On the Waterfront (1954): Shira’s Take

I just love everything about this movie. It was my second time seeing it, and, though I didn’t think it possible, I actually liked it more this time. The signature cinematography is fantastic. I love the edgy angles looking upwards at Terry Malloy’s (Marlon Brando’s) face. Brando’s performance is my favorite of his and possibly in my top five favorite performances of all time. And it’s not just him. Everyone is good in this movie. The first time I saw it, I thought I would end up hating Eva Marie Saint (playing Edie Doyle), but something about her kindhearted demeanor and desire to help those in need is so earnest and endearing.

The screenplay is great. The characters are so incredibly consistent. One of my favorite lines in the movie is when Terry has just gone up to the roof after ratting out Johnny Friendly (played by Lee J. Cobb) and sees that Tommy (played by Thomas Handley), the kid who has been looking up to Terry since he founded the Golden Warriors (a gang of sorts), has killed all of Joey’s pigeons that Terry had been caring for. Terry says, “What did he have to do that for?” It’s incredible, because at that point, the viewer knows Terry so well that he/she can almost predict that he will react that way. It is as though when he sees that his brother, Charley (played by a young, not-scary-looking Rod Steiger) has been killed, he understands why it happened and is therefore sad, but kind of resigned to it. But when the pigeons die, it’s in a way more tragic–the pigeons did nothing wrong, so why did they have to die?

And the ending is just so perfect. I love Johnny Friendly’s pathetic last attempts to yell at everyone going in to work, “I’ll remember every one of you!” For a movie about the three things I care about the least in life (boxing, longshoremen, and pigeon racing), this film is completely relevant to me and to everyone. Perfect, perfect movie. 10/10

On the Waterfront (1954): Eitan’s Take

Unrelentingly dark, On the Waterfront takes us to a place that few of us ever see, and gives us an antihero and a redemption tale that are among the finest achievements in cinema history. The gritty, mob-ridden docks on the edge of Manhattan have belonged to many different oppressed and minority groups (now it’s a haven for poor, crack-addicted transsexual prostitutes), but here they belong to the sort of long-faced men we saw back in How Green Was My Valley; of course, coal miners and longshoremen are kindred spirits — they’re both beholden to the corrupt will of dirty, greedy jerks who pay them nothing and make them witness to some hideous crimes.

In this film, the injustices perpetrated by Johnny Friendly and his band of fat-faced goons are just the frame for our window into the sad lives of the hard-working dock workers. From their midst emerges Terry Molloy, who is played by Marlon Brando with such precision and such gusto that you’d think he lived in a dumpy tenement with pigeons for years before stepping into the checkered jacket. And he probably did. Through his struggle with the long arm of the law, we watch as all the powerful forces in the world — business, justice, murder, Jesus — converge on a small part of Manhattan and play themselves out in epic fashion. The romance works. The noir works. The social justice angle works. And the result is a brutal and beautiful picture that is completely engrossing and awe-inspiring.

Many of the great moments — Molloy walking with blood streaming down his face, the famous cab scene, the near-death experience in the alley way — reminded me of great social justice movies from later in the century, including The Insider (which is heavily influenced by this movie), Do the Right Thing, and Schindler’s List. And, of course, many of its finest moments have clear influences in the classic films of Sergei Eisenstein (especially the end of this movie, which reminded me a lot of the Odessa Steps sequence.) But I couldn’t stop thinking throughout the whole movie about director Elia Kazan’s shameless blacklisting of his own colleagues during the Red Scare. It’s hard to make a movie about standing up for what you believe in, when you’re sending your friends to prison and leading the fight against the good people in Hollywood.

Still, Marlon Brando gives the performance of a lifetime here, as do many others… Eva Marie Saint as the mysterious and tragic sister of the first mob victim, Karl Malden as the paragon of virtue, Lee J. Cobb as the reckless and amoral union “leader.” It’s an indisputably classic movie, filled with phenomenal performances and a haunting and eternally relevant story. To give this masterpiece anything less than a 10/10 would be blasphemy.