Kazan: The Master Director Discusses His Films: Interviews with Elia Kazan (Paperback)

~ Jeff Young (Author), (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The presentation of a lifetime achievement award to Elia Kazan at the 1999 Oscar ceremony was one of the most controversial events in American movie history. Kazan's theatrical résumé includes the original productions of The Skin of Our Teeth, Death of a Salesman, and four of Tennessee Williams's best dramas. For the screen, he created Pinky, A Streetcar Named Desire, East of Eden, Baby Doll, A Face in the Crowd, On the Waterfront, Wild River, and America, America. But during the red scare, the master director named names before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, ruining the careers of several of his contemporaries.

How could the man behind such thoughtful and sensitive masterpieces betray his friends? What is the relationship between an artist's personal life and his public vision? While Kazan spoke to these questions in his stunning, epic autobiography, Elia Kazan: A Life, this interview-based book offers new insight by focusing the conversation on the director's professional life. As Kazan responds to Jeff Young's probing queries, we vividly experience his uncompromising independence, determination, and strength of will.

Regarding the success of his most legendary film, Kazan says:

When I started On the Waterfront, I was what they call unbankable. Nobody would put up money for me because I had had a series of box office failures.... I had a hell of a time raising money, but I respond very well to difficulty. If somebody makes trouble for me, I come flailing out in every direction. One of my happiest moments was when I got the Academy Award for On the Waterfront.... It was especially rewarding because we had made something out of nothing.... All of a sudden no one cared what my politics were, that I was controversial, or difficult or that people were slamming me all the time. After On the Waterfront, I could do anything I wanted. That's Hollywood.

This volume provides readers with an exquisite opportunity to examine the mind and work of a major artist--including details about Kazan's collaborations with Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, John Steinbeck, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Gregory Peck, Katharine Hepburn, and many others--as well as the chance to experience the creation of some of the century's most indelible works of art. --Raphael Shargel --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Timed to follow the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' controversial decision to present the 1999 lifetime achievement Oscar to famed film director Elia Kazan, this selection of interviews has little bearing on contemporary Hollywood. In fact, the book is a time capsule, comprising only Young's sessions with Kazan in 1971 and 1972, a time when Young was beginning his own filmmaking career. As Kazan had a longstanding agreement with Knopf that he would not do a competing book until his memoir, Elia Kazan: A Life, was published in 1988, Young's transcripts gathered dust over the years. In Young's q&a format, Kazan discusses all but one of the 19 films he directed, moving chronologically from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) to the seldom-seen The Visitors (1971), a non-union, low-budget "anti-war picture" that employed his own house for a set. Discussions here range over all aspects of scripting, music, cinematography, methodology and directing: "I try to base things in realism and take off from there," he says. The book does offer some perspective on Kazan's HUAC testimony, which the director says made him an "unsavory figure" ("The hardest time I ever had was just prior to On the Waterfront which every studio in California turned down"). He drew memorable performances from Brando, James Dean, Andy Griffith and others using everything from the Stanislavsky system to the "Jack Daniels school of acting." Kazan's work in the theater is ignored, but film buffs will find these interviews a valuable resource, since Young asked all the right questions, unleashing an avalanche of revelatory insights from a director who, his political choices notwithstanding, remains an American original. 60 b&w photos.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Newmarket Press (January 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557044465
• ISBN-13: 978-1557044464
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #656,075 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book of its kind in many years., March 29, 1999

By	Scribe "boopster1" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kazan - The Master Director Discusses His Films: Interviews with Elia Kazan (Hardcover)

I was surprised and delighted to a find a galley copy of this soon-to-be released book at my local store, especially in light of the recent furor over Kazan's Oscar for Lifetime Achievement. Done long before Kazan was awarded this Honorary Oscar, the book focuses, as it should, on Kazan's work in film and theatre. And in that regard, it is universally agreed that Kazan is one of a small handful of Pantheon directors of the 20th Century.

Mr. Young asks all the right questions, guiding Kazan into revealing the innermost workings of the creative process.. . . so much so, it should be required reading in film and theatre schools across the land. And if Kazan's answers to Young's subtle political probing don't satisfy everyone, they at least illuminate his view of a dark period in our nation's history - the era of the McCarthy / HUAC witch hunts and blacklistings. Mr. Young's objectivity in this regard is both refreshing and remarkable, given that Mr. Young's uncle was himself "blacklisted" during this wrenching period. It's an object lesson every media interviewer should heed.

