Why ‘On the Waterfront’ Bears Rewatching

The march of time is a funny thing, traversing, as it does, historical circumstances in a sometimes contradictory yet often well-worn manner. Take one of the items up for argument before the Supreme Court next week: New York v. New Jersey, a case that will decide the fate of the Waterfront Commission, an agency founded in 1953 for the purpose of (to employ terminology used at the time) “eliminating various evils on the waterfront in the Port of New York Harbor.” The “evils,” in this case, centered on the influence of organized crime over just who it was that got hired to work on the docks. Plus ça change and all that: This past February, a captain in the Gambino crime family was found guilty on racketeering charges, a verdict in which the efforts of the Waterfront Commission proved integral. Still and all, New Jersey wants out.All of which will sound familiar to cinephiles. “On the Waterfront,” the 1954 film directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg, bears rewatching in light of the upcoming legal decision. The story concerns itself with corruption on the New York waterfront and the consequences, often violent, on the surrounding community. It bears mentioning that a series of articles by Malcolm Johnson in The New York Sun served as the basis for Schulberg’s screenplay.But is that really the reason or, at least, the primary reason we remember “On the Waterfront”? Talk about history come-and-gone: The film has suffered reams of exegesis underscoring the relationship between its director and the House committee on “Un-American Activities.” Kazan, you remember, cited the names of colleagues involved with the Communist Party. His subsequent status as a pariah in movie circles was long-standing. When the 89-year old director was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1999, many Hollywood notables in the audience famously sat on their hands.Terry Malloy, the waterfront lunk played by Marlon Brando, is commonly seen as the stand-in for Kazan, agreeing, as he does, to testify against the mob bosses who rule the docks. When he’s accused of being a “cheese eater” by union reps, Terry responds by claiming, “I was rattin’ on myself all those years. I didn’t even know it.” Kazan was wilier than his fictional counterpart. When “On the Waterfront” swept the Oscars in 1954, he felt vindicated. In his 1988 autobiography, Kazan writes of the exultation of victory, of “telling the world where I stood.” Whereupon he bluntly suggested to his critics what they could do to themselves.Is it possible to take in “On the Waterfront” free-and-clear of the baggage with which it has been freighted? One suspects that most folks born after 1990 — that is to say, viewers whose attention spans have been altered by the internet and, not unrelated, are deeply skeptical about black-and-white cinema — would be oblivious to tangents both informing and surrounding the film.Among the benefits of reconnecting with a work of art — whether it be a film, a book, or a painting — is that familiarity can allow for a different apprehension of the object under consideration. Here in 2023, “On the Waterfront” comes across most convincingly as a love story. The romance that occurs between Terry and Edie (Eva Marie Saint), the sister of the man whom Terry has inadvertently set up for murder, is almost ineffably tender.In a series of scenes that occur at the midpoint of the film — in which we follow Terry and Edie from atop the roofs of Hoboken to a raucous wedding they’ve crashed — Brando and Saint, here seen in her movie debut, flirt, touch, and kiss with a verisimilitude that is astonishing in its intimacy. Acting, it’s called, and if the plot’s wind-up doesn’t quite achieve a similar level of integrity, that’s not to say it’s lacking in catharsis or symbolism.The supporting cast is excellent — Rod Steiger and Lee J. Cobb are, I am happy to report, atypically subdued — and the score by Leonard Bernstein, alternately poignant and boisterous, is woven seamlessly into the narrative. As for the rest of it, “On the Waterfront” persists as a reminder that corruption, like love, is forever thus.“On the Waterfront” is available through the Criterion Collection, among other streaming services.

Why ‘On the Waterfront’ Bears Rewatching

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