Product Description

From the late forties through the sixties, Elia Kazan was the most important and influential director in America, and the only one who managed simultaneously to dominate both theater and film. In that role he manifestly shaped the conception and writing, as well as the presentation, of many of the period's iconic works, reshaping the values of the stage and bringing a new realism and intensity of performance to the screen. His various achievements include the original Broadway productions of The Skin of Our Teeth, All My Sons, and Death of a Salesman and such Hollywood films as Gentleman's Agreement, Brando's Streetcar, and Splendor in the Grass.

A non–traditional biography, this book combines social and political history with a sharp critical evaluation of Kazan's work. Schickel presents Kazan as a figure of his culture and time, much in the same way that David Remnick treated Muhammed Ali and the larger picture of American history in King of the World. History's view of Kazan is now colored by a single political act –– his naming names in testimony before the House Un–American Activities Committee. By putting the actions, work, and words of this towering figure in context, Schickel not only defends his hero and his hero's work; he also helps the reader move beyond Kazan's most infamous moment to appreciate the larger American story in which he played such a pivotal role. The result is an intelligent and lively biography and social history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #772898 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-01
• Released on: 2006-11-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

From Publishers Weekly
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to give Kazan (1909–2003) an honorary Oscar in 1999, it rekindled the lingering resentment over his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee nearly 50 years earlier. Schickel, who produced a short film for the Academy's presentation and covered the controversy in his role as Time's movie critic, has virtually no sympathy for Kazan's detractors, arguing that HUAC was "a harsh and permanent fact of American life" in the early Cold War era and, more importantly, that Kazan was testifying against Stalinists, not innocent liberals. He also observes that Kazan's early efforts at self-defense may ironically have worked against him, sealing his image in the public eye. The biography's main goal, however, is to restore Kazan's artistic achievements to their rightful prominence in his life story. Working with the director's extensive production notes, Schickel traces Kazan's rise from a fledgling actor in the Method-touting ensemble the Group Theatre to his creative pinnacle presenting Tennessee Williams on Broadway while making films like 1954's On the Waterfront. Despite Schickel's friendship with his subject, this analysis is unsparingly thorough, to the point where Schickel's forceful, personalized criticism becomes as attention grabbing as Kazan's body of work. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Both effusive and enigmatic, brazen and insecure, legendary director Elia Kazan is best known for bringing the emotional realism of mid-twentieth-century New York theater to the silver screen. But, in 1999, the accomplishments of the Greek immigrant and founding member of the Actors Studio were overshadowed by the controversy surrounding his Honorary Academy Award. (In 1952, some 15 years after abandoning the Communist Party, Kazan "named names" before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.) In this sympathetic, scrupulously researched biography, film scholar and Time critic Schickel examines the career of the directorial tour de force whose dossier includes Tony Award winner Death of a Salesman, On the Waterfront (for which he earned the Best Director Oscar), and stage and screen versions of A Streetcar Named Desire. Kazan's purpose, said playwright and best friend Arthur Miller, was always "to hit the audience in the belly because he knows all people are alike in the belly, no matter what their social position or education." Though Schickel's book focuses on the professional opus of Kazan (who died in 2003), the author also vividly conveys the director's potent personality: his exuberance, relentless work ethic, and frank assessments of the fleeting nature of fame. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"...contains not a single dull moment for those interested in the behind-the-scenes aspects of theater and movies..." -- New York Press

"A scintillating and thoroughly readable new biography." -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"A worthy companion to the director’s own autobiography...immensely likeable." -- The Economist

"Breathtaking, often riotous but never excessive...[Elia Kazan] could not be a more pertinent study of a spellbinding subject." -- New York Times Book Review

"One of those exhilarating publishing rarities -- the ideal writer for the ideal subject." -- Buffalo News

"Outstanding....Perhaps, thanks to Schickel’s biography, history will once again remember Kazan primarily for his accomplishments, not his testimony." -- Grand Rapids Press

"Richard Schickel has produced the first ‘life’ of Kazan...[with] an impressive knowledge of the terrain [and] soundly balanced judgments." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Schickel has a razor-sharp understanding of the many ways in which his subject’s life and work affected one another." -- Martin Scorsese

"Theater and film buffs -- not to mention scholars -- will revel in this astute explication of a working life." -- New York Sun

"This sympathetic, scrupulously researched biography...vividly conveys the director’s potent personality..." -- Booklist (starred review)

Customer Reviews

A Director's Director On Stage and Screen
It can be argued that Elia Kazan is the greatest director of all time for his landmark successes both on Broadway ("Death of a Salesmen" and "A Streetcar Named Desire) and in Hollywood ("East of Eden" and "On the Waterfront"). Over a 17 year span covering 1946-1963, he was nominated for 7 Tony Awards (winning thrice) and 7 Oscar nominations (winning twice). Even more impressive, his actors earned 21 Oscar nominations and nine wins under his direction. Only William Wyler directed more Oscar-winning performances (admittedly, directing Charleston Heston to an Oscar for "Ben-Hur" is pretty impressive).

