On the Waterfront: Another Look

continue to live under these circumstances. That vitality, here, is a sign of death and not oflife, when it is devoid of consciousness. The positive symbols ofthe film are the anarchist, the socialist, the ones who choose liberty even if it represents dying. This is the life ofman, but that empty survival is his death. What lives on is not a man, but some other being full ofshit, full ofdistortion. One who says I want to make a hundred sons is a cancer, is blind, senseless, and destructive. One who is ready to do anything is mad—he is the one who under conditions of overpopulation becomes violent. He is the one who will kill in order to live. That is why that film is about us, today, and that is why I am not worried about becoming despotic as a filmmaker. It is a problem which is close to me and I cannot help thinking it is everybody's problem today." ON THE WATERFRONT: ANOTHER LOOK By Kenneth R. Hey Kenneth R. Hey teaches in the New Schoolfor Liberal Arts at Brooklyn College. His more detailed analysis ofOn The Waterfront is forthcoming in American Quarterly When On the Waterfront passed its final cut in July, 1 954, its creators had assimilated materials as numerous as Terry Malloy's pigeons. Underworld gangsters, corrupt city officials, greedy shippers, the Communist Party, the Group Theatre, the House Committee on Un-American Activities, a New York Sun journalist (Malcolm Johnson), Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Kino-Pravda, the Actors Studio, The Crucible, A Streetcar Named Desire, the International Longshoremen's Association, the American Federation of Labor, Christian iconography as well as the Catholic hierarchy, ethnic loyalties, and the docks and cityscapes ofa huge metropolitan area all affected the collaborators' work. Any director who permits the camera lens to pan such a vast field of influences must inevitably accept the diverse reactions of viewers who choose to isolate particular elements ofthe product. All ofthe influences and ideas filter down to a story about Terry Malloy (Marion Brando) who begins as a self-interested foil ofa corrupt gang, which manhandles the longshoremen's union. The mob, headed by Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) with assistance from Terry's brother, Charlie (Rod Steiger), intimidates union members, forcing each worker to accept the "D and D" ("Deaf and Dumb") law of survival. Edie Doyle (Eva Marie Saint) tries to find her brother's murderer and in the process works her way to the core of union corruption. She and Father Barry (Karl Maiden) needle Terry who seeks revenge only after the mob disposes ofhis brother. In open testimony before the Waterfront Crime Commission, Terry reveals the mob's inner workings. Dissatisfied with his role as waterfront "pigeon," Terry confronts Friendy, hoping to brighten his tarnished reputation. Even though he loses the physical fight, he successfully circumvents the labor leader's authority by leading the workers back to the docks: for the moment, longstanding waterfront problems seem solved. Reactions to On the Waterfront depended upon ideological perspective as well as familiarity with the film's participants and influences. The Saturday Review. (July 24, 1 954) a popular vehicle for liberals who capitulated to HUAC pressure, called Waterfront "one ofthe most exciting films ever made in the United States." The New 55 York Times (December 22, 1954) expressed concern for the lack of details about mobster operations but concluded that the documentary-styled product was "the most violent, graphic and technically brilliant job ofmovie-making to be unveiled this year." Time, (August 9, 1954) magazine, uncomfortable with the liberal position on corrupt leadership, commented on the film's narrow-mindedness and its "sentimental prejudice that ordinary people are wonderful no matter what they do." The socially minded Commonweal (August 20, 1954) thought the story represented an unhealthy "simplification ofthe waterfront mess," while a skeptical Harper's Magazine (August, 1 954) described the waterfront expose as "a safely sterilized and hygienic slumming expedition." According to Harper's such simplistic cinematography produced a story which was "false to the longshoremen whose lot it purports to depict, false to the dedicated individuals who have tried to improve that lot, and ultimately false to...