CRAFT NOTES
"ELIA KAZAN, 1909 -2003"

A giant of a director has died in New York at ninety-four years old.
Elia (pronounced ee-LIE-ya) Kazan was an immensely talented, complex
and controversial person whose work changed the very face of
twentieth century theatre and movies. He almost single handedly
brought "naturalism" to the stage. Think of Marlon Brando in "On the
Waterfront" and "A Streetcar Named Desire"; think of James Dean in
"East of Eden". Kazan discovered both of those actors, plus Warren
Beatty. In the 1950's, he was the director of choice for Broadway.
He directed "Death of a Salesman", "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "The
Skin of Our Teeth" among other hits. He was closely associated with
Lee Strasberg in the early days of the Actor's Studio and was a
champion of Strasberg's Method. Kazan's movies and plays were noted
for their primal animal-like tensions, and his actors stood in often
shocking contrast to the more classically trained actors of the day.

In 1952, Elia Kazan named names before the House Un-American
Activities Committee, and he was never forgiven for doing so by many
in the entertainment industry. The McCarthy period was one of the
darkest stains on U.S. history. Lives were ruined, some of our most
talented artists were accused of being communists and could no longer
find employment. They were forced to endure the Hollywood Blacklist,
worked under pseudonyms, left the country, killed themselves. It was
a horrible time politically, and Kazan never apologized for what he
did. To the end of his life, he believed in his heart that he had
done the right thing. This is why it took so many years for the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to honor him for his body
of work. When he received the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999,
the TV cameras panned the audience and many were plainly sitting on
their hands, not applauding.

Difficult though it may be to separate the political from the
artistic, I think we should try in Kazan's case. McCarthyism will
always be a historical blight and, if past is prologue, it may well
eventually be dwarfed by other American political horrors. But Kazan
was first and foremost an artist, not a political person. He was a
theatrical genius and he pointed to a career path that has
subsequently been followed by an entire generation of actors. He set
the bar of honest acting high.

The most superb theatrical autobiography I have ever read is "A Life"
by Kazan, and I recommend it to you heartily. For now, so that you
can get a small insight into Kazan's skill with actors, I offer the
following brief excerpts from "Kazan, The Master Discusses His
Films", interviews by Jeff Young (1999, Newmarket Press):

REHEARSALS FOR "A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE"
"We improvised the essential elements in a scene so that the actors
would have experienced them before they had to learn or get down the
lines....I'd make up a scene that's not in the play. For instance,
Stella's sister, Blanche, tries to get her to go home with her, to
get her to leave Stanley. Stella is in the position where she has to
handle her hysterical sister and at the same time refuse to go home.
Such a scene is never in the play."

"I had a (pictorial) image of Blanche being like a moth: she kept
flying against a luminous, transparent curtain, trying to get out."

"ON THE WATERFRONT"

"With Rod Steiger you could just smell it. You could look at him and
say, 'Here's a guy who is going to make it.'. I just smell the soul
and see what the hell is there."

"I think an artist is - not only a storyteller, but, if he's any
good, he's a myth-maker. The goal you should strive for is a mythic
goal. You take reality, anchor it in the facts and raise it to the
level of myth."

"I had a problem right away. The actors had to be in the same league
as the scenery. They had to be as real as the Hoboken locations.
You rarely get that with actors. ... I was able to use a lot of real
longshoremen. ... The next problem was getting the actors out into
the cold, which was not as easy as it sounds. A couple of days I had
to go to the hotel and pull Brando out by the hand. It was not only
zero degrees on the waterfront, but the north wind was blowing off
the Hudson and the actor's faces, therefore, without makeup became
like the real thing."

RE: CASTING/AUDITIONS

"Unless the character is somewhere in the actor himself you shouldn't
cast him. The person has got to have the essential qualities, the
mainstream in him. Otherwise you fake and never get a truly good
performance."

"I take people for walks. I take them to dinner. I don't do any
readings, but I talk to them like I'm talking to you. I veil it. I
make it sound like chatter. Everybody will talk to you about their
most intimate problems if you give them a chance. ...An actor will
tell you anything in five minutes - if you listen. All you have to
do is sit down with them, and you'll find what they're made of."

"I'm looking for something -- say a guy that really looks mild, but
is a murderer in his heart. If I get a glimpse of it I'll say, 'Come
at the end of the day. We'll have a drink.'"

"EAST OF EDEN:

"An actor is already a formed instrument, not an abstract being. His
body is already an expression of his life. His face is a piece of
sculpture, so is his body. If you watch people in movement, you see
how they sit, how they stand, how they walk. You can learn a lot
about them. Also, you can see what expressive means they have
available to them. James Dean's body was eloquent."

"...It's a love scene. It's amazing how helpful that way of thinking
is. For instance, you can have a business conference where two guys
are antagonistic to each other and never get together on a deal, but
by the end of the scene you feel they both think, 'Well, he's a
shrewd son of a bitch.' There can even be love scenes between a man
and an object, like a man with a racing car, a man with a horse or
building a house. If you just say he's building the house, it's one
thing, but if you say he's loving the house and doing something that
he likes to do, you're dealing in emotion right away. It's good to
think of a scene in terms of the emotion that rides through the
apparent abstractness or the apparent impersonality of it."

RE THE CRAFT OF DIRECTING
"The important thing is to not become rigid, to always allow yourself
chances to change and to grow. Directing is a human craft. Your
tools are human beings. You develop your own methodology each time
out. And if you really are any good, each time out you feel as if
you are learning the craft all over again."

Like I said, a giant has died, and it makes me personally sad. I
never met Elia Kazan, but I do not believe I would ever have become
an actor or a teacher had it not been for his work and influence on
me. His life was long and rich and touched by brilliance. We should
all be so fortunate.

Until next month...be safe!
Ed Hooks