But don't be deceived - this is not a book just for filmmakers, but for everyone. It is about Art and Life, with the emphasis on Life. And as a leader of the revolutionary "New" theatre of the `30s and 40s, Kazan was instrumental in bringing true realism - the elusive merger of Art and Life - to both stage and film.

As a journey through a tumultuous and significant life that both incorporates and encapsulates most of this last century, this book has everything a serious reader could ask for - it's both sensitive and smart. As such, it's one of the best, most revealing books I have read in years.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wise and insightful journey through the art of film making, March 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Kazan - The Master Director Discusses His Films: Interviews with Elia Kazan (Hardcover)

KAZAN is a must-read book even for those whose interest in film is casual, because along with its depth of film knowledge it also illuminates much human activity with insight and wisdom. I'm sorry to have read it in a single sitting because the unique pleasure of reading it for the first time is now denied me. It is a baedeker for actors, writers, directors, dramatists and even critics. The fuss about Kazan's Academy Award is an irrelevance in the face of his knowledge, acuity and insight as revealed in this book. (We are entitled to criticize Wagner's opinions - but to ignore his music is only damaging to ourselves.) It is easy to see, after reading Kazan, why American movies have so utterly dominated world cinema. This is a deeply interesting and worthwhile book for the general reader as well as the specialist.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good insight into Kazan's films., August 16, 2002

By	"patrick_mcknight" (Vancouver, BC Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kazan - The Master Director Discusses His Films: Interviews with Elia Kazan (Hardcover)

Elia Kazan was one of the most important film directors of the late forties to early fifties. Besides blazing a trail as one of Broadway's top theatre directors, Kazan also established himself as a top Hollywood director. His films helped blaze new ground covering social themes like anti-semitism (Gentleman's Agreement), racism (Pinky), corrupt unions (On the Waterfront), and the abuse of television (A Face in the Crowd). Films like "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Baby Doll" challenged the censorship of the day with their depiction of raw sexuality.

Kazan also pioneered the use of cinematic realism with his location shooting and the realistic performances of his cast through the use of "method" acting. Kazan would be responsible for launching the careers of Marlon Brando and James Dean.

However all these achievements have been overshadowed by Kazan's appearance before the House Un-American Activitees Committee in 1952. Unlike many other moviemakers and actors, Kazan cooperated with HUAC and named names. One of the most high profile entertainment figures to turn informer, Kazan helped to consolidate the Hollywood blacklist of the 1950s. This has made Kazan arguably one of the most hated and controversial figures of the McCarthy era. As a result many people are uncertain of where to stand on Kazan.

In this book, reporter Jeff Young interviews Kazan extensively about each of his films. It's very interesting to hear a little about what it was like working with his actors and how he would coax great performances from them. Kazan was a very good actor's director in large part, I think, because he was good at empathizing with them and making them feel comfortable. Instead of telling them what to do as most directors would, he told them what to think and what to feel. It was touching hearing how when the neurotic James Dean came onto the "East of Eden" set, Kazan moved in to a trailer across from him to keep an eye on him.

It was also quite interesting hearing how Kazan got some of the ideas for his films. For instance, I didn't realize until I read it that much of the ideas for "On the Waterfront" were based on real cases and that the Terry Malloy character was based on a real person who worked on the docks. Nor did I realize that "East of Eden" was a semi-autobiographical film. "Wild River" (alas, to date never released on video), stemmed from some of Kazan's documentary work during the Depression, and "America, America" stemmed from the experiences of Kazan's Greek uncle's journey to the America.

People looking for insight into Kazan's decision to name names may be disapointed. This is not really an in depth discussion of those events, but a loving look at Kazan's films. However, in case you think that Jeff Young has fallen too in love with Kazan, there is a probing question that Young asks Kazan near the end of the book. Kazan has always claimed that he named names because he thought that Communism was a threat to America, not because he was interested in personal gain. However, Kazan doesn't seem to have been prepared for the specific question that Young has to ask him. Kazan's emotional response is quite revealing and manages to take some of the gloss off the way he portrays himself.

For anyone interested in Kazan, this is a good place to start.