Rating summary
Movie | | 5.0 |
Video | | 4.0 |
Audio | | 4.0 |
Extras | | 4.0 |
Overall | | 4.5 |
A Streetcar Named Desire Blu-ray Movie Review
Stellar!
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 30, 2012
Younger audiences who only know Marlon Brando from his latter performances from, say, The Godfather on are apt
to scratch their heads when confronted with appraisals of the actor that comment on his sheer physicality or in fact his
matinee idol good looks. Marlon Brando? Well the fact is Brando indeed may not have aged extremely well, giving
into certain indulgences which expanded his jowls and waistline, and other indulges which weirdly diminished his
acting (at least in its visceral intensity if not in its craft). But audiences had never experienced a force of nature quite like
Brando when he burst onto the screen in a series of early fifties films that quickly cemented his reputation as the leading
male performer of his generation. Perhaps no finer example of Brando’s sheer physicality exists than his second film, the
1951 film version of A Streetcar Named Desire, the stage play that had made Brando a star on Broadway after a
few years of supporting roles. Tennessee Williams’ follow up to The Glass Menagerie, the play that had made
him an “overnight’ sensation, was another look into the unseemly underbelly of several Southern characters, only
Williams wanted to push the envelope even further in terms of what dysfunctions he could both allude to and outright
portray. The twisted triangle of Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh), her sister Stella (Kim Hunter) and Stella’s husband Stanley
(Marlon Brando) is a seething portrait of barely controlled passion buried in various layers of self delusion and, in the case
of Stanley, an almost atavistic violence.
For those unacquainted with
A Streetcar Named Desire, the plot, such as it is, is rather minimal and serves
mostly
as a framework to support a handful of fascinating and unforgettable characters. The basic story is simplicity itself:
Stella’s sister Blanche comes to stay with Stella and her husband Stanley at their squalid New Orleans apartment, an
apartment which is arrived at on the iconic streetcar line named Desire. (As Rudy Behlmer discusses in his sections of
the
commentary included on this release, Tennessee Williams had been fascinated by the disparity of two streetcar lines
which
ran next to each other in New Orleans, one named Desire and the other titled Cemeteries. Toward the end of the film
Blanche has a monologue where she talks about one way leading to desire and the other way leading to death.)
What’s
really
important here is what Blanche’s arrival does to the fragile domestic environment of Stella and Stanley, as well as what
secrets in everyone’s past are revealed as their interactions evolve over the course of the drama.
Williams works much of the same Southern Gothic territory in
A Streetcar Named Desire that he did in
The
Glass Menagerie, and indeed there are more than passing similarities between Blanche DuBois and
Menagerie’s Amanda Wingfield. Both are faded (or at least
fading, as Blanche describes herself)
Southern Belles, both have had disastrous marriages, and both are wrapped in a certain amount of denial and
desperation. Of course Blanche is in reality a completely different formulation of a type that Williams would return to
over and over in his career, and her back story becomes more and more troubling as
Streetcar slowly uncovers
her lies and her real motivations for leaving her home town of Auriol and traveling to visit her sister Stella. The arrival of
a gentleman caller named Mitch (Karl Malden) highlights Blanche’s insecurities, especially with regard to her age, but
also her duplicitousness and proclivity toward scheming. In a masterful performance by Vivien Leigh, Blanche becomes
in a very real way the “flip side” of Scarlett O’Hara, a once winsome head turner who attempts to achieve her romantic
dreams by batting her eyes while continually putting off until tomorrow things that really should be handled today.
Playing off of Blanche’s “is she or isn’t she” demureness is the troubling relationship between Stella and Stanley. Years
before anyone ever talked about anything like domestic abuse, Williams had created one of the most visceral characters
in all of American theater history in Stanley Kowalski, a troubled, turbulent man with a barely controlled temper which
erupts in sudden bursts of violence at several points throughout the drama. Surprisingly, Stella isn’t all that concerned
about it, perhaps a sign of what would later be termed Stockholm Syndrome, but as she herself confides to Blanche
after one of Stanley’s little
contretemps, his bursts of temper and violence “kind of thrill” her. She’s a willing
coconspirator in this family dysfunction, one which spirals completely out of control as the film careens headlong to its
climax, a climax only partially blindsided by a tacked on coda that was not part of Williams’ original conception. What's
fascinating about Stanley both in Williams writing but perhaps more exceptionally in Brando's performance is how
vulnerable the character is despite his brutishness. Brando doesn't just wear his heart on his sleeve here, he
seems to bare his very soul.
Streetcar may strike some younger viewers as an odd film. It has no real plot mechanics and is instead a very
intimate and at times disturbing (and even depressing) character study. But this is a film that is a virtual textbook of
acting, at least the school of acting that was espoused by the Group Theater and then spread to subsequent
generations through the mentorship of such icons as Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg. Some of these techniques have
become much parodied and even derided, but after a couple of decades of more arch and surface oriented acting styles,
the early adherents of Stanislavski and “The Method” brought something viscerally real and heretofore never
experienced (or at least
rarely experienced) in American cinema. Director Elia Kazan, who cut his professional
teeth with The Group in the 1930s, brings a sure sense of what each performance needs to accomplish. His direction is
unobtrusive but similarly inescapable. He builds the drama to its potent conclusion by slowly adding small moments of
character revelation which ultimately explode in a cascading series of tumultuous events. Kazan also with his DP Harry
Stradling beautifully crafts a dark and fetid ambience while at the same time very subtly using the camera to highlight
dramatic effect (pay close attention to the famous “torn t-shirt” scene with Brando and Hunter for a sterling example).
