Director Elia Kazan spent 25 years developing “Wild River” (1960), arguably his best film. And yet, in an interview with French film critic Michel Ciment a few years later, Kazan complained that “the movie wasn’t shown anywhere.” He tried to buy it back from Fox, but they wanted an enormous sum, so the film sat dormant until it was finally sold to television. Now, more than a half century later, you can judge the films’ merits for yourself when “Wild River” is screened at the Easton Public Library on Jan. 22 at 7 p.m.
After graduating from Williams College in the late ’20s, Kazan spent two years at the Yale School of Drama before moving to New York to continue his studies at Julliard. There, he was introduced to Lee Strasberg’s Group Theater, a progressive theatre collective dedicated to producing plays of social significance. Within the next two decades Kazan would become one of the most influential theater directors of the century, introducing to Broadway works by his friends Thornton Wilder (“Skin of Our Teeth”-1942), Arthur Miller (“Death of a Salesman”-1949) and Tennessee Williams (“A Streetcar Named Desire”-1947, starring Easton’s own Jessica Tandy, along with two of Kazan’s actor friends from Group Theater: Karl Malden and Marlon Brando).
During his impressive career as a stage director, Kazan was also immensely fascinated with film and was happy to oblige when wooed to Hollywood in the mid-’40s. Over the next quarter century, he went on to direct 19 feature films, seven of which won a total of 20 Academy Awards. He was nominated four times for best director, winning twice for “Gentleman’s Agreement” (1947) and “On the Waterfront” (1954), the film that made Kazan’s friend Marlon Brando a star.
Kazan’s lesser known but more complex and nuanced “Wild River” is a film he started developing in the height of the depression. It’s his most metaphoric, and at the time of its limited release, his most personal work (three years later, Kazan wrote and directed the autobiographical “America America.”)
Kazan initially envisioned the movie that ended up being “Wild River” as a tribute to FDR and the New Deal, but by the time it was finally made, he was much more ambivalent about the liberal politics of his youth. As a more mature artist, Kazan had grown to embrace ambiguity. The film’s protagonist, played beautifully by Montgomery Cliff, is conflicted and confused, exactly what Kazan wanted. Lee Remick’s much more forceful character offers a sexual reversal rarely seen in movies of the ’60s. The film’s depiction of racism is innovative and powerful. In one scene between Jo Van Fleet and uncredited Robert Earl Jones (James Earl Jones’ father), Kazan conveys the horror of racial inequities more forcibly without physical violence.
“Wild River” is filled with a wide range of scenes and situations worthy of examination. Join us for the screening and discussion to follow Wednesday evening, Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. at the Easton Public Library.
