulse is to
fly, but theyve been trained not to. They perfectly symbolize Terry Malloy.
Though hes a tough former boxer, his excessive care for these birds indicates a
special affinity between them. The imagery of him actually inside the cage
himself, evident when he tends the birds, suggests this affinity as well. Malloy is a
dreamer, a delicate and sensitive man, and much of the conversation that he has
with Edie about hawks and pigeons can be translated into words about each
other. In many ways, Malloy essentially is a pigeonthat is, he lives on the
rooftops. We never once see him in his apartment. His home is the roof.

The pigeons also have a negative connotation: stool pigeon, a slang term used to
describe informers. A pigeon is a sucker. Every time a character uses the term
stool pigeon or its abbreviation, stoolie, Terry Malloys conflict boils to the
surface.

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Symbolism: Hooks
The sharp metallic hooks that the longshoremen use to help them load and empty
pallets hang over their shoulders menacingly.

These hooks represent the forces that literally hang over them in the form of
Johnny Friendlys goons. Over the course of the film, Terry, Dugan, Luke, and
many other longshoremen have the hawk-like talon of the hook pressing against
their chests.

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Some On The Waterfront Videos
Marlon Brandos Acceptance Speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_VJtDZBttY (1955 Oscars)
Spike Lee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzY_p1N6dwY