Tennessee Williams was obviously haunted by certain aspects of his own life and upbringing, ghosts which he revisited
time and again in his plays and screenplays.
A Streetcar Named Desire is a potent distillation of some of these
spectral entities which flitted about Williams’ psyche, personified in a quartet of characters who are each involved in
their own individual desperate dance, both with their inner demons as well as with their ostensible partners (and those
partners’ demons). This is a moody, dank drama that features some of the most legendary performances in American
film. Many people point to Kazan’s
On the Waterfront as his best film, which may in fact be true (at least in
terms of overall impact), but he never did finer work with actors than in
A Streetcar Named Desire.
A Streetcar Named Desire Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality
A Streetcar Named Desire is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Warner Brothers with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer
in 1.37:1. We have become used to near flawless transfers of catalog titles by Warner Brothers and so anything less than
perfection might unreasonably disappoint some videophiles. This is yet another excellent high definition presentation culled
from largely damage free elements that offers lustrous contrast that really shows off the deep chiaroscuro ambience that
Kazan and legendary cinematographer Harry Stradling were exploiting. Fine detail is often exceptional, but it's the play of
light against shadow that is the most impressive thing about this transfer. All of this said, a lot of Streetcar just
doesn't quite pop with the amazing sharpness and clarity that has graced some of the other vintage Warner catalog titles
released over the past couple of years. The image seems just slightly more soft and diffuse than some other films of
similar vintage that we've seen on Blu-ray from Warner. This is a matter of degree, so no one should be overly concerned
about what may in fact be niggling concerns, and it's doubtful anyone is going to be anything less than satisfied with this
presentation.
A Streetcar Named Desire Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality
A Streetcar Named Desire is granted a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track that wisely decides not to
repurpose the film's claustrophobic sonic content with a faux surround mix. Dialogue is sharp, clear and very
precisely presented and the fabulous Alex North score, full of bluesy riffs and occasionally bombastic brass motifs, sounds
absolutely fantastic. While the sound here is obviously narrow, and not especially full, there is no actual clipping of either
high or low frequencies, and the overall effect is completely satisfactory when placed in the film's historical context.
A Streetcar Named Desire Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras
- Commentary features supplements producer Laurent Bouzereau hosting (edited) comments from co-
star Karl Malden and historians Rudy Behlmer and Jeff Young. Young got to know Kazan quite well when Young was an
executive Paramount and has some good anecdotes about the director. Behlmer contributes more of an overall historical
perspective and Malden is able to give an actor's viewpoint, on both the stage and screen versions. Some of Malden's
comments about Brando in his early career are quite surprising, and there are some wonderful anecdotes shared about
the original Broadway run, including some great stories about "mother hen", original star Jessica Tandy. This is an
extremely
worthwhile and informative piece that should appeal equally to scholars and fans alike.
- Elia Kazan: A Director's Journey (SD; 1:15:32) is the largely superb documentary which aired on PBS a few
years ago. Narrated by Eli Wallach, this takes a chronological look at Kazan's career, including a brief overview of his
early Broadway career and nascent acting roles, the bulk of this Richard Schickel written and directed piece simply goes
from major film and Broadway play to the next, with Kazan offering his own commentary. While this piece touches on
Kazan's infamous testimony before HUAC, it really glosses over its impact and negative repercussions for several former
Kazan friends and collaborators, and remains this documentary's major failure in an otherwise excellent approach.
- A Streetcar on Broadway (SD; 22:01) is another interesting piece featuring a wealth of Kazan commentary,
this time focusing on the original Broadway version of the play.
- A Streetcar in Hollywood (SD; 28:10) once again has the benefit of Kazan's own reminiscences, as he
discusses the way the play had to be changed and adapted for its film version.
- Censorship and Desire (SD; 16:21) has Rudy Behlmer talking about how timid the Hollywood powers that be
were about even optioning the play for a film version, and then the changes they had to make in order to get the project
completed.
- North and the Music of the South (SD; 9:14) is a nice profile of composer Alex North.
- An Actor Named Brando (SD; 8:53) is a brief look at the legendary actor.
- Marlon Brando Screen Test (SD; 5:06) is a fascinating look at the actor. This has some fairly substantial
sound issues at the beginning.
- Outtakes (SD; 15:38)
- Audio Outtakes (17:01)
- Trailers includes Warner Brothers 1951 (SD; 2:35), 20th Century Fox 1958 Reissue (SD; 2:09) and United
Artists 1970 Reissue (SD; 1:50).
- Digibook Packaging with glossy pages including photos and text.
A Streetcar Named Desire Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation
A Streetcar Named Desire has lost little if any of its impact in the 60 years since its original release. Though the film
had to make several rather substantial changes from the original play to get by the censors, overall the film rather adeptly
alludes to pretty much everything Williams was getting at, if perhaps in a slightly more circumspect way than in the original
stage version. (This Blu-ray presents the restored version of the film which was previously released on DVD and which
includes several snippets excised from the original release.) Younger audience who can't quite understand what the fuss
ever was over Marlon Brando may be awestruck by the intense physicality of the actor at this early stage in his career, and
the performances of Leigh, Hunter and Malden (all of whom won well deserved Oscars) are the stuff of legend. This new
Blu-ray does a film classic proud, with excellent video and audio and a wealth of supplementary material. Highly
recommended.