What's the AFI Project, you ask? For more information, or if you just enjoy my bemused ramblings, read here: http://www.spout.com/blogs/pippin06/archive/2008/3/1/25756.aspx
On the Waterfront is on the following AFI lists:
The Original Top 100 (#8)
100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains (Terry Malloy is the #23 hero)
100 Movie Quotes (#3 - Terry Malloy: "You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.")
25 Film Scores (#22)
100 Most Inspiring Movies (#36)
The Revised Top 100 (#19)
I was able to borrow On the Waterfront. I watched it a few days ago and have spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about how I feel about this film. Many people seem to love it. I really kind of don't love it. I really really like it, but I don't love it. I love parts. What I do love about this movie, what I feel is the heart of the movie and what makes it so likable, is Marlon Brando and his performance. Either he is perfectly cast or simply the real-life embodiment of Terry Malloy, the main character. His performance engages the viewer so wholeheartedly, it is difficult not to be moved by the picture.
I love certain scenes and shots. I love the simplicity of the art direction. But: this is the second time I've tried to watch this movie, and I've fallen asleep both times.
Keep in mind that I like dramas, even when they are slow-moving. I don't know why this film has given me the dozes more than once. Fortunately, this time, I was able to rewind the film and catch up later, but I still watched it in two parts, and I wonder about that.
Terry Malloy is a washed up ex-prizefighter who is now in the employ of Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb), a union boss who rules the waterfront with an iron fist. He's being investigated by various law enforcement officials because they know he's been involved in several eep-quiet murders, but witnesses on the waterfront play "D & D" (deaf and dumb). Terry unwittingly sets up Joey Doyle for a plummet from a rooftop while running an errand for Johnny Friendly, and seeing this initiates a crisis of conscience and even of faith for Terry, particularly when Father Barry (Karl Malden) informs him that Joey was killed to protect Johnny's interests. What makes it especially difficult for him is that Joey's sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint) is determined to find Joey's killer, or, at least, witnesses to support that he was killed by Johnny Friendly, but Terry finds himself falling for Edie and vice versa. When Father Barry and another worker are beaten for speaking out, Terry feels compelled to tell the truth, not only to Edie but to the cops, putting himself in hot water in the process, and making him very unpopular not only with Johnny Friendly, but with his brother Charley (Rod Steiger) and with the other guys just trying to make a living.
If I get sleepy watching this film, I think it's about the way the character development unfolds; the viewer isn't told everything up front. The viewer follows Terry's crisis of conscience, and that's how we learn about him and, to some extent, the others affecting him, and it happens over the course of the whole film. I'm not saying this is good or bad, but I didn't really feel engaged to the movie until he started courting Edie and until the famous "contender" speech. Terry is who and what makes you care. You are rooting for him because he's making all the tough decisions, even at the expense of losing his brother Charley, who is painted as self-serving and without faith in his "bum" of a younger brother.
The acting in this film is what gives it its credibility, I think. Marlon Brando's performance is really quite perfect and believable. Like I said, at no time did I fail to believe he was Terry. The scene from whence the #3 AFI quote comes is so moving; you feel like it's coming close to melodrama, but it never gets there because Brando's performance is so earnest and honest and delicately restrained. And Rod Steiger's Charley quietly sits there, listening but for a few unsatisfactory excuses,,his expression mixed with frustration, humility, and pity. It radiates real emotion and is played for its truth: the what might have been factor and the sense that someone Terry has looked up to failed to back him up when he needed it most.
That's also where On the Waterfront succeeds; it contains some universalisms that transcend the mere story it tells. There will always be corruption at the expense of the rank and file; struggles for self; questions in the infallibility of family or friends that you felt should have looked out for you (because they are only human too); raw emotion and passion; and crises of conscience and faith. The story contains all of these layers, even though it seems to simply be about a man standing up for himself, even when doing so could get him killed.
A few other scattered thoughts I have had: I wonder why this movie didn't make AFI's Love Story list. I feel like the budding, though reluctant, relationship between Terry and Edie is much more passionate and stirring than, say, the dysfunctional joining together of Benjamin and Elaine in the Graduate. The scene in which Terry declares his love for Edie, albeit mixed with underlying rage on Terry's part and confused disappointment on Edie's, pulled at my heartstrings so much. Yet, it's nowhere on that Passions list. Maybe it was nominated, but it didn't make it, and that's a travesty. So, the love story isn't the main thrust of the film; it's still a gripping and realistic one complete with passion and heart flutters.
I like how this film used on-location settings in New York and New Jersey to paint the picture of the gritty, unyielding life working on the docks. The film won many Oscars, including for Art Direction, though the most impressive aspect of the art direction was simply choosing these locations and retaining their flavor. It gives the film a timeless realism that most films do not have.
Still, I don't love this movie as much as I feel like maybe I should. It just doesn't hold my interest except in a few choice scenes: the contender scene, the scenes during which Terry courts Edie, and the scenes in the church when Father Barry attempts to convince the workers to stand up for themselves. I'm sure from a filmmaking perspective, it's considered a masterpiece. The masterpiece for me here is purely and simply Marlon Brando and his performance. He deserved that Oscar in so many ways, and for me, he's the reason to watch this film.
So: I give this film a 9 for perfectly entertaining, but only in the sense that Brando is perfectly entertaining, even if the film itself has successfully lulled me to sleep twice. I don't know why that is, and I don't think it's a flaw of the movie (there are no pacing problems, really). It just is what it is. As for the test, because of the aforementioned tendency, I don't think I'm going to buy it. On the Waterfront is a classic, but it's just not one I find myself drawn to as much as others.