Richard Schickel, film critic for Time magazine, had the difficult task of picking and choosing which ascepts of Mr. Kazan's life to focus, which stories to tell and which stories to omit. This biography easily could have been double its 500+ pages. Mr. Schickel covers his immigrant childhood and college days rather quickly (a pity when one realizes that the overriding theme of many of his plays and movies was being an outsider, like his immigrant family). His interest is in Mr. Kazan's craft and he does credit to his artistic creations. He covers Mr. Kazan's controversial testimony of naming names during the McCarthy era of the 1950's and the equally controversial Honorary Oscar awarded to him in 1999. For a film buff, "Elia Kazan: A Biography" would make a great gift.

A Defining Moment, a Black Cloud and a Legacy Obscured
It is amazing how one decision can discolor the image of a man who should be otherwise revered for his pioneering and enduring role in American theater and film during the middle of the 20th century. Time Magazine film critic Richard Schickel, a notable film historian in his own right, gives an insightful, unblemished account of Elia Kazan's career, which gives the man his professional due and also provides much-needed context for Kazan's perceived act of betrayal. The deep shadow that hangs over his legacy is related to just one's day testimony before the communist-hunting House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952. At the US Senate hearing, Kazan identified 16 names and two others more directly connected to the Communist party. Not only did he disclose their identities, but taking a defensive posture, he also took out an ad in the New York Times defending what he did. From that point forward, Kazan became known infamously as an informer. Moreover, his most enduring classic, "On the Waterfront", specifically Terry's decision to become a government informant, came to be viewed by some critics as a veiled defense of his naming names.

Stepping back though, Schickel recognizes Kazan for the major creative force he was, well worthy of the praise heaped upon him during his lifetime. The journalist delves into how Kazan helped mold promising young actors like Marlon Brando and James Dean into legends and establish the careers of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, all doing their best work under his aegis. Kazan's best work is a slate of unsurpassable movies and plays - the stage versions of Miller's "All My Sons" and "Death of a Salesman", the stage and film versions of Williams's "A Streetcar Named Desire" and transcendent films that were either socially conscious (anti-Semitism in "Gentleman's Agreement", racism in "Pinky", labor unions in "On the Waterfront") or expansions of literary works (Steinbeck's "East of Eden", William Inge's "Splendor in the Grass"). He was able to elicit memorable performances from diverse performers ranging from Tallulah Bankhead (Thornton Wilder's "The Skin of Our Teeth") to Andy Griffith ("A Face in the Crowd") to Natalie Wood ("Splendor in the Grass"). This is where Schickel writes lucidly about Kazan's emphasis on the essential rightness of his aesthetic, which seamlessly led characters' psychological events into personal behavior.

Yet, for all his accomplishments, Kazan is defined most by what he said that day and destroying the careers of those he named, including actor John Garfield who died of a heart attack the year after the testimony. Within personal and historical context, Schickel makes Kazan's thinking seem reasonable given his subject's brief membership in the Communist Party during his youth when Kazan worked with a radical theater troupe in the 1930s. As a committed liberal, Kazan felt betrayed by the atrocities of Stalin and his followers' ideological rigidity. With his liberal beliefs fortified by such memories, he cooperated with the HUAC's anti-Communist efforts in order to thwart Communists leading a liberal-biased agenda in Hollywood. Kazan stood by his decision even though it destroyed friendships with colleagues like Miller and Lillian Hellman. He regretted the decision later, but much of Hollywood remained unforgiving as symbolized by the 1999 Academy Awards ceremony where at least one-quarter of the star-studded audience refused to applaud Kazan's lifetime achievement Oscar. It was a sad sight but one that according to Schickel's thorough analysis, marks accurately the public and private halves of the man.

So Much and Not Enough at the same time!
Elia Kazan is a director's director and an actor's director. He was partly responsible for actors like Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Eva Marie Saint, Kim Hunter, and Vivien Leigh earning Oscars for their roles. He was partly responsible for introducing the world to Marlon Brando. Of course, this book is interesting and well-researched by the author about the director's controversial honorary academy award despite his past behavior during the McCarthy hearings and the Communist witch-hunt. Whatever happened in the past happened and some were not willing to applaud or thank the man who directed blue collar classics like "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "On the Waterfront," to be in the league of Shakespeare tragedies. The book is more about his professional and personal approach to directing whether stage or film. I don't recall him directing television. When Elia directed Streetcar, he directed the most perfect film adaptation of a stage play. He helped maintain most of the cast and brought in Oscar winner Vivien Leigh to play unstable Blanche Dubois who was unstable herself unfortunately off-screen. Most of us will never see the actual stage production and I think he would encourage stage productions to be recorded for legacy of the involved cast and crew members. Elia was a team player and he worked very hard with various types of characters onscreen and offscreen with partners like Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford. We can still use Elia Kazan today. There is nobody close to him today.