The summer of Elia Kazan

           My new focus toward the films of the 1950’s has brought me to the work of Eliz Kazan. When I looked back at the films of the 1940’s, I was forced to randomly watch films whenever I could find them. Instead I should have been focusing on one filmmaker at a time. Back when there was more time, I would watch four to six films from the same filmmaker and try to isolate their way of working by comparing their films. I found that there was a lot more to gain by watching a series of films by the same director. Hopefully I’ll be in a better position to learn things from the films of the 1950’s by going back to studying one filmmaker at a time.  

            I’ve always been blown away by how good ‘On the Waterfront’ still is sixty years later. It survives the test of time more than most films I can remember seeing. I’ve looked at some of Kazan’s work before but never in a clear concise way. Throughout the summer I’m going to go through most of Kazan’s films and with the help of a book called ‘Kazan in Directing’ we’ll see what I can learn by the end of the summer.