Trans-Mediation of Gender in Elia Kazan’s Adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire

Elia Kazan is among the first directors who adapted Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) for the cinema. Kazan’s film adaptation was almost faithful to the original manuscript by sticking to Williams’s words and sentences. However, even if one ignores the cultural and historical contexts, the alterations that take place in the process of trans-mediation cannot be disregarded, since the telling mode in the text changes to the showing mode in the media. With this hypothetical basis, the present study aims to detect the possible alterations in the adaptation of the play to examine gender roles in both texts. Using the ideas of Linda Hutcheon in A Theory of Adaptation (2013), the authors have studied the verbal signs in the play together with the verbal and visual codes in the movie to assess how the film adaptation has incorporated the ideas of femininity, which are the main concerns of the play, too. The results of the study suggest that the alterations from the literary text to film have contributed to the development of female identity.

Guerra Fria entre as estrelas

A questão central no artigo é caracterizar como ocorreu a adesão à caça às bruxas e as formas de resistência a ela esboçadas. No plano interno ao meio cinematográfico, a Guerra Fria se reproduz em bases semelhantes àquelas do conflito externo (EUA/URSS). O referencial teórico que norteia o trabalho tem como base os estudos de Marx, Engels e Gramsci sobre ética e ideologia. Procura-se estabelecer um confronto entre os acontecimentos relacionados aos depoimentos na CCAA, tanto no que se refere aos que se recusaram a colaborar, como aos delatores, especialmente, o diretor Elia Kazan. A análise do filme Sindicato de ladrões oferece material para relacionar ideologia e produção cinematográfica e para entender as tentativas em justificar a delação e a caça às bruxas.

Tennessee Williams y la ruptura del cine clásico: la construcción de unos personajes al límite en Un Tranvía Llamado Deseo

Tennessee Williams ha sido unos de los dramaturgos norteamericanos más adaptados en el cine clásico. La complejidad dramática de sus obras causó un gran impacto en Broadway en los años 40 y, por ello, diversos productores y cineastas decidieron adaptarlas en Hollywood. Sin embargo, la industria fílmica no era tan libre como la escena neoyorquina y estaba dominada por el Código Hays, la estructura censora de carácter moral que la controlaba desde 1934. Debido a sus temas y personajes controvertidos, estas adaptaciones –estrenadas entre 1950 y 1968-, sufrieron modificaciones para estrenarse por imposición del Código. La segunda, Un tranvía llamado deseo (Elia Kazan, 1951), fue una de las más arriesgadas al tratar aspectos que no aparecían en pantalla desde el periodo Pre-Code (1930-1934), como la homosexualidad, la ninfomanía o la violación. Este trabajo analiza a sus protagonistas, Blanche DuBois y Stanley Kowalski, como persona y como rol –según las teorías de Casetti y Di Chio-, para conocer su impacto con respecto a los personajes hegemónicos del cine clásico. La imagen, la profundidad y los roles de ambos influyeron en la construcción de otros seres de ficción, masculinos y femeninos, en el cine de Hollywood a partir de los años 50.

Elia Kazan and the Hollywood Blacklist

In April 1952, Elia Kazan appeared before HUAC and named names. Although he refused to do so in an earlier appearance, this time, having been warned that his film career was in jeopardy, he named many of his colleagues and friends. While he is far from the only one to turn informer, his case garners the most attention for a variety of reasons. In this essay, I examine Kazan’s justifications for his acts, acts that contributed to the destruction of the careers of many of his talented colleagues and friends. I wish to discover whether his arguments are philosophically plausible and how the themes in his film On the Waterfront (1954) contribute to the debate over these issues. In contrast, I examine the film High Noon (1952), largely seen as an attack on the practice of informing. I examine how Utilitarian and Kantian moral theories might be used either to justify or condemn Kazan’s actions. Finally, if we stipulate that Kazan’s acts before HUAC were immoral, does this mean that we should boycott his art or deny him accolades that his work would otherwise merit?

An Analysis on Ambivalence in Cinema: “The Last Tycoon” Elia Kazan

Involved in filmmaking more than four decades, Elia Kazan had been a witness and an influence for significant change in the American film industry. His final phase includes four films, respectively, America America, The Arrangement, The Visitors and The Last Tycoon which are his most neglected films in film studies, compared to his previous successful films such as On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire, East of Eden and Splendor in the Grass. This study has focused on one of his late films for mainly two reasons; to fill the gap in the literature and present an analyses of Kazan’s most structurally different film regarding its narrative complexities with the concept of realism. Realism is one of the key concepts to study Kazan in the research field, but distinctively, I have tried to find the realism within the mise-en-scène and ambivalence in the narrative.

Um rosto na multidão: os meios de comunicação pela Escola de Frankfurt

Esse artigo discute o valor pedagógico do filme A Face in the Crowd (Um rosto na multidão, 1957), do diretor Elia Kazan, que, ao contar a ascensão e queda da fictícia celebridade midiática Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, apresenta a teoria crítica da Escola de Frankfurt na primeira metade do século XX. A partir de pesquisa bibliográfica e análise fílmica, buscamos mostrar como, ao superar uma visão superficial da teoria dessa escola de pensamento, a obra se apresenta como uma rica ferramenta didática para a Comunicação e áreas interessadas na maneira como a sociedade ocidental lidava, na época, com um novo jeito de fazer e consumir cultura.Palavras-chave: História. Comunicação. Cinema. Escola de Frankfurt. Um rosto na multidão.