A Streetcar Named Desire (Original Director's Version)

A Streetcar Named Desire (Original Director's Version) | Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando | *Adorable* Stanley *Bipolar* Kowalski

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A Streetcar Named ...

	A Streetcar Named Desire (Original Director's Version) Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando Warner Home Video, 1997 average customer review:based on 121 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Still-compelling screen adaptation of a stage classic

For its high-powered acting more than anything else, Elia Kazan's screen adaptation of Tennessee Williams' stage classic A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE has lived on in movie history. Though Marlon Brando, as Stanley Kowalski, didn't win an Academy Award for his breakthrough performance here, once again history tells a different story from what those old-fashioned geezers at AMPAS imply by their awards, and Brando's performance here has become something of a screen legend (as has the recently-deceased actor himself).

Brando is remarkable, to be sure. He goes down to pre-human levels and dredges up a performance that is terrifying as an unsparing portrait of male dominance and machismo. It certainly set a standard for screen acting (Robert De Niro, in his early years, did a similar kind of acting, to equally electrifying effect). But, for me, Vivien Leigh---who won a well-deserved Oscar for her performance here---really makes this movie as the protagonist of the film, Blanche DuBois. This character is one of the most fascinating and complex characters ever conceived for both stage and screen. How to describe or even interpret her? She is certainly the stark antithesis of the animalistic Stanley, being refined and proper (and a little pretentious) where Stanley is brutish and sloppy. She has had a difficult life in the past, especially regarding romance, and yet she retains her romantic ideals, seeking a tough yet kind man who will whisk her away from her troubles. She is, above all, a magnificently conceived and immensely compelling character, and Vivien Leigh---best known as Scarlett O'Hara in GONE WITH THE WIND---brings all of her complexities and contradictions to seemingly effortless life. It's a truly great performance (Pauline Kael considered it one of the greatest filmed performances ever), and her tension-filled scenes with Brando are the high points of the film. Kim Hunter is no less impressive as Blanche's caring sister Stella, and Karl Malden matches up convincingly with Viven Leigh in their scenes together. (Both won Oscars too, in supporting performance categories.)

Elia Kazan and screenwriter Williams (adapted for the screen by Oscar Saul) haven't quite been able to shed the staginess that often mars many a screen adaptation of a stage work, but that hardly seems to work against this particular film. Besides, who will complain when a screen adaptation is so engrossing and has such classic performances? Blanche's final line will haunt you just as it must have haunted many a theatergoer when the play premiered onstage. A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, to this day, remains a powerful study of shattered dreams and unspoken romantic and sexual desires, as well as a master class in great screen acting. Highly recommended.

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*Adorable* Stanley *Bipolar* Kowalski

Ok, the acting doesn't get any better...undisputed fact. I find the BIOPOLAR Stanley hilarious, along with everything else people have said for over half a century. Brando even said in his autobio that Jessica Tandy would get mad at him during the play because audiences would laugh at him as he tormented her, diminishing her character, and she blamed him. Guess she had to blame somebody.

But Marlon Brando, in all his genius, depth, brilliance, talent, etc, etc, etc, just plain cracks me up, in his movies and to confirm his sense of humor, in his autobio. I was laughing so hard I couldn't even read the part in his autobio when he was talking about his visit on the set of "The Godfather" from a cocked eyed mob boss.

He said, "The first thing I noticed about him was that one of his eyes looked to the left and the other to the right. I didn't know which one to look at, so, trying not to offend him, I alternated between them." This simply cracked me completely up. But when he quoted the mob boss during a tour of the set as saying, "I don't know how you keep from goin' nuts Marlo, with all these people and all these wires and everything," Brando wrote, "I agree, the whole thing is really cockeyed, isn't it?" Then I looked into his cocked eyes and realized what I'd said. I spun around, trying to divert his attention to something on the set and to get a glimpse of his reaction peripherally. For a moment he blinked and I thought I saw a hurt look flash across his face, but the moment passed, and I babbled a mouthful of mush to fill the air with words, not knowing what in the world I was saying." I am still trying to imagine a big bad cocked eyed gangster with a hurt look on his face due to "Marlo's" slip of the tongue.

This was the funniest part of his autobio to me, although the man cracked me up through the entire reading as he does in his movies, serious or not, he makes me smile. He just has an amazing effect on me and I think it's deeper than just his unparalleled acting ability because I'm not all that impressed with actors. I'm gonna keep searching until I find out what it really and truly is about him that, as he says in his autobio about him almost getting strangled to death at the premier of Guys and Dolls, "turns crowds into mobs".

I know his courage has a lot to do with it and my attraction to strength and courage is an obvious connection, but I still think there is more and I'm gonna keep digging. His movies are revealing (he spilled his guts in Last Tango In Paris while playing the harmonica), as well as in his autobio, but there was more to this man than we will probably ever know, more than he probably ran out of time to find out. Head's up for us to forever examine our own lives because there is obviously more to us than meets the eye, as Eva Marie Saint said when Brando asked her in On The Waterfront, 'what more do you want?'...much more, much, much more!

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One of America's Great Films!

All the critics agree about one thing: there had never been a performance before in American movies like Marlon Brando gave in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. I have seen this movie many times and never tire of it. Although Brando would make other fine movies, he would never make one better. Vivien Leigh is also amazing as the fragile Blanche who is sinking into madness. Even with the stagey set, which looks like a set, the characters explode on the screen.

It seems to me that you do not compare Brando's performance and this movie to other films but rather to other great American artistic works: Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue", Toni Morrison's BELOVED, ANGELS IN AMERICA, for example. A truly great movie.

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Intense and Sexy

This is a perfect date movie. It is intense, sexy, and packed with intellectual and emotional whallop. The actors are interesting and beautiful to look at, and the subject matter is mature and provoacative. It is the perfect setup for getting to know someone better, and a great warm-up for intimate activities to follow, or for super-intense action like you get when you put into practice the teachings of the "New Sex Now" dvd.

God bless you Marlon, you were a true subtle hunk!

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, page 